Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz joins 'Pat McAfee Show' before Ohio State game

Ahead of the Oct. 3 appearance of ESPN's "College GameDay" for the highly anticipated Top-15 matchup between No. 14 Iowa (4-0, 1-0 Big Ten) and No. 6 Ohio State (3-1, 1-0 Big Ten), Hawkeyes head coach Kirk Ferentz joined "The Pat McAfee Show" Friday morning in front of The Pentacrest in Iowa City.

On "The Pat McAfee Show," Ferentz discussed his now-28-year head coaching tenure at Iowa and said he initially never wanted to be a head coach before taking over the Hawkeyes program after Hayden Fry's retirement in 1999.

"I've been really lucky. I mean, everything that's happened to me has happened by just chance, basically. No master plan," Ferentz said.

"The one constant thru basically my entire lifetime is I knew that you were gonna be on the sideline on Saturday..

Thank you Coach Ferentz" ~ @tyschmit#PMSLivepic.twitter.com/3XqXY7ASei

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) October 2, 2026

"When I got here, there were two things. I was old enough and had been around Hayden Fry, Bill Belichick, and then Ted Marchibroda. I knew enough where there were certain things I just felt like we're gonna do it this way. And I'm really open-minded about a lot of things, but there are certain things that are non-negotiable. So I had that going for me.

And then the second part was, and this is the biggest irony of my career, I never wanted to be a head coach. This is the only place I would have left the NFL for because we had been here nine years…"

Ferentz continued on that note, saying his dream job was to be a line coach even if head coaching didn't work out, and that a line coaching role may still be his desire whenever he announces his retirement."I still want to be a line coach. That's my fantasy job, retirement job maybe. So my point there is, if it didn't work out, we're gonna invest everything we possibly could without being stupid.

And if it didn't work out, it didn't work out. Sometimes it doesn't in sports and in life. And I'd go back to being a line coach, and as long as I was working with good people, I'd enjoy football, and I'd enjoy coaching. I don't have to be the head coach."

The Hawkeyes will look to conquer the Buckeyes for just the third time in Ferentz's tenure as head coach at Iowa on Saturday evening when both clash at a sold-out Kinnick Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 2:39 p.m. CT on CBS.

Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes, and opinions. Follow Scout on X: @SpringgateNews

This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz joins 'Pat McAfee Show' before Ohio State game