Chris Doyle remembers an evening in December of 1998 like it was yesterday.

Doyle was in his first year at the University of Utah as the Director of Strength and Conditioning and that evening he had settled in front of the television in his living room and turned on ESPN.

It was at that moment he saw the news flash across the bottom of the screen on the ticker, Kirk Ferentz to be named the next head football coach at the University of Iowa. His wife, Tia, was nearby in the kitchen and he excitedly shared the news with her.

“I remember that I yelled to her, we’re moving to Iowa!”

Of course, at that point, Doyle hadn’t spoken to Ferentz and he freely admits it was an assumption in a moment of excitement for a man with whom he shared a mentor.

“I thought it was possible because we shared a mentor in Joe Moore, who was a huge influence on both of us, and I had visited Kirk when he was the head coach at Maine and when he was the offensive line coach for the Browns.”

Back when Doyle getting started in coaching he worked with the offensive line. First, as a graduate assistant at Notre Dame under Moore and then on his own at Holy Cross starting in 1992. One of the first things their mutual mentor told him to do was to go meet with Kirk Ferentz at Maine and then they met again when he landed in the NFL with Cleveland.

Truth be told, once Ferentz made his way to the NFL in 1993 and saw the success he was having, Doyle thought that would be where he would stay for the rest of his coaching career.

“Back in 1998, Kirk Ferentz was one of the most respected coaches in the NFL and I think everyone just assumed he would eventually be a head coach at that level. That just seemed to be the path he was on,” Doyle said.

Instead it took a turn back to college in December of 1998. Hayden Fry had retired and having been an assistant under the longtime head Hawkeye, Ferentz threw his hat into the ring and got the job.

As Doyle watched from Utah, he started to see Ferentz meticulously put together his coaching staff and that further solidified his feeling that he wanted to join him at Iowa.

“I would guess many people in Iowa were watching him put together his staff and thinking who are these guys? In the coaching community, this was an all-star staff that he was putting together. When he starts hiring guys like Norm Parker, Ron Aiken, Kenny O’Keefe, Carl Jackson, and Joe Philbin, you start to think this staff has a great chance to be successful and you want to be a part of a great staff filled with great people and potentially build something special.”

Once Doyle arrived in Iowa City, he realizes two things very quickly. The Iowa football program was filled with really good young men who wanted to be good football players and that the community supported the Hawkeye football team.

“Early on, we have to work to establish ourselves with the players,” Doyle said. “I had never been a head strength coach at a Big Ten school. Kirk had never been a Big Ten head coach and most of the staff had never worked at this level, so we had to earn the trust and respect of the players.”

One thing was clear very early on to Doyle and that was he was working for a man who had the qualities you look for in a head coach.

“Kirk set the example for all of us for Day One. He poured his heart and soul into it each and every day and we just followed his lead. It’s doing the daily work, one phase at a time,” he said. “It starts in the winter with strength and conditioning, then into spring ball and doing good work there, then it’s into the summer and being better in August than you were in April, and finally the season.”

Embrace the grind has been one of the slogans that Iowa football has lived on since Ferentz arrived, but first there was the process of “Breaking the Rock” and Doyle played a role in developing that mentality.

The breaking of that rock was a process that started early on for the Hawkeyes. It’s the idea that if you kept chipping away, eventually it would break and the program would have success.

One of those breakthrough moments for Iowa football happened in 2000. Iowa was 1-16 under Ferentz and had lost 13 straight games. They were chipping away without the payoff until Michigan State came to town on October 7th. Iowa was outgained in that contest, but managed to beat the nationally ranked Spartans 21-16 and Kirk Ferentz had his first Big Ten win.

“That first Big Ten win was a long time coming,” Doyle said. “At that moment, it was huge relief for us. At that moment, we saw that we really could do it and maybe we can turn this around. We were just dying for a little bit of positive affirmation at that point. We had been battling to get a chip in the rock and we finally got one and it was a great feeling.”

Then a few more chips were made in the rock later that season after an overtime win at Penn State, followed by a 27-17 win over nationally ranked Northwestern at Kinnick Stadium. Iowa’s success at the end of the 2000 helped lay the foundation for Iowa football and served as a springboard for what was to come in 2001, when the rock was broken, and in 2002, when it was shattered into rubble.

“One of the beauties of 1999 and 2000 was there wasn’t any history for us as a group,” Doyle said. “We were just trying to get better every day and not being tempted to look back to the way it used to be. We didn’t have anything to do with the past. We were just a bunch of ham and eggers trying to win football games and there’s some beauty in that.”

After Iowa's 19-16 win over Texas Tech in the Alamo Bowl in 2001, Kirk Ferentz declared that the rock was broken, but a foundational principle was also established.

“The players really deserve all the credit for it. We simply introduced it to them and they kept banging away. We just kept the guys focused on it and told them to keep banging away and it would turn. The players took it and ran with it. They really own it. If you talk to the players who were here in the early years, I believe they own the genesis of it and it’s been carried on through the years.”

One of the players who was key in banging away and bringing a much needed swagger to Iowa football in those early years was a little known and lightly recruited safety named Bob Sanders. Kirk Ferentz is fond of saying that when Sanders showed up, it was like your big brother showing up for a street fight and that was true, but he wasn’t alone.

“He (Sanders) was a difference maker. He clearly brought a single minded toughness to our football program. I would say that during that time period, he was the guy on defense, Gallery was the guy on offense, and Nate Kaeding was the guy on special teams. Bob’s toughness is what made him really special.”

2002 proved to the year where the program turn was officially complete and it was also the birth of the “Bullies of the Big Ten.” After Iowa went to Ann Arbor and destroyed Michigan 34-9, Wolverine linebacker Carl Diggs referred to Iowa as the “Bullies of the Big Ten”, led by perhaps the best offensive line in school history.

That offensive line was led by Robert Gallery, who came to Iowa as a 240 pound tight end. There was Bruce Nelson, another 240 pounder and former walk-on who became an All American center. There was Eric Steinbach, another high school tight end who was an All American guard. Andy Lightfoot, a once undersized offensive lineman, and David Porter, who was really the only member of the group with more natural offensive lineman size when he arrived on campus.

All five offensive linemen followed the path set by Ferentz on the field and Doyle in the weight room and became the example for all other Iowa players to follow.

“They were the first ones that proved that if you follow Kirk’s lead and do the things that we ask you to do, these things can be done. You can excel and win a championship. If there was a Joe Moore Award in 2002, they would have been a good candidate.”

Another example that Doyle was quick to cite was the 2004 defensive line. That line included a former linebacker in Matt Roth, a former fullback in Jonathan Babineaux, a former walk-on and high school swimmer in Tyler Luebke, and a solidly built defensive end in Derreck Robinson.

The 2004 season was filled with adversity for the Iowa football program. Defensive coordinator Norm Parker was suffering significant health issues, Kirk Ferentz lost his father in the middle of the year and his oldest son, Brian, was having health issues of his own, and the Hawkeyes suffered an unprecedented number of injuries at running back early in the year.

Most teams would have crumbled under the weight of that adversity, especially after a 2-2 start to the season. Yet, that Iowa team, led by one of the best defenses in school history, won their final eight games of the year, earning a share of the Big Ten title, and then beat LSU in the Capital One Bowl in one of the greatest finishes in school history.

“2004 was a special year for a lot of reasons. We had a lot of adversity that year. They say that the hammer shatters glass but forges steel, and adversity galvanized our football program that year.” Doyle said. “Ken O’Keefe had a sign on his window that said, “Find A Way”. Every single week we were just trying to find a way to win. We didn’t know how, but we were going to find a way.”

As with all college programs, Iowa has faced their share of bumps in the road and getting beyond those hiccups usually starts with the work that Doyle and his staff do with the Iowa team during winter workouts.

Following a rough stretch in 2006-07, the work began in the winter of 2008. With strong leadership on the team, led by Iowa natives Mitch King and Matt Kroul, the Hawkeyes righted the ship that winter, which led to a 9-4 year in 2008, including a bowl win over South Carolina. That was followed up by an outstanding season in 2009, where Iowa won their first nine games of the year and defeated Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl.

“Kirk Ferentz is a fighter. When your back is against the wall, it shows your true character. For us it’s about getting back to basics. It’s about training hard and doing it the right way. It’s about getting back to basics and being better at those things than anyone else and that’s what we go back to each and every time.”

While that might frustrate Iowa fans during those rough patches, each and every time, it’s worked. It worked in 2008 and led to the great season in 2009. More recently, after Iowa was embarrassed in Tax Slayer Bowl, the 2015 Iowa team went back to basics and responded with an undefeated regular season and a trip to the Rose Bowl.

A big part of the reason why Ferentz has been able to do this on his own terms, with the foundation being built by Doyle and his staff in the weight room during the winter months, is because Iowans generally have an overall appreciation for the idea of getting back to work and getting better.

“I think we have prideful kids here and that can take you a long way,” Doyle said. “I think Iowans value the idea of staying the course, going back to work. You look at the relationships he (Ferentz) built in and out of this building, he has built a level of trust where if we have a tough year, that the fans know we are going to roll up our sleeves, go back to work, and stay the course. Thankfully we have had the opportunity to do it.”

Chris Doyle has done it for 20 years now at Iowa. He’s lived in Iowa longer than any other place in his life, including where he grew up in Massachusetts.

That sort of longevity in one place in coaching is rare these days. Don’t think for a second that it isn’t appreciated by Doyle and his family.

“Our family has had three boys go through one school system and in the world of college football, which just doesn’t happen. You can’t put a price tag on things like that. We are just very lucky and thankful to have the stability that Iowa football has allowed us to have.”

He’s also had the same boss for 20 years. A man who he respects and admires, and most importantly, values the job that Doyle has done each and every day since arriving in Iowa City.

“From the day Kirk Ferentz came here, he said that strength and conditioning is one of the building blocks of how we are going to win at Iowa. So, here you are in a situation where you can have positive and meaningful relationships with good kids and a good group of coaches and have a positive impact on the lives of the players and build a legacy here at Iowa. It’s extremely rewarding and this is really a great place to be.”