When Hayden Fry announced his retirement following the 1998 season, there was one man Iowa fans wanted to succeed him.

That man was Bob Stoops and it made perfect sense.

Stoops was a great Iowa player for Fry when Iowa was rising from the ashes of two decades of poor results on the field. His family, while born in Ohio, was legendary, with three brothers playing for the Hawkeyes and their father was buried with a #41 Iowa jersey.

In 1998, Stoops also happened to be the hottest assistant coach in the country. He was at Florida as the defensive coordinator under head coach Steve Spurrier. Stoops helped lead the Gators to a national title in 1997 and 1998, Florida won the Orange Bowl, going 10-2 on the season.

Fry retired and Stoops was clearly the people’s choice.

That was until he wasn’t when Stoops accepted the head coaching position at the University of Oklahoma.

The Hawkeyes then turned to another former assistant coach under Hayden Fry, by the name of Kirk Ferentz.

At the time, the reaction from many fans was, “Kirk who?”

Stoops went on to win a national title in his second year with the Sooner and Ferentz started off losing 15 of his first 16 games as Iowa’s head coach.

Back in late September of 2000, some thought Kirk Ferentz might be lucky to survive year two as Iowa’s head coach. Yet, here we are, many years later and Ferentz is headed into his 20th season at the helm of Iowa football.

Meanwhile, there’s a long list of Big Ten coaches that for a variety of reasons didn’t survive at their school. There were 11 schools in the Big Ten when Ferentz was hired. If you include the coaches that were in place when Ferentz returned to Iowa City, there have been 47 different coaches at the other ten schools in the last 20 years. If you throw in the three schools that have joined the conference and their coaching turnover since 1999, the coaching change total rises to 61.

It’s hard to imagine anyone being a better fit for the University of Iowa and that’s probably why he has thrived and survived when others have not in the Big Ten.

When Hayden Fry arrived in 1979, the Hawkeye football program needed swagger after two decades of losing. When Ferentz arrived, they needed a steady handed captain to lead the way and he has provided it each and every season.

These days, as he enters his 20th year leading the Iowa program, there’s more gray hair, but he’s still the same guy that came back to Iowa City in 1999 with a vision for building a successful program. He took his time hiring his first staff and got the right people to surround him.

Perhaps his two most important hires were Chris Doyle to lead the strength and conditioning program and Norm Parker as the defensive coordinator. Doyle would build the players and over the years, integrate science and technology into his work. Parker would build a great defense around players who would run through a brick wall for him.

It all worked, eventually.

In the early years there were struggles and plenty of them.

One game I will always remember covering was the win over Michigan State in 2000. The Spartans were ranked 25th in the country and Iowa hadn’t won a game in over a year. The Spartans out-gained Iowa by quite a bit that day, but Iowa rode a couple of big plays on offense and special teams to the winner’s circle and Ferentz had his first Big Ten win.

The moment that will always stick with me happened in his post-game press conference. Ferentz was asked what the win meant to him and in what would become a theme of during his career, he paused, got choked up, and simply said he was happy for the coaching staff and the players who have worked so hard to get the victory.

The jury was still out on Ferentz as a head coach, but it was at that moment that I knew he was the person who Iowa fans would want to lead the program.

In 2001, Iowa broke the rock and got back to a bowl game, beating Texas Tech in the Alamo Bowl. That served as the springboard to one of the greatest three year runs in school history. From 2002-2004, the Hawkeyes went 31-7 and 20-4 in Big Ten play. They finished 8th in the final college football poll of the season three straight years and Iowa football was officially rolling.

There have been bumps in the road, as you would expect for any coach entering their 20th season. 2006 and 2007 were certainly struggles. Perhaps the cats got a little fat during that time and Iowa went 12-13, including a poor 2-6 Big Ten record in 2006 and a really bad loss to Western Michigan in 2007 that ended their season.

Ferentz 2.0 was born in 2008 and by 2009, the Hawkeyes were back to their winning ways. Iowa won 13 straight from the end of 2008 until finally falling to Northwestern and Ohio State near the end of the 2009 season. They ended the year in glorious fashion with a win over Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl.

Then another slow slide began, which culminated in a 4-8 season in 2012, but the following season Iowa was building again until they hit a bump in the road on January 2nd, 2015 at the Tax Slayer Bowl. Tennessee dominated Iowa and the result was a whole lot of soul searching. There was the quarterback controversy and a testy post-game press conference that led to another meeting with the media in early January because Ferentz felt like we needed to talk.

That was the official launching point of Ferentz 3.0.

All Iowa did was go out and have the greatest regular season in school history, completing their 12 game season without a loss. While the Rose Bowl loss to Stanford wasn’t representative of what that Iowa team had accomplished in 2015, it sure felt like the Hawkeyes were back on solid ground.

Kirk Ferentz isn’t without flaws. His offensive philosophy can sometimes drive a vocal portion of Hawkeye fans crazy and for much of his career, he’s sided with being cautious rather than a risk taker. In recent years, even that’s changed. Pop in the tape of the Ohio State game last year and try to convince me that’s an ultra-conservative head coach on the Iowa sideline.

It’s hard to believe that this will be his 20th year leading the Iowa program. Heck, it’s hard to believe that any college head coach could last 20 years anymore. With the pressure to win combined with the seemingly always angry crowd on social media and message boards, it doesn’t take much for the flames of discontent to spread quickly and bring a coach down.

I’m not sure many coaches would have survived some of the rough patches that Ferentz has experienced in his Iowa tenure. Some might have packed up and moved on, while others wouldn’t have responded well to the down seasons that have occurred and got shown the door.

With Ferentz, it’s always been about sticking to his core principles, evolving when needed, and being a steady captain who guides the ship in sometimes choppy waters. It’s worked for Ferentz and more importantly, it’s worked for Iowa football the past twenty years. He might not have been the first choice of many fans, but he has proven to be the perfect fit for Iowa football.

With the 20th season of the Ferentz Era at Iowa approaching, this summer we will look back at the greatest games, the best players, the biggest moments, and much more. There are plenty of great memories and it’s going to be fun to look back on them as we head towards the kickoff of the Iowa football season.