Welcome to Week 9 and welcome back to the Campus Talks newsletter

Put another week in the books and put another mark in the wins column for a successful weekend of college football. Week 8 had great matchups that delivered the excitement and week 9 is shaping up to be one of the best weekends of the season, so strap in and let's recap.

Bur first, this week's highlight is nepotism. Huh? Did I write the correct word? This is a college sports newsletter? Yes, I wrote the correct word. Nepotism is what we're going to explore.

The college football coaching game and carousel is at an interesting point right now. College's have deep pockets to throw money at these coaches and they are doing just that. In the midst of the battles for coaching talent, colleges are giving coaches massive contracts with massive guarantees. Michigan State finds themselves in a tough situation with Mel Tucker. After hiring him away from Colorado, he led them to one great season with an 11-2 record in 2021. They were so worried that he would get hired away from them, that they threw him a 10 year, $95 million contract that is fully guaranteed. The only problem is, that was really his only good season as a coach. Now they find themselves as an average team in the middle of the Big 10. Financial finesse by Mel Tucker to lock in a big deal while he was hot name, but it leaves a school like Michigan State trying to justifying why they threw all that money at him. 

This takes us to the University of Iowa. Kirk Ferentz has been their head coach since 1999. He has been pretty solid there, probably overachieving a lot of years and more recently a regular competitor for the conference championship in the Big 10, so they've been loyal to him and he's been loyal to them. Overall he has an 181-113 record with a 9-9 bowl record and leading the school to it's highest ranking ever last year when they were ranked 2 at one point. Well, rinse and repeat the Michigan State story that Iowa got nervous another school would throw the bag at him and snatch him up after his recent success, so they signed him to a fully guaranteed extension. He is under contract through the 2029 season and is guaranteed to the $42 million of that contract aka if they want to fire him before the 2030 season, they'll be paying him $42 million.

Now back to nepotism, stick with me. I promise this will make sense. Brian Ferentz is the current offensive coordinator of Iowa. He is also the son of Kirk Ferentz. His track record had people scratching their heads when he was named the offensive coordinator. What has carried Iowa the last couple of years to the top of the conference has been defense and people claim the offense has held them back from taking the next step to being elite. This year especially, the Iowa offense has been downright awful. One of the worst in the nation. Entering Week 8, Iowa was scoring 14.7 points per game while the defense was only allowing 9.8 points per game. Only allowing 9.8 points per game is unreal, it's elite. Yet, Iowa is only 3-3 because of Brian Ferentz's offense.

Week 8's matchup against Ohio State had Iowa front and center for maybe the first time all season as they were Fox's Big Noon matchup and there was suddenly no where for Brian Ferentz and his offense to hide anymore. People were disgusted watching Iowa play offense and couldn't believe it was happening. The defense started off strong and was trouble for the electric Ohio State offense, but it truly seemed like they gave up once they knew the offense wasn't going to score. Iowa finished with 1 touchdown in the game and it was scored by the defense in a scoop and score in the first quarter. Ohio State would end up pouring it on and finish with a 54-10 win.

Just how bad was Iowa's offense though? Let's look at some numbers:

• 11-24 passing for 81 yards and a 3.4 yards per pass

• 35 rushing attempts for 77 rushing yards, good for 2.2 yards per carry

• 6 turnovers, yes 6!! 3 fumbles lost and 3 interceptions

• 5 punts

Downright atrocious. People were starting to feel bad for the Iowa QB Spencer Petras because it was so rough to watch and it seemed like he was just lining up under center with no chance to succeed.

But it puts Iowa in a tough predicament. If Brian Ferentz was any offensive coordinator he would be fired immediately. No school would accept what happened against Ohio State. His own father probably won't fire him though and the school has given Kirk too much control that they probably can't tell him to fire him either. The only way something would change would be to fire Kirk Ferentz, but now they will owe him $42 million to do so.

So it begs the question, what are these colleges supposed to do to get a refund on the massive guaranteed contracts they're giving these coaches? How should these colleges be held accountable for giving a lot of money to coaches that end up being mediocre? Will the trend slow down or are we too far in now that colleges will be stuck outbidding each other for eternity now?

The college coaching landscape has changed drastically as college football has become big business, but it will be even more interesting to see how the college coach hiring standards change in the next few years and if the cash slows down.

Now, let's recap week 8 and look ahead to week 9. (Link to web version, can play videos directly in tweets there)

Week 8 Recaps

• Clemson Stays in the Hunt: Clemson was on the ropes, today but they came storming back to hang on and beat Syracuse. Clemson 27 - Syracuse 21 (Syracuse +14 covers)

• Ole Miss Falls: Ole Miss looked like a promising undefeated team, but instead LSU showed they are still a strong group. LSU 45 - Ole Miss 20 (LSU -2 covers)

• TCU runs the Big 12: TCU rallied back from an early deficit to keep their undefeated season in tact. TCU 38 - Kansas State 28 (TCU -3.5 covers)

• Oregon is back on top: Oregon reclaims the top of the Pac 12 after throttling UCLA. Oregon 45 - UCLA 30 (Oregon -7 covers)

Coaching Carousel

One head coach firing to report this week. Will Healy was fired Sunday morning after Charlotte fell to 1-7 on the season. He took over the program in 2019 and leaves with a 15-24 record and a 0-1 bowl record. The best job in America continue's to be not coaching college football... 

Your New Top 25

Looking ahead to Week 6

Week 7 is going to be nuts. Strap in and get ready.

• #2 Ohio State (-15) @ #13 Penn State

• #9 Oklahoma State @ #22 Kansas State (-1.5)

• #19 Kentucky @ #3 Tennessee (-12)

• Notre Dame @ #16 Syracuse (-2.5)

• #20 Cincinatti @ UCF (-1.5)

Sights from around the league

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