ESPN is getting a heaping pile of blame for the SEC-heavy presence in the College Football Playoff rankings, but Kirk Ferentz started the bashing early. Before the CFP selection committee unveiled its top-25 for the first time this season, the longtime Iowa head coach fired some shots at the Worldwide Leader in Sports.

He was dripping in sarcasm while speaking to the media on Tuesday afternoon.

“It's great for TV, right?” Ferentz joked, per the Hawkeye Historian X account. “ESPN's loving it. Next time I look at my iPad I'm sure I'll be reading all about it and can't wait. I did notice they seem to promote the sports that they carry. Is that correct? I'm figuring that out.”

The two-time Big Ten champion did not limit his ESPN-based criticism to just college football. He turned his attention to America's Pastime before circling back to the gridiron.

“You couldn't find anything on the World Series, until the last game. I'm living in the same world, right? I'm like ‘are they still playing the World Series or what? Oh yeah, Fox {and} ESPN' We're not {on} ESPN, so we probably won't make the rankings. Haven't gone that far, but anyway, I'm not too worried about it.”

An all-time KF press conference tangent today about tv networks pic.twitter.com/bI7VqhRCNx

— Hawkeye Historian (@Hawk_Historian) November 3, 2026

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Ferentz took the press room on a wild ride and raised multiple talking points that many fans have been expressing on social media for years. Ultimately, Iowa came in at No. 19. The Hawkeyes stunned Michigan in The Big House and just blanked Wisconsin in Kinnick Stadium, but a blowout loss to Ohio State and a weak non-conference slate puts them in a tough spot.

There are currently no more ranked teams on Iowa's schedule — at Northwestern, versus Purdue, at Illinois and versus Nebraska — so the program would need loads of help. A surprise appearance in the Big Ten championship game is the Hawkeyes' only plausible path to the 12-team CFP.

Nevertheless, Kirk Ferentz just boosted his popularity among many fans by going after the network that televises SEC games. It sounds like he did not tune into ESPN's College Football Playoff rankings show, and unfortunately for him and his squad, there may not be any reason for him to do so until 2027.