Ben McCollum isn’t going anywhere.

The Iowa head coach shut down any reports of him taking a different high-profile job opening this offseason on Friday, one day before the Hawkeyes are set to play in their first Elite Eight in decades. 

“Yeah, those are all lies,” McCollum said in Houston, laughing.

“The only person that would ever know [about my plans] would be, well, three people, would be my athletic director, my wife, and that’s about it. I guess two people.”

It’s easy to see why McCollum would be a target for a top program with a coaching vacancy this cycle. He was hired to replace Fran McCaffery in Iowa City last summer, and he’s already led the Hawkeyes to the Elite Eight after massive NCAA tournament wins over No. 1 Florida and No. 4 Nebraska. Iowa hasn’t been to the Elite Eight since the late 1980s.

He’s had plenty of success elsewhere, too, with a remarkable and rare coaching path. McCollum spent more than a decade at Northwest Missouri State, where he won four Division II national titles. He then led Drake to an NCAA tournament and a win in his one season with the Bulldogs before taking the Iowa job. In total, McCollum holds a 450-107 overall record as a head coach.

McCollum was also born in Iowa City, to add to his ties to the area. He signed a six-year deal that will keep him with the Hawkeyes through the 2030-31 campaign.

Iowa and Illinois will square off on Saturday night with a spot in the Final Four on the line. Iowa hasn’t been to one of those since 1980, when Lute Olson was still running the program.

McCollum admitted his path to a Power Four school has been like a “dream” in some ways, which is easy to see when looking at his résumé on paper. And, especially in today’s college basketball, there’s no guarantee that McCollum will be in Iowa City forever, let alone through the end of his contract. 

But at least for now, he sounds committed to building the program back up and returning for another season regardless of how Saturday night goes.

“We won enough just by kind of that process focus of trying to make kids better,” McCollum said of his time at Northwest Missouri State. “Then I think it was just the call to move forward to Drake, and then obviously to Iowa after that. But it has been a lot. 

“It's been two years of — from the outside looking in, it probably seems like the dream, and it is a little bit. But it's probably a lot harder than you think just because you miss so much from a family perspective … From a basketball perspective, it's been awesome, it's been fun, it's been challenging. I've come out of my comfort zone. I had my butt kicked a few times this year. Hadn't happened in a while. So it's been good.”

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The tush push lives to see another day in the NFL.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the controversial play will not be discussed during next week’s NFL owner’s meetings. Last month, Competition Committee co-chair Rich McKay said that no team had come forward with a proposal to alter or ban the play.

That doesn’t mean the topic will go away forever.

“I don’t know that it’s the end of the debate,” McKay said, via Yahoo Sports’ Jori Epstein. “I think there’s still people who are concerned with the whole pushing element.”

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The play has drawn plenty of criticism, and multiple attempts to ban it, in recent years after teams — notably the Philadelphia Eagles and Buffalo Bills — have found incredible success with it.

Last season was incredibly contentious, and the Green Bay Packers pushed the proposed ban during offseason meetings in 2025. But 10 teams ended up voting against that ban, and it was two votes short of passing. In order for a rule change, the NFL requires approval from at least 24 of its 32 franchise owners. Eagles owner Jeffrie Lurie was among those fighting to keep the play in the league during discussions last time around.

According to ESPN, there were 112 attempted tush pushes during the 2025 season — which is 11 more than the 2024 campaign. The Eagles attempted the most (27) and the Bills were second (17). In total, teams successfully converted a first down on a tush push about 77% of the time.

There was plenty of outrage over the play this past season, too. The Eagles, for example, scored a touchdown on a tush push despite officials clearly missing a false start on the play during their game in September. The Jacksonville Jaguars were completely unable to stop Bills quarterback Josh Allen on an attempt in the playoffs. Allen ended up going 10 yards before he was brought down, and former official-turned-rules analyst for NBC and Amazon Terry McAuley lit up the league for it.

"I very much hope the NFL competition committee addresses this in the offseason," McAuley wrote last month. "This just cannot be a legal play any more. Now, only pulling a runner is illegal. All pushing, pulling or lifting a runner by a teammate should be illegal."

What NFL owners will discuss for 2026

Per Schefter, five proposals were sent to the NFL Competition Committee for discussion.

• Permit the kicking team to declare an onside kick at any time during the game.

• Eliminate the kicking team’s incentive to intentionally kick the ball out of bounds when kicking off from the 50-yard line.

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• Modify the kickoff alignment requirements for the receiving team in the setup zone.

• Allow League personnel to consult with on-field officials when considering disqualifications for both flagrant football acts and non-football acts without being called on the field.

• For one year only, allow the NFL Officiating Department to correct clear and obvious misses by on-field officials that impact the game, in the event of a work stoppage involving the game officials represented by the NFL Referees Association.