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IOWA CITY, Iowa – His football team is unbeaten. It’s ranked No. 11 in the country. It is one of only two teams in the entire country — Alabama is the other — that already is bowl eligible.

But Kirk Ferentz said he’s miserable.

And loving every minute of it.

In a perverse sort of way.

“I guess everybody involved in football is a little bit demented or else you wouldn’t be involved in it,” the Iowa head coach said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. “There’s nothing sane about the game certainly.

“In some strange way, I enjoy this time of year more than any, even though I’m miserable most of the time. But it’s an enjoyable miserable.”

Ferentz actually had something to be miserable about Tuesday. He revealed that junior wide receiver Paul Chaney Jr. is out for the year after tearing an ACL in Saturday night’s 30-28 victory over Michigan.

Chaney, regarded as one of the Hawkeyes’ most improved players, has been the team’s top punt and kickoff return man, has caught seven passes and is the team’s third leading rusher. Ferentz has capable replacements for Chaney in all those roles, most notably Bettendorf’s Colin Sandeman, but he seemed unusually edgy and pessimistic for a coach who has the second longest winning streak in the country.

Ferentz realizes his team is a break or two from having a much less gaudy record. Quarterback Ricky Stanzi has thrown interceptions that were returned for touchdowns in three of the past four games, and the Hawkeyes’ four home victories this season have been by a combined margin of 16 points.

He knows they have been playing with fire with the way they’ve played at times, and the flames might be licking at their heels again Saturday when they visit 5-1 Wisconsin in a game that will be nationally televised on ESPN.

“This is certainly a different challenge,” Ferentz said, noting that another big test is coming the next week at Michigan State. “We’re playing two very good teams the next two weeks. We’re playing two games on the road. At the beginning of the month, we just talked to our guys that we’re like a baseball team, we’ve got a two-game homestand and a two-game road trip. We got through the homestand part OK.”

The road trip has him worried, especially when he still is not sure if the team significantly is better than the Iowa club that was 3-3 at this point last season.

He cautioned against thinking too far ahead to what kind of season this could be.

“I guess none of us right now are thinking too globally,” he said. “Just in a nutshell, last year at this time the sky was really falling. I mean, it was falling in right now …

“But we’re pretty much about the same team we were at this time last year. We’re certainly further ahead win-loss wise, and you could probably argue a little better team, but I don’t think we’re that much different.

“We all need to just understand that this thing is pretty fragile,” he added. “We’ve got six tough games coming up, and none of us, at least in this building, needs to worry too much about the big picture at this point. We’ll see where we’re at here in a couple weeks.”

Chances are, he’ll still be miserable, even if the Hawkeyes are 8-0.

“There’s plenty to be miserable about,” he said.

Such as?

“Everything. Everything that’s wrong,” he said. “But that’s the fun part of coaching … in a sick sort of way.”