Tim Lester, a veteran coach who spent the 2023 season on staff with the NFL’s Green Bay Packers, is returning to college and calling the offensive shots, sources tell FootballScoop.
Lester is finalizing a deal to become the new offensive coordinator for Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa Hawkeyes, sources told FootballScoop on Sunday.
The move to hire Lester, a long-time coaching veteran who had a successful run atop the program at his alma mater, Western Michigan, before that school parted ways with him late in 2022, brings to an end one of college football's longest-running offensive coordinator searches in recent memory.
Iowa officials announced in late October that incumbent play-caller Brian Ferentz would not return as the Hawkeyes offense again sunk to historic levels of ineffectiveness.
The younger Ferentz already had entered the 2023 campaign with unprecedented stipulations that included points per game scoring average to regain his previous level of compensation and maintain employment. The move became a running narrative nationally, and Iowa's offense also failed to meet the established metrics.
Lester is a former quarterback who beat out, among others, Kevin Johns and Luke Getsy, sources shared with FootballScoop in recent days, to land the Iowa play-calling position.
Earlier this month sources with direct knowledge indicated to FootballScoop that Lester had tentatively agreed to reunite with longtime coaching friend Gerad Parker to become offensive coordinator at Troy in Parker's first year as a head coach.
When it became clear that Lester instead would be the top choice for the Iowa job, Parker pivoted over the weekend to West Virginia assistant coach Seth Reagan, as first reported by 247Sports's Matt Zenitz.
Lester inherits a monumental task at Iowa, with the Hawkeyes coming off a season in which they ranked 129th nationally in scoring offense at a meager 15.4 points per game.
Worse, Iowa is transitioning to Lester after being shut out in its final two games of the season, losing by a combined 61-0 to Michigan and Tennessee.
The Hawkeyes are retooling under Lester after failing to score more than 15 points in eight of its 14 games.