Kirk Ferentz hopes to fill wide receiver coach vacancy in ‘next 2 weeks’

IOWA CITY — Kirk Ferentz hopes to fill Iowa football’s vacancy at wide receivers coach in the “next two weeks,” he said in a news conference on Tuesday.

"We’re on a good path,“ Ferentz said.

The wide receivers coach position, which opened after Iowa did not renew Kelton Copeland’s contract, is the last remaining staff vacancy for now ahead of 2024.

The other offseason vacancy was filled last week when Iowa hired Tim Lester as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

“Certainly excited about the way the staff is coming together,” Ferentz said.

It remains to be seen whether any other vacancies open up as the NFL coaching carousel continues. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for example, announced Tuesday that they conducted a virtual interview with Iowa’s LeVar Woods as they search for their next special teams coordinator.

Ferentz has a couple routes he can take to fill the wide receivers coach position. He could promote from within with Jon Budmayr, who has been an analyst at Iowa for the last two seasons after previously working as offensive coordinator at Colorado State and quarterbacks coach at Wisconsin.

Another option would be to add someone who has a connection with Lester. That’s what Iowa did in 2013 when Bobby Kennedy joined the staff as wide receivers coach and reunited with then-Iowa offensive coordinator Greg Davis after their time together at Texas.

Ferentz emphasized the need for the next wide receivers coach to “build relationships” and “be good teachers.”

“Most importantly, a coach's job is to help players become better,” Ferentz said. “If it was pro football, it would be all about becoming better players. College football, there's a lot more to it — seeing the big picture, student, character, citizenship, all those types of things, as well as being good players.”

Whoever takes the open coaching position will have a tall task. Iowa has only two wide receivers expected to return in 2024 who caught a pass last season. (Kaleb Brown had 22 catches for 215 yards, and Seth Anderson had 11 catches for 150 yards.)

“We’re fairly young in that room,” Ferentz said. “In a lot of ways, we’re fairly inexperienced in terms of production, that type of thing, but I think there’s a lot of potential there.”

Wide receiver production has been lackluster in recent years. Iowa has not had a wide receiver exceed 35 receptions or 400 receiving yards in any of the last four seasons.

Lester said wide receivers play a “huge part” in the offense, “no matter what you’re running schematically.”

“Through my time in coaching, I think we’ve been around quite a bit of pretty good ones, and we’ve been able to find ways to get the ball in their hands,” Lester said.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com