Reports: Iowa football expected to hire Omar Young as next RB coach

IOWA CITY — Iowa football appears to have a full staff again.

The Hawkeyes are expected to hire Omar Young as their next running backs coach, according to multiple media reports. The Des Moines Register first reported Young’s expected hiring.

Young, 41, will come to Iowa after working as an offensive coaching assistant with the New England Patriots in 2024 on Jerod Mayo’s staff. Mayo was fired after going 4-13 in his lone season at the helm.

Young spent the previous two seasons with the Chicago Bears, first as an offensive quality control coach in 2022 and then as the assistant quarterbacks and wide receivers coach in 2023.

He also had NFL stints as an offensive quality control coach for the Green Bay Packers in 2017-18 and as an offensive intern for the Cleveland Browns in 2015.

The Oakland, Calif., native’s most recent college experience was from 2019-21 at Eastern Illinois. He was the running backs coach in 2019 before adding co-special teams coordinator responsibilities for the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

His other full-time Division I coaching experiences were at Colorado in 2013-14 as the director of quality control and at South Carolina in 2016 as an analyst.

Young replaces Ladell Betts, who departed last month to become the running backs coach for the New York Giants after four years on Kirk Ferentz’s staff. He is the first offensive staffing hire during offensive coordinator Tim Lester’s tenure at Iowa.

His expected arrival is in time for Iowa’s spring practices, which will begin on March 26. He inherits a room that lost consensus All-American Kaleb Johnson but returns Kamari Moulton, Jaziun Patterson and Terrell Washington Jr.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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