The dog days of January for college football have truly begun. With a tame second round of a signing day approaching, and only minor changes occuring, it is a lull in the sports calendar for sure. But, the Hawkeyes have some changes including the addition of coach Derrick Foster to the 2018 squad.
Teams were allowed to bring in a tenth member of the staffs, and Iowa made their move for the running backs coach from Samford University Derrick Foster. Foster joins quite the experienced group of Iowa coaches. His role as Kirk Ferentz told Hawkeye Sports:
"“Our goal was to use this additional coaching position to help us in multiple areas, and we did that,” said Ferentz. “We gained Derrick as a coach, we bolstered our recruiting capabilities, and we strengthened our commitment to special teams by allowing LeVar Woods to focus entirely on a significant phase of our game.”"
It will be interesting to see if gaining Foster will continue to add Iowa in recruiting the South. They have already felt some of the impact with heading to states like Mississippi, Florida and Georgia in recent years under coach Kelvin Bell.
Departures
Matt Quarells
Joining Tyler Wiegers and early entrees Josh Jackson and James Daniels, the Hawkeyes learned that wide receiver Matt Quarells will not be re-joining the 2018 team. He came to Iowa in August from New Mexico when many thought he could make an impact on a thin Hawkeye receiver room.
Quarells wasn’t able to make a dent on the depth chart, and never saw the field. True freshmen such as Ihmir Smith-Marsette, Brandon Smith and Max Cooper passed him up on the lineup. And, with the possible additions this coming Fall of Tyrone Tracy, Samson Evans and Calvin Lockett, the youth movement most likely will continue.
Others
New Iowa roster indicates 3 departures, lists jersey numbers for newcomershttps://t.co/WAXmUYLuQJ
— Scott Dochterman (@ScottDochterman) January 22, 2018
Another upper classmen receiver that is trying his chances elsewhere next year will be Adrian Falconer. This move leaves Iowa with only two senior wide receivers in Nick Easley and Kyle Groenweg. This may be in part because of the emergence of the tight ends who could be seeing three at the position on the field at the same time even more in 2018 with the emergence of Noah Fant, TJ Hockenson and Shaun Beyer.
Other receivers that weren’t on the online roster were Kyle Connolly and Brandon Bishop.