You didn't really think Kirk Ferentz would go off on a cruise without making at least one hire, did you? Iowa announced this morning that Ferentz had named son Brian Ferentz the new offensive line coach and LeVar Woods the linebacker coach.
Woods' hiring was widely expected as inevitable; he was named the interim defensive line coach after the season, and Reese Morgan was moved to DL coach while the LB coach position was left open. Woods was a linebacker for Iowa under Hayden Fry and then Kirk Ferentz before a lengthy NFL career, and had spent the last four seasons as an administrative assistant for the program.
The move to hire Brian Ferentz, however, leaves more questions about the final status of the offensive coaching staff. Brian joins Iowa from New England, where he was the tight ends coach under Bill Belichick (New England's TEs were okay this year, weren't they? That's not all Brian's doing, of course, but still). This, then, is a lateral move at best for Brian as it stands right now, and while he's still far ahead of the coaching curve for a 28-year-old, one can't help but wonder if Brian has at least an unofficial arrangement for progression in the Iowa program over the next fewyears. The fact that Iowa's assistant coach pay is currently on the level of Illinois can't make the prospect of coming to Iowa City from the NFL very appealing, either.
As the Iowa press release notes, there's still one open position on the staff, meaning the offensive coordinator could still be hired from elsewhere. Marc Morehouse says Citadel head coach Kevin Higgins was approached about the OC spot, but decided to stay at Citadel. So Iowa's options are pretty wide open as far as the next hire goes: the hire could take over Ken O'Keefe's role as OC/QB coach, or he could just coach quarterbacks while either Lester Erb, Erik Campbell, or even Brian Ferentz (unlikely as this would be, as coaches don't normally get promoted in their first month) would be elevated to offensive coordinator.
Additionally, the team could adopt a dual-coordinator approach, as some coaching staffs have split OC responsibilities between the running game and passing game. Campbell would be ideal as a passing game coordinator, though it would be odd to hire a quarterbacks coach and give him control of the running game. Graduate assistant David Raih (a former Iowa walk-on QB and UCLA graduate assistant) could step up to QB coach and cede the running game responsibilities to Erb in this scenario. But the duel-coordinator staff scenario is pretty foreign to Kirk Ferentz, so that fact alone may make it a non-starter.
Lots of options here. What's your ideal hire here? Who's the offensive coordinator in 2012? Plausible and idiotic ideas alike are always welcome here, of course.