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Pour out a drink for Nic Shimonek and Pat Vint's quiver of "shibboleth" jokes, as the quarterback from Corsicanna, TX will transfer after redshirting in his first year at Iowa in 2013. Also on his way out: Laron Taylor, a redshirt sophomore linebacker buried on the depth chart.
Both Shimonek and Taylor had been rumored to be on his way out for a little while, but today was the first acknowledgement from the school. This makes two quarterbacks leaving the program during this offseason, as Cody Sokol left the program earlier this year. Here's the first word on Shimonek's departure from the Gazette's plucky new Iowa reporter, someone named "Mark More-House":
Yes, QB Nic Shimonek and LB Laron Taylor are no longer on Iowa's roster and are transferring.
— marcmorehouse (@marcmorehouse) July 28, 2014
You can even check Iowa's roster for yourself.
When looking at a reason for Shimonek's departure, it's easy to point to Iowa's sudden influx of upper-level quarterback talent, with highly touted freshman Tyler Wiegers joining the team this fall and two studs in Ryan Boyle and 170-foot-tall Jack Beneventi set to sign in 2015.
And yet, as with Sokol, this probably has just as much to do with the distance C.J. Beathard has put between himself and the rest of the pack for the #2 spot; if anything, Beathard's closer to usurping Jake Rudock as starter than Shimonek was to taking Beathard's spot in the depth chart.
With Shimonek out of the picture, only Rudock, Beathard and Wiegers will be on the roster as scholarship QBs this fall, with Justin Joyce as a walk-on redshirt freshman. Incoming freshman Jay Scheel played QB in high school, but really, if Iowa ends up needing him to take snaps under center in 2014, many things have gone worse than Shimonek setting out for greener pastures.
Shimonek's got FBS-level talent, to be sure, but we wouldn't be terribly surprised if he went the FCS route, if for no other reason than it would be a bummer to spend the first 40% of your college football career in street clothes. We'll see. Fare thee well, Shimonek, and may you forever confound the Ephraimites.