Emmanuel Ogwo to transfer to TCU

Emmanuel Ogwo — former football player and current (well, former now) track athlete — has decided to transfer, according to Blair Sanderson at Rivals.

This is not a thing that is idea for Iowa track.

The Hawkeyes were set to return the entire All-American 4x400 squad (Mar’yea Harris, DeJuan Frye, Collin Hofacker, and Ogwo) that finished third at this years NCAA Outdoor Championships (and 5th at the indoors), so losing Ogwo — who anchored in the Outdoors — is about as far from ideal as one can get.

Oh, and Ogwo also was the lead leg of the Drake Relays 4x400 winning relay, the first time Iowa had a 1,600m title in the event since 1967.

The Big 12 is a better track and field conference than the Big Ten, so it’s not as if the move makes no sense. Iowa has struggled to keep some of its top track athletes over the past few years, so it’s a little bit of a worrisome pattern.

Coupled with losing assistant coach Andrew Dubs last week, it hasn’t exactly been the best days for the Iowa program.

Ogwo, of course, didn’t start out on the track. He was a football player first, watched a couple of his teammates and friends pass him on the depth chart and got perhaps a little frustrated. He was welcomed aboard the Iowa track team and things went really well last year.

There’s little doubt Ogwo will continue to get better. He’s solid in the individual 400 and we very well might see him next season at an event. There probably will be a couple times next year where he’ll compete against some of his old teammates.

It’s just how these things work sometimes.

Anyways, good look and safe travels to Ogwo. He gave a lot to the track program in his two years (one actually competing) and he’ll likely star for the Horned Frogs.