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The time after college football's spring practice period winds down is always ripe for transfers, as players get a clearer sense of where they stand on the depth chart and in the coaches' pecking order for playing time. So it doesn't come as much of a surprise that a name buried on Iowa's depth chart is opting to move away from the Hawkeye program:
The University of Iowa today confirmed that defensive back Malik Rucker has decided to leave the Hawkeyes football program.
Rucker, a native of the Twin Cities, has been released from his scholarship after telling the Iowa coaches he wished to continue his college career elsewhere.
Rucker played in six games for the Hawkeyes a year ago and recorded six tackles.
Rucker was a member of Iowa's 2013 recruiting class, a 3* DB prospect who chose Iowa over offers from Minnesota, Duke, Kansas, Illinois, Boston College, Washington State, and Texas Tech, among others. He took a redshirt during the 2013 season and played sparingly during the 2014 season, seeing action in just six games (primarily on special teams). Rucker was absent from the most recent depth chart, with juniors Desmond King and Greg Mabin listed as the starters at cornerback and junior Maurice Fleming and senior Sean Draper as the primary backups.
The departure of Rucker probably won't have much impact Iowa's on-field performance next year, given his status (or lack thereof) on the depth chart, but it does cut into Iowa's overall depth at the position for the future. The crop of cornerbacks after the quartet noted above includes redshirt freshmen Joshua Jackson and Omar Truit and sophomores Kevin Ward and Solomon Warfield. Cornerback will likely be a position that Iowa hits fairly hard in the 2016 recruiting class, although with the depth chart so many juniors or seniors on the depth chart, that was likely going to be the case anyway. Rucker had some solid offers coming out of high school and he certainly may have developed into a productive player in the future (he still had three years of eligibility remaining at Iowa), but he wasn't likely to see much playing time in the immediate future and with so many juniors directly ahead of him, it's understandable if he didn't want to spend the next two years scrounging for playing time. Best of luck to Rucker at his next destination.