Leistikow: How Kirk Ferentz found Tim Lester, who brings his NFL offense to Iowa football
Chad Leistikow
Des Moines Register
IOWA CITY − If the
Tim Lester hire as I
owa football’s offensive coordinator works out well, this will someday turn into one of those classic Kirk Ferentz stories.
Lester clearly remembers that Tuesday morning, Jan. 23 to be exact. To that moment he had been fully immersed in the Green Bay Packers’ season, which ended three nights earlier in a gut-wrenching 24-21 playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers. But while arriving at the parking garage beneath Lambeau Field, he got a call from his agent about something completely off his radar.
“Have you heard from Iowa?”
This was regarding the OC job that had been essentially open since late October, when Brian Ferentz was told by Iowa’s administration that
he wouldn't return in 2024. The agent was hearing rumblings about Iowa's possible interest in Lester.
Understandably, Lester was confused.
Fully understanding the football calendar, that most college OC openings had been filled by early January or even December, he asked, "They haven’t hired anybody yet? Really?”
“At that point," Lester said, "I hadn’t gotten a call from anybody (about Iowa)."
Upon walking upstairs to his office, Lester was greeted by Packers running backs coach Ben Sirmons.
Sirmons, Lester later found out, played at Maine when Ferentz was the head coach there from 1990 to 1992. Sirmons relayed that he had just talked with Ferentz that morning about Lester.
Maybe 30 minutes later, then-Packers defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery – a former Hawkeye player whose son, Jayden, is on the current Iowa roster – approached Lester and said, “I heard from Coach Ferentz. Have you talked to him?”
By this point, Lester almost had to laugh. What was going on?
“That went on the whole day,” Lester said. “I think he called everyone I’ve ever met. People I haven’t talked to in 20 years.”
Later that day, Lester drove from Green Bay to his family's lake house in southwest Michigan. The
only person he told about the Hawkeyes buzz was his older sister, Cori, who attended Iowa's nursing school in the mid-1990s.
Finally, that night, the now-inevitable call came in.
It was Kirk Ferentz.
According to Lester, the two immediately hit it off. They touched base over the next five days about the OC opening. Mutual excitement built. Ferentz became sold on Lester. And Lester, who had been an analyst for good friend Matt LaFleur for one year in Green Bay, was growing more interested in Iowa. He mulled staying in the NFL – where opportunities were opening for a coaching role in Green Bay or to join the staff of Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay – or making the jump back to college, where he had spent most of his coaching career.
“We spoke the same language as far as what we believe in and what we believe works,” Lester said. “I was getting more and more excited (about Iowa) over some of the opportunities I had to stay in the NFL.”
So, on Jan. 28,
he accepted the Iowa job. Iowa announced the move on Jan. 31, and Lester was introduced on Feb. 2. For a $1.1 million salary, he is tasked to fix the Hawkeyes’ broken offense.
Tim Lester is here, and he's genuinely excited to be here.
In a 90-minute conversation this week with the Des Moines Register,
the majority of it posted as a podcast, Lester outlined more about his offensive philosophy and installation process. The Hawkeyes’ first fall camp practice was Wednesday, and their first game is Aug. 31 against Illinois State.
Over 17 practices before Iowa turns its preparations over to its first game week, Lester must get a better grasp on his personnel while fast-tracking the Hawkeyes' adoption of the Mike Shanahan-inspired offensive system. That system, in many versions, populates more than half the NFL. But in college, it is mostly a novelty.
Lester thought maybe only Kentucky, which hired Liam Coen away from McVay’s Rams twice (in 2021 and in 2023) as OC, has brought the Shanahan system to power-conference college football.
“That’s the exciting part for us,” Lester said. “We are running something that a lot of defensive coordinators will have not seen. Just the presentation, and the way we go about it.”
Tim Lester's reasons for comfort in Shanahan scheme
Lester’s path to Iowa is fascinating, and it starts as an All-American high school quarterback at Wheaton Warrenville South (near Chicago) in the mid-1990s. Lester was headed to play for Steve Spurrier at Florida, but injured his knee in his final playoff game as a senior. At that time, prospects didn’t commit until their official visits and the (paper) plane ticket Lester held for Dec. 4 never got used. Spurrier, who had his pick of QBs while leading a perennial SEC power, politely informed Lester that they would be taking a healthy quarterback instead.
Lester instead landed in a wide-open, spread offense at Western Michigan and threw for more than 11,000 yards and 87 touchdowns. He learned then that offensive football was "like stealing" when Western Michigan could effectively run the football. When it couldn't, Lester took a lot more hits and threw a lot more interceptions.
One of Lester's most satisfying moments was as a fifth-year senior going to Florida, against Spurrier in "The Swamp," for Western Michigan’s 1999 season opener. His team lost a high-scoring affair, but Lester threw for 405 yards with no interceptions.
A telling slice of Lester's early coaching career was opting to leave a plum quarterbacks-coach job at Western Michigan under Bill Cubit in 2007 to go back to Chicago to coach Division III ball. Lester wanted to focus on being a dad to his oldest son, Quinn, and spending time with his ailing father. His father died in 2010, in the middle of his five-year coaching tenure at D-III Elmhurst College. He had no regrets about choosing family over a higher-profile football job.
“Three years of being around, it was awesome,” Lester said. “We went on a lot of father-son (trips), Cubs spring training. We did it all. It was so great. I would never change a thing about it.”
At Elmhurst, he turned a losing program into a winner. Part of that process was installing the Shanahan offense, inspired by LaFleur – who was one of his go-to wide receivers while playing at Western Michigan. LaFleur worked in the NFL for Gary Kubiak and Mike Shanahan, and he and Lester traded notes. By the time Lester left Elmhurst after a 10-2 season, he was encouraged that the complex Shanahan system could be effective in college.
That’s what LaFleur runs in Green Bay, too. After 10 years in Division I – three at Syracuse, one at Purdue and six as Western Michigan’s head coach – Lester got a chance to re-learn the Shanahan system. He found some of it hadn't changed a bit in 20 years; some of it had evolved. His role in Green Bay was to study opposing offenses, so he got to know all the variations of the Shanahan system.
Lester said he has all the playbooks from NFL teams that run the system. The Kyle Shanahan San Francisco 49ers do it differently than McVay's Rams, who do it differently from Mike McDaniel's Miami Dolphins, who do it differently than LaFleur's Packers. The reason it works is that it's flexible to personnel, which Lester thinks is ideal for college − where rosters turn over quickly and injuries are a big part of the game.
“It’s the new pro-style. It’s more spread,” Lester explained. “It’s definitely been driven by college offenses a little bit. The key to the whole thing, there’s a couple run plays that are very unique that you’ve got to get going. If you can get those going, they’ve done a great job (in the NFL) of allowing it to become explosive.
“They all focus on running the ball. If you can run the ball, everything (follows).”
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