 Marc MorehouseHi, I'm Marc Morehouse. I've covered sports for more than 15 years, mostly in Eastern Iowa. I've had Hayden Fry [...] |
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Campbell out as WR coach in Iowa City
Wide receivers coach has left the Hawkeyes' staff
Iowa Head Coach Kirk Ferentz and Wide receivers coach Erik Campbell coach their team during the first half of their Big Ten Conference College Football Game against Penn State Saturday, Oct. 2, 2010 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. HawkeyeInsider.com and HawkeyeReport.com reported Thursday that recruits have confirmed that Campbell is no longer an assistant at Iowa. (Brian Ray/ SourceMedia Group News)
IOWA CITY — According to HawkeyeInsider.com, Iowa is in the market for a new assistant football coach.
Damond Powell, a junior-college wide receiver recruit, told HawkeyeInsider’s Rob Howe on Thursday that Erik Campbell has left the Iowa staff.
Powell and DeJuan Rogers, a Detroit prospect who was recruited by Campbell for Iowa, also confirmed this to HawkeyeReport.com.
Campbell also has confirmed this with confidants in Iowa City.
Iowa sports information director Steve Roe said Thursday afternoon that he had “nothing to report concerning changes in our football coaching staff.” Campbell, who is still listed in the school’s directory, responded to well wishes from Iowa fans on his Twitter account Thursday.
Rumors of Campbell’s departure started to surface in early December.
Campbell, 46, spent five season as Iowa’s wide receiver coach. He also coached the tight ends in his first two years at Iowa. He joined the Iowa staff after serving as an assistant coach at Michigan for 13 seasons. Campbell also served as assistant head coach at Michigan for five seasons.
This move comes on the heels of the Hawkeyes’ 4-8 season, which ended on a six-game losing streak. This was Iowa’s worst season since 2000 and longest losing streak since 1999. The five defeats the Hawkeyes suffered in Kinnick were the most at home in head coach Kirk Ferentz’s 14 seasons as Iowa’s head coach.
Through his first 13 seasons, Ferentz had just 15 assistant coaches work under him. Going into 2012, both coordinators left, three new coaches were hired and Campbell was one of two two coaches who were at the same position they coached in 2011.
Iowa’s assistant coaches work on an “at will” basis, meaning they don’t have contracts and can be fired at anytime for any reason (except for a few illegal reasons). Campbell earned $250,560 last season.
Campbell coached two of the top receivers in Iowa history, Derrell Johnson-Koulianos and Marvin McNutt. McNutt owns records in receiving yards (1,315) and receiving TDs (12) in a season. He also holds career receiving yardage (2,861) and receiving TDs (28) records. Johnson-Koulianos holds the career record for receptions (173). McNutt also has a share of the season receptions record with 82 in 2011, tying Kevin Kasper.
Iowa’s passing game took a dive last season.
The Hawkeyes finished with just seven TD passes, which tied for 121st in the nation. Iowa passed for 187.4 yards a game, the lowest average since 2008 when Iowa averaged 181.7.
Iowa finished 11th in the Big Ten with 5.8 yards per pass attempt.
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Hate to see Campbell go. Any word on where he went and did he leave on his own or was he asked to leave. Certainly going to hurt recruiting, look for some especially wide out recruits to go elsewhere. Does Iowa have any African/American coaches on the football squad?
What a bummer to lose coach Campbell
Darrell Wilson (Secondary) and LeVar Woods (LBs) are both black. Probably a good move for Campbell, he’ll have a chance to become an OC or a head coach now. Iowa got him as a total steal from Michigan, never thought we’d keep him this long.
He’s weighing two offers. One to become the EMU offensive coordinator and another to be a WR coach in the NFL. Sounds like he is going to be the OC to me. I read he might have interviewed with Tampa Bay Bucs for the WR coach job. They just lost PJ Fleck to become head coach at Western Michigan.
If he goes to EMU, he may be sorry. Ron English, the current EMU head coach, is out after next season unless he can somehow have a miracle season in 2013, which is highly unlikely. EMU would be a one year gig.
Seems to me he should have got a look at OC at Iowa based on his success with our wide receivers, but maybe he wasn’t as good a yes men as Kirk wanted.