I don't hate the Tim Lester hire as much as some fans seem to be reacting to it.
Sure, Paul Chryst would have been the home run hire but after he turned it down, what do you expect?
Tim Lester not only played QB but was a pretty good college QB, throwing for 11,000 yards for WMU from 96-99. Lester also has coaching experience at many levels, high school, small college assistant (QB/OC) and HC, MAC HC, P5 assistant (QB/OC) , and also as an NFL analyst.
Lester had pretty good offenses when he was head coach at WMU except for 2022. Interestingly, Keivn Johns was Lester's OC at WMU in 2017
Lester's offense is a run-pass option where the QB does not actually run much. Which sounds similar to Kevin Johns philosophy although Lester does not run a spread and Johns does run a spread? Is that right?
It's not an awful hire. It will be interesting what Lester gets paid. Chryst probably would have got $2M. I am guessing Iowa will offer Lester around $1M.
Lester was set to take the OC job at Troy before being offered OC at Iowa, and I think he made $600k as the head coach at WMU. So Lester will be getting a nice bump in pay.