IOWA CITY, Iowa – The defense for the 2016 Iowa football team received a major boost on Monday when the mother of all-America cornerback Desmond King told the Daily Iowan student newspaper that her son would return for his senior season.

"We have unfinished business," King’s mother, Yvette Powell, told Daily Iowan reporter Danny Payne.

Desmond King said in the days leading up to the Rose Bowl last Friday that he was 50/50 about skipping his senior season to enter the NFL draft.

King is coming off a junior season in which he won the Jim Thorpe Award, which goes to the nation’s top defensive back. The Detroit native tied Iowa’s single-season record for interceptions with eight while helping the Hawkeyes finish 12-0 in the regular season for the first time in school history.

Iowa closed the season with back-to-back losses to Michigan State in the Big Ten Championship game and to Stanford in the Rose Bowl by scores of 16-13 and 45-16, respectively.

Iowa now has seven full-time starters returning from its 2015 defense. The number could grow to eight if senior defensive end Drew Ott is granted a medical redshirt.