By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Receiver has long been a position on the Iowa football team in which depth, firepower and productivity have usually been in short supply.

Only two Iowa receivers have made first-team All-Big Ten in 25 seasons under Kirk Ferentz as Derrell Johnson-Koulianos and Marvin McNutt achieved that milestone in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

Nico Ragaini led the Iowa wide receivers with 255 receiving yards last season, and he tied for the team-lead with 31 catches.

Nothing against Ragaini, because in fairness, he was partly a product of his environment, but those numbers leave much to be desired.

There were times in each of the past two seasons as the Iowa offense sunk to historical lows from a statistical standpoint where just completing a pass to a wide receiver was a daunting task.

And to make matters worse, Iowa just lost a young, and apparently a pretty talented receiver in Jacob Bostick, who entered the transfer portal in late April and has since committed to Texas A&M.

The 6-foot-2, 183-pound Bostick struggled with injuries during his brief time as a Hawkeye and had zero catches while appearing briefly in five games.

But he was finally healthy this spring and had cracked the depth chart as the backup to Kaleb Brown at one of the receiver positions.

Bostick met with the media in April to discuss spring practice, and the Illinois native said all the right things to make you think that he was happy and excited with being a Hawkeye, and with playing under new offensive coordinator Tim Lester.

However, in this age of the transfer portal, to assume anything would be foolish.

Bostick is the latest in a continuing trend in which wide receivers are leaving the Iowa program.

He joins a list that includes Charlie Jones, Tyrone Tracy, Keagan Johnson and Arland Bruce, and that’s just since 2021.

Jones and Tracy both transferred to Purdue while Johnson and Bruce transferred to Kansas State and Oklahoma State, respectively.

Brody Brecht is yet another receiver that has left the Iowa football team recently, but his case is different in that Brecht stopped playing football to focus on baseball where he is the ace of the Iowa staff, and a potential first-round pick in the 2024 draft should he chose to come out as a junior.

To lose that many receivers in a short period of time, of course, is a concern.

But there might be a silver lining, or maybe this is a reach.

The five receivers mentioned in this column that transferred from Iowa would all go on to pick Power Five schools, and that by itself is perhaps a positive sign.

Because until recently, it was rare for an Iowa wide receiver to transfer to another Power Five school.

Most would transfer down a level or two in search of playing time, and because they didn’t have any Power Five opportunities.

The fact that Bostick, Jones, Tracy, Johnson and Bruce all transferred to Power Five schools would suggest that Iowa is finally starting to recruit better receivers.

The challenge now is to keep them, and that’s just one of many challenges facing Lester as the new offensive coordinator.

Iowa received a verbal commitment from former Northwestern quarterback Brendan Sullivan on Wednesday, but also fell short in landing Missouri State receiver Raylen Sharpe, who recently committed to Fresno State.

It seems likely that NIL, and perhaps the state of the Iowa offense, caused Sharp to pick a non-Power Five school over Iowa.

What is sort of odd about the five receivers that transferred from Iowa to Power Five schools since 2021 is that other than Keagan Johnson, and Tracy to an extent, the other three appeared to have better offers in the transfer portal than as high school recruits.

That was certainly the case for Jones, who came to Iowa as a walk-on after having played for Buffalo.

Bostick in high school picked Iowa over offers from Illinois, Pittsburgh and Louisville, while it appears that Texas A&M didn’t offer him in high school.

Somehow Bostick, who also had an offer from Ole Miss and Iowa State in the portal, was able to improve his stock despite hardly playing for one of the worst offenses in the country.

Mike Elko is just a few months into his new job as the Texas A&M head coach, so he’s having to deal with multiple roster changes during this transition period.

And while that could’ve helped Bostick’s cause, there are lots of wide receivers that Texas A&M probably could have taken, and yet, they took Bostick.

That says something.

Each of the five receivers that transferred from Iowa left for their own reasons.

Jones and Tracy wanted more playing time and they both found it at Purdue where Jones was named first-team all-Big Ten and second-team All-America in 2022.

Jones, who now plays for the Cincinnati Bengals, was a star return specialist for the Hawkeyes. But he played sparingly as a receiver, and that ultimately cost Iowa as Jones would go on to thrive in Purdue’s pass-happy offense under former head coach Jeff Brohm.

Tracy eventually switched to running back and was a key contributor in each of the past two seasons for the Boilermakers, while Johnson had 24 catches, 277 receiving yards and two touchdowns last season for Kansas State.

Bruce was ineligible to play for Oklahoma State last season due to an indefinite suspension handed down by the NCAA after Bruce was caught gambling on sports as a player at the University of Iowa from 2021-22.

He combined for 44 catches, 396 receiving yards and two receiving touchdowns in two seasons as a Hawkeye.

That was enough to convince Oklahoma State to recruit Bruce in the portal.

The challenge for Lester, and for new Iowa receiver coach Jon Budmayr, is to keep recruiting Power Five receivers, but also to keep them.

Iowa is only half way to meeting that challenge right now.

But look on the bright side; that is better than losing receivers to lower level programs because they aren’t good enough to compete at the Power Five level.

Baby steps.