While the onus is often on his players to put in the extra work, get an extra rep, and rebuild the Iowa football offense, Tim Lester ensures the same applies to him.

Coaches aren’t required to be the first one in the building or the last one to leave it. But when starting tight end Luke Lachey got to an offseason lift at 5 a.m., just weeks after Lester’s hiring as offensive coordinator, he peeked into his coach’s office window and caught him already watching game film.

Thus, Lachey’s first interactions with Lester were learning connections, with Lachey spending half an hour in Lester’s office discussing just one aspect of the offense alone.

“Coach Lester’s awesome; it’s great to have him here,” Lachey said. “It was really cool to be able to learn some new things … He really cares about us. He puts in a lot of work for us to succeed.”

Lester joined the Hawkeyes this season to replace head coach Kirk Ferentz’s son, Brian, at the offensive coordinator position after Brian Ferentz’s rollercoaster ride of stipulations and struggles throughout the 2023 season.

These stipulations included a reworked contract for Brian Ferentz, requiring the team to average at least 25 points per game. Otherwise, his contract would be terminated.

So, a long season of grueling and gritty wins were motivated much by a stout defense instead. The Hawkeyes averaged just over 15 points — en route to the season’s worst offense in college football — leading Brian Ferentz and Iowa football to part ways.

In came Tim Lester, a 47-year-old family man from Wheaton, Illinois, with a lesser-known name but a soft demeanor and knack for the brains of football. His intellect and football savvy have quickly proven themselves through his natural ability to analyze a play in true depth and describe in detail what’s missing.

Lester’s contract runs through the first half of 2026. His salary is just over $1 million — up from Brian Ferentz’s $850,000.

And where Hawkeye fan reactions were mixed — as they always are — Lester’s resume looked to hit “reset” on this offense and even justify the hefty paycheck.

With 22 years of coaching experience across all levels of football, Lester piqued Kirk Ferentz’s interest while embedded with the NFL as a senior analyst for the Green Bay Packers.

His tenure with the Packers included an impressive flip of the season from a 2-5 start to a 9-8 record and second-place finish in the NFC North come playoffs — much behind the development of quarterback Jordan Love.

The No. 7 Packers then stunned the No. 2 Cowboys in the Wild Card with a stellar offensive outing of 48 points to 32 before a loss to the eventual NFC Champions in the San Francisco 49ers.

But much of the attraction behind Lester stemmed from his head coaching tenure at his alma mater Western Michigan — a frequent foe of the Iowa Hawkeyes — from 2017 to 2022.

Lester was a four-year starting quarterback in Kalamazoo from 1996 to 1999. Upon his graduation, he finished his career fourth in FBS history in passing yards with 11,299 and sixth in touchdown passes with 89 in addition to 17 passing records and eight Mid-American Conference records.

Returning to coach almost two decades later, Lester led the Broncos to 37 wins, three bowl game appearances, and — most importantly — an offense that ranked in the top 35 nationally in total offense from 2018 to 2021.

Now, in Iowa City, Lester is towing a line between adjustment and excitement.

Iowa wide receiver Jacob Gill described Lester’s demeanor around the field as “a little bit in between” vocal and quiet.

“When there’s things that need to be addressed, he addresses them, and then we make plays; he’s there for us; he’s excited for us,” Gill said. “And then when we have to go through things on our own, he lets us go through that as well, growing pains and things like that.”

Lester assumed what one could call an “it can only get better from here” offense after last season.

Across the 2023 campaign, the Hawkeyes posted:

• 234.6 yards of total offense per game
• 22 touchdowns, including only nine passing touchdowns to 11 interceptions
• 115.9 rushing yards per game and 11 rushing touchdowns
• 60 third down conversions on 204 chances for a 29.4 percent conversion rate
• 23 fumbles and 11 of them lost
• 33 sacks
• 181 first downs
• 15.43 points per game

This year, things are different.

Glimpses of hope have sparked up across the Iowa football atmosphere with the arrival of the new coach.

Lester’s offense is certainly flashier, even if only slightly so, for example, evidenced by a more confident orientation toward the pass to wide receiver weapons Reece Vander Zee, Jacob Gill, and Addison Ostrenga. Or a flea-flicker against Ohio State.

In fact, the Hawkeyes posted 40 points in their season-opening win over Illinois State on Aug. 31, in which quarterback Cade McNamara threw for 251 yards and three touchdowns. Six Hawkeyes recorded double-digits in receiving yards.

The Iowa offense totaled 23 first downs and 492 total offense yards, making for a difficult team to beat in any circumstance.

On Sept. 14, Iowa scored 38 points against Troy as McNamara posted an impressively solid 176 yards on 19-of-23 passing. Seven Hawkeyes recorded double digits in receiving yards.

In fact, Lester has made frequent use of backup quarterback Brendan Sullivan, a Northwestern transfer nicknamed “Sully,” in the red zone — something his predecessors never would have tested out. And Sullivan threw a touchdown dish to Ostrenga against the Trojans, that game seeing 25 first downs and 462 yards of total offense.

“The more people we get out there, everyone gets excited, and they’re ready to go, and everyone’s supporting one another,” Lester said. “When Sully scored, Cade was the first one celebrating with him.”

But it is Iowa football, after all, and Lester won’t escape his boss’ undying love for the run game.

Luckily, running back Kaleb Johnson has been a bright spot, especially with the solid Hawkeye offensive line.

Johnson is a rushing powerhouse, sitting second in the country in rushing yards with 937 in addition to his 12 touchdowns. For example, he scored three against Minnesota on 206 yards.

Unluckily, the offense has grown increasingly dependent on the run game as the pass block is much weaker than the run block — and as McNamara has struggled to maintain consistency.

“As far as an overview, four weeks in, offensively we’re chasing consistency really in all phases,” Lester said at a press conference across the bye week after the win at Minnesota. “We have shown improvement from week to week in certain phases … Time on task is a real thing on offense, especially in the passing game.”

Some forget Lester is also Iowa’s quarterbacks coach, and that position has proved to be this program’s Achilles heel since the departure of Nate Stanley in 2019.

And where McNamara struggles, the team does, too. A case in point was the nail-biter over Minnesota, 31-14, on Sept. 21. With McNamara just 11-of-19 for 62 yards, the Iowa offense gathered just 18 first downs and 334 yards of total offense, which makes it that much harder on everyone else to win football games.

There, Johnson had to step in and explode to give Iowa even the slightest chance.

McNamara has shown glimpses of his success, but questions certainly shoot back to the system when he suddenly can’t get going. It’s hard to repeatedly place blame on a player’s lack of preparation when he’s proven what he can do, too.

Lester said he’s proposed implementing and calling more deep-shot pass plays “in a group forum” but has been voted down. In fact, Lester notably called such plays a “risk.”

“It’s just the way the game is being played,” he said. “I’ve called a game where I called 70 passes, and I’ve called a game where I called 70 runs. We were just running the ball at a really high level. We had a lead, and we chose not to take that risk.”

And while play calling is no longer the tiresome issue it was one year ago, Johnson can’t carry the brunt of the load forever.

In Week 2 on Sept. 7, after the No. 21 Hawkeyes hosted unranked Iowa State and needed to be perfect to make the College Football Playoff, the defense can’t absorb all the fault as it surrendered all 20 Cyclone points in the second half, producing a loss.

It’s a team game, and the offense’s silent complacency left the defense out to dry for the last 30 minutes of game clock. McNamara finished 13-of-29 for 99 yards with no touchdowns and two interceptions — including 3-of-10 for 19 yards in the second half. No receivers got going, and Iowa’s nationally famous tight ends were muted.

But again, against then-No. 3 Ohio State on Oct. 5, the first half looked bright with both sides of the ball locked in and the Buckeyes leading just 7-0.

Where Iowa needed a slight spark in the second half to keep pushing, it withered away as McNamara threw for 98 yards and no touchdowns with a pick and two fumbles. That left the defense continuously exposed to a powerhouse Buckeye offense that only beat it down.

In Iowa’s 40-16 win over Washington, though, the Hawkeye offense put together its first truly complete game this season.

As Lester dialed in on his offensive schematics with effective counters and play fakes, he flexed the wider array of weapons at his disposal that were hidden before.

The result was the obvious 106 passing yards and two touchdowns with no turnovers from McNamara and 166 rushing yards and two touchdowns from Johnson.

Moreover, Lester really tapped into the offense’s depth, and it has improved ball progression and scoring capabilities unimaginable to last year. Seven Hawkeyes rushed the ball against Washington, and five grabbed a reception — including redshirt freshman Dayton Howard.

“I think offensively we’re gaining ground — not where we want to be yet, but we’re getting there and did some good things,” Ferentz said after the game. “In every area, we need to be more consistent. That’s probably the biggest thing here as we go forward.”

Today, the Iowa offense sits tied for 64th in scoring offense across the nation with 29.2 points per game and 94th in total offense with 357.5 yards per game. It’s not perfect, but it looks that way from the perspective of one season ago.

Indeed, it’s a team game. And at the end of the day, it’s clear Lester is trying to keep the fun in football — especially as he does everything he can to diversify the playbook portfolio.

“The fun is in the work, and our guys have been enjoying the different things we’ve been trying to do,” Lester said. “Problems are going to come and go. We’re going to get better at things as we go.”