Roster turnover is more prominent than ever in the world of college athletics.
With professional sports, the transfer portal, and the new world of Name, Image, and Likeness, athletes are leaving programs more frequently than before, causing coaches to look for new players to step up and make an immediate impact.
Iowa baseball head coach Rick Heller faced this exact problem heading into the 2025 season.
With starting pitchers Brody Brecht and Marcus Morgan departing to the MLB Draft this past summer, Heller was in search of two new arms that could fill in the weekend rotation.
Preseason Big Ten Pitcher of the Year Cade Obermueller was poised to take command as the ace of the team and place himself in the Friday starting spot.
Third-year Aaron Savary, who carved out a position as a long reliever last season for the Hawkeyes, was expected to make the jump from the bullpen to the starting rotation on Saturdays.
This left one spot open to fill out the three-man unit. With a handful of strong candidates at the ready, Heller had to make a tough decision of who got the nod going into the season.
“You knew Savary, who at times pitched really well last year, would be pushing hard for one of the spots,” Heller said. “But then the Sunday spot, there were several guys that were kind of lumped in there to fight it out and see who’s going to win that.”
One candidate Heller and the coaching staff hoped to make the jump was fifth-year Reese Beuter.
Beuter, who played two seasons at Kirkwood Community College and one at Dallas Baptist, transferred to Iowa in 2024 for a spot in the bullpen.
In his first year as a Hawkeye, Beuter struggled to find his footing throughout the spring season. Pitching just over 18 innings of work, Beuter had a 1-3 record while posting a 12.54 earned run average — a significant downgrade from previous outputs.
“I think about a guy [Beuter] that had a really rough year last year,” Heller said. “A guy with great stuff. Stuff that’s good enough to have him pitching in pro ball for a long, long time. For whatever reason, it just didn’t go very well.”
After the season was over, Heller and his coaching staff went to work immediately to figure out what was wrong with Beuter. An evident issue was with delivery. They believed that while the talent was there, batters were able to track the ball easier based on the way he finished his windup.
“Right away in the summer he went out to make some adjustments to make his delivery more deceptive,” Heller said. “All of us felt like, for whatever reason, guys could really see him. Even though it was 94-96 mph at times, they just saw the ball really well.”
While doing work on the field to fix some mechanical pitching issues, Beuter also focused on fixing the mental aspect of his game.
Beuter is now playing in his last year of collegiate ball. Putting pressure on himself to perform in previous seasons, Beuter walked into 2025 with one goal in mind: Try to have fun.
“I wanted to not put outside pressure on me,” Beuter said. “Not worry about how well I’m doing results-wise, I just wanted to enjoy myself and make sure when I’m out on the field, that I don’t have a bunch of anxiety and stuff like that.”
These two offseason adjustments have led to Beuter having a very solid start for the Hawkeyes.
In three starts, Beuter has posted 2.12 ERA while giving up four runs in 17 innings.
His best appearance came on Feb. 23 against Maryland Baltimore County.
Recording seven innings pitched, one hit, zero runs, and five strikeouts, Beuter has never looked that sharp in his Iowa career for what was his second win of the season.
The early season success can get to anyone’s head. Beuter is taking a methodical approach when looking at the rest of the year — taking in the good with the bad but never dwelling on a poor outing for too long.
“Being diligent in bullpens and your day-to-day work,” Beuter said when talking about maintaining success. “Don’t over analyze. Take the positives through past outings, but also see what you need to work on. Don’t make it bigger than it is.”