as The Athletic, CBS Sports, and Slate covered the issue of offensive futility, with Slate publishing an article titled "The Iowa Football Team Is the Best Case Against Nepotism That Humankind Has Ever Seen." After a 54–10 loss at Ohio State, which saw Iowa turn the ball over six times, Cleveland.com reporter Doug Lesmerises wrote a column that night calling for Brian Ferentz to be fired, stating "head coach is not a king, and he doesn’t get to hand out jobs by blood. The Ferentz family can leave Iowa whenever they want, but Iowa fans are locked in for life. A football program at a state university is a public trust. Loyal Hawkeyes aren’t going to abandon their program, so at the moment, they’re held hostage by a head coach treating the program like a family business." Iowa Football’s Director of Recruiting and NFL Liaison, Tyler Barnes, is Kirk Ferentz’s son-in-law. Barnes attended Iowa and is married to Ferentz’s daughter Joanne. From 2009–2012, Barnes served as a student assistant, graduate assistant, and administrative assistant. Barnes left Iowa in 2013 shortly after it was revealed that Ferentz had pushed to extend Barnes’ contract for another year, without informing athletic director Barta that Barnes was engaged to his daughter. Barnes returned to Iowa football in 2016. In a similar arrangement to Brian Ferentz’s, Barta, not Ferentz, wrote his employment letter, and is his direct-report. This arrangement skirts University nepotism policies. “What we do is really competitive. It would really be counterintuitive to hire people who aren’t going to try to benefit and enhance our program,” Ferentz responded to questions about nepotism. “Any time we hire a coach, support personnel, we’re trying to get the guys best qualified to work at our place.” Barnes avoided questions about nepotism in his press conferences, stating he did not think it had an effect on his hiring “at all.” Medical and Training Oversight In 2010, a former member of the women's crew, Margaret Krusing, filed a lawsuit against the University of Iowa for permanent disabilities she received as a result of participating in a team-training program that was poorly supervised by medical and athletic training personnel. The two sides settled the lawsuit for $300,000 in October 2013. The athletic department had also previously agreed to pay $60,000 to Krusing by keeping her on her athletic scholarship after she left Iowa to finish her degree at Marquette