Iowa has landed a personnel veteran to lead its scouting department.
The Hawkeyes have hired Todd McShane as their Director of Scouting, according to a report today from 247Sports.
McShane spent the last three seasons, 2023 to 2025, as the Director of Player Personnel at Oregon State, his alma mater. He returned to Corvallis in 2023 as part of the staff build in his hometown program, and he brings a decade-plus of recruiting and personnel work in two Power conferences to Iowa City.
The bulk of that experience came at Northwestern, where McShane spent six seasons under Pat Fitzgerald and rose to Director of Recruiting. That is a long run inside one building, and it came during a stretch when the Wildcats leaned on evaluation and player development to stay competitive in the Big Ten without recruiting at the top of the league's talent rankings. It is the kind of background that fits how Iowa has operated for a long time under veteran head coach Kirk Ferentz.
Before Northwestern, McShane worked at Nebraska from 2015 to 2018, finishing his time in Lincoln as Associate Director of Player Personnel. He got his start in the profession at Oregon State, where he graduated in 2011 and came up as an assistant director of player personnel before his stops in the Big Ten. His path has now circled back to the conference where he built his reputation.
For Iowa, the timing tracks with a program that just closed a strong stretch on the field and on the recruiting trail. Kirk Ferentz's group went 9-4 in 2025, including a 34-27 win over No. 14 Vanderbilt in the ReliaQuest Bowl, with all four losses coming to ranked opponents by a combined 15 points. On the recruiting side, the Hawkeyes climbed into the mid-30s nationally in the 2026 cycle after landing quarterback Tradon Bessinger and four-star tight end Luke Brewer, who reclassified from 2027.
Roster building has changed under the weight of the portal and expanded personnel departments, and Iowa has been investing in the people who do that work. McShane has now evaluated and organized boards at Nebraska, Northwestern and Oregon State, which gives him a wide view of how different staffs identify and stack players. That mix of high school evaluation and portal scouting is exactly what a Director of Scouting is asked to sort through in modern college football.
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