Iowa director of recruiting Tyler Barnes mentioned during the 2024 Signing Day press conference last week that with the 2024 high school class essentially done in the summer, his off-season "recruiting" had been focused entirely on the senior stars who still had decisions to make about their COVID-waiver eligibility.
Tuesday, Barnes got his first — and perhaps biggest — recruiting win.
Jay Higgins, an All-American senior linebacker from Indianapolis, Indiana, announced via the Hawkeyes' social media Tuesday evening that he would return for the 2024 season.
Higgins was a Butkus Award semifinalist in 2023 and led Power 5 with 155 tackles, third-best nationally. Among the five traditional "consensus" All-American outlets, Higgins made first-team with FWAA and second-team with the other four: AFCA, Sporting News, AP and Walter Camp. Higgins was also named first-team All-American by Sports Illustrated and second-team by CBS.
Higgins backed up future Butkus Award winner Jack Campbell for his first four years on campus, only stepping into a full-time starting role this season. Shadowing a pro's pro like Campbell had its advantages, as did having a defensive coordinator like 2023 Broyles Award winner Phil Parker to learn from.
Higgins also gained renown with the Hawkeye media and fanbase for his thoughtful, talkative media sessions, earning the Golden Gavel Award in a unanimous vote from the Hawkeye beat writers (full disclosure: this writer was one voter).
It was never difficult to figure out where Higgins' loquacity came from, either; his father Roy was arguably more famous to Hawkeye fans than Jay until this season, thanks to Roy's boisterous and relentlessly positive personality — both on social media and in real life.
As expected, Roy took a somber, measured approach to his son's announcement:
IMPACT
Higgins' return checks a significant box for the Hawkeye defense in 2024, as any program in America (and several NFL franchises) would love to bring Higgins into the locker room. He quickly established himself as a vocal and emotional leader for the defense, and was particularly instrumental in helping onboard transfer linebacker Nick Jackson.
Jackson, a three-time All-ACC linebacker from Virginia, hopped right into the mix with the Hawkeye program, essentially learning the new playbook on the fly as he practiced and then started next to Higgins for the balance of the season. Between those two and former walk-on Kyler Fisher becoming a more-than-capable rotation piece as a senior, what had been Iowa's biggest area of personnel loss for any position coming into 2023 turned into one of its strongest positions on the field, full stop.
Iowa, essentially, has made the best veteran addition possible to its legendary defense, even though it's not a "portal win" or a public bidding war with some NIL collective. Again, as Barnes said, that's the recruiting he was doing, and that recruiting is now already paying off.
Jackson, meanwhile, may be the next domino to fall in Iowa's favor, as he was recently granted another year of eligibility from the NCAA. Like Higgins, Jackson's already good enough for the NFL skill-wise, but they're both smaller and shorter players without the freak-show combine measurements to otherwise charm scouts. If Jackson knows he's got a familiar face to play next to in Iowa City next year, his decision to come back may be even easier.
