Boettger enjoys official visit
As an in-state commit, Cedar Falls tight end Ike Boettger has been to Iowa City a number of times, but his official visit this past weekend gave him an even deeper look into the program. We caught up with the 6-foot-5, 230-pound Boettger to talk about the visit, his future with the Hawkeyes, if one of his high school teammates might join him at Iowa next year, and more.
Q: What was the whole official visit like this weekend?
BOETTGER: It was good. I've been down there a lot for the games, but I've never been there on a non game day really, so it was nice just to meet all of the coaches and their families and some of the players. That's what I really enjoyed about it.
Q: Who was your host?
BOETTGER: George Kittle.
Q: Was that a highlight, getting to spend more time with the players?
BOETTGER: Yeah, definitely, just getting to know some of them. I liked all of the guys that I met, so that was good.
Q: Also, you got to see a lot of the guys in your recruiting class right?
BOETTGER: Yeah, there were like 10 to 15 of us.
Q: Have you gotten to know some of those guys pretty well by this point?
BOETTGER: Yeah, guys like Jon Wisnieski and Malik Rucker.
Q: What were your conversations with the coaches like?
BOETTGER: We talked about everything, but football related, just about after I sign in February, when I'm going to come down and just working out after basketball is over and stuff like that.
Q: Position wise, did you meet with the tight ends coach?
BOETTGER: Yeah, it was all tight ends. I met with Coach Raih and I met with Coach Davis and Coach Ferentz too.
Q: Would you be open to play defensive end or somewhere else if there was an opportunity?
BOETTGER: Yeah, for sure.
Q: Did you like playing defensive end this year? It seemed like you made a lot of plays when you were in there.
BOETTGER: Yeah, defensive end was really fun. I liked it.
Q: Obviously you made a lot of plays at tight end too. How would you assess your season looking back on it?
BOETTGER: I was split out a lot this year because teams already had like eight guys in the box against us, so if I lined up at tight end they'd put nine in the box. So they split me out at receiver a lot of the time. But it was a fun year.
Q: What was kind of your overall feeling as you head home from Iowa today?
BOETTGER: I'm really excited to go there. Right now, they're already working for next year really hard and expecting a lot more wins. I'm excited to be a part of it.
Q: Before I let you go, with your teammate Ross Pierschbacher being so highly sought after next year, do you ever do some recruiting for Iowa?
BOETTGER: Yeah, me and Ross are really good buddies, so he knows that I would like him to come to Iowa, but I don't really say a ton of stuff about it because that would get kind of annoying. I've just told him wherever he goes is fine, but it would be sweet to play with him at Iowa.
In his first year of playing tight end and defensive end after moving over from quarterback, Boettger finished with 33 catches for 452 yards and 4 touchdowns plus 57 tackles, 10 TFL, and 5 sacks.