Hurkett is a hard working, tough football player

Cedar Rapids Xavier linebacker Ethan Hurkett has spent his high school career focused on football and it has paid off with an offer and eventual commitment to the University of Iowa. We caught up with his head coach, Duane Schulte, and talked to him about what the Hawkeyes are getting with Hurkett.

Q: What type of player has he been for you?

SCHULTE: He has just been solid and hard working. He just wants to get coached up and does what his coaches ask him to do.

Q: What are his strengths as a player?

SCHULTE: I’d say his main strength is that he is just a football player. There is not a whole lot of flash. He is just down to Earth, he works hard, and loves football. He is not into the glitz and glamour of recruiting. I think he is mature enough that he understands recruiting is kind of crazy. He ignores all the fluff and just wants to get to work.

Q: How rare is it to have an athlete so mature with recruiting?

SCHULTE: So much of recruiting is people thinking they know what they are looking at and they don’t. He is not into all these stars and rating camps or whatever you want to call them. He knows that it is a waste of time.

Q: What areas of his game is he working on this off-season?

SCHULTE: He is getting bigger, faster, and stronger. It is the usual stuff.

Q: How is he as a leader?

SCHULTE: He has been very quiet and leads more by example than vocally. He will have to pick up the pace in both vocal leadership and leading by examples. Those are things I’m not worried about with him.

Q: What at Iowa caught their eye to extend an offer before he committed?

SCHULTE: I’m not exactly sure what they saw up there. They had seen him, talked to him, and had him at their camp. He went down to their junior day and they offered him then. They didn’t talk to me first or tell me, it just happened. I don’t know for sure what the final straw was that broke the camels back. I don’t blame them at all for offering. I can’t believe that other schools didn’t offer him prior to this. That is where I can tell you I don’t know what college coaches want half the time. We have had other schools talking to him. I tried to tell them to offer this kid and they didn’t. I am happy for Iowa because they did. They are getting a great kid.

Q: What do you think was holding back other coaches?

SCHULTE: I have no idea. After going through this now for X number of years, we have had many great players that did not get offers. It befuddles me when they say that they value what the high school coach says, they value having great character, grades, and being on a state championship team. It befuddles me when they ignore that.

Q: How will you use him this fall?

SCHULTE: He’ll play whatever we need. We’ll probably start him at linebacker and go from there. We had him put his hand on the ground sometimes last year on defense. We used him on offense at receiver and as a blocking back. We will see what he needs.

Q: Where does he project out college wise?

SCHULTE: That is a good question. I think Iowa will start him off standing up, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he puts his hand on the ground.

Q: What colleges were considered outside of Iowa?

SCHULTE: I don’t know if he was seriously considering anyone else. No one ended up pulling the trigger to offer until Iowa did.