After attending Iowa's Junior Day on Saturday, 2028 Dowling Catholic offensive tackle Carter Barrett received an offer from the Hawkeyes.
Barrett spoke with Hawkeye Beacon to discuss what the offer means to him, what it's been like to receive several Power 4 offers as a freshman, his relationship with George Barnett and more.
Having taken his third visit to campus during his freshman year, Barrett has begun to get to know Barnett, his would-be position coach, well.
"I've talked to him a few times now, so I've gotten a little closer to him," Barrett said on Saturday evening. "I really like him. I like who he is as a person and what he stands for."
Like other recruits have experienced, Barnett's candidness and straight forward honesty are what stick out to the freshman left tackle.
"It doesn't make you overthink anything," Barrett said. "You just know exactly what he thinks, so it's just a lot easier to know what they're thinking about you."
It's a lot easier for a prospect like Barrett to know what Iowa's OL coach thinks of him, considering the Hawkeyes offered him a scholarship on Saturday -- something they don't often do with recruits that are just freshmen. He's the first offensive linemen the Hawkeyes have offered in the 2028 class.
"It was a really neat experience," Barrett said. "It's just a shock when you hear that, and you just know the history of how they develop. So it's just really shocking when you get to hear that news. I'm still trying to process how it feels, but it really just shows how what Coach Barnett sees in me and that he believes in me -- who I am as a person, how I play football. It feels like I'm one of the top people he's looking at right now."
Getting on campus for the Junior Day as opposed to the two game day visits he took in the fall allowed the product of West Des Moines to get to know the program as a whole on a deeper level.
"I definitely learned a lot more about the culture and how they just believe in consistency and their tradition is really just what builds their program from the beginning," Barrett said. "Coach (Kirk) Ferentz has been there for such a long time, and people just stay in that program for a long time. No one ever seems to leave, so it's just really cool to see."
The Competition
With Barrett being so young, his recruitment process has barely gotten off the ground, though he already holds five offers. Iowa State, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Missouri have each extended him a scholarship offer, and he hasn't even stepped foot on campus in Madison or Knoxville, yet. Nebraska and Northwestern have also shown interest.
Barrett doesn't have any favorites for the time being, and his offer list is only bound to get much longer as his high school career goes on. Given that he can't speak directly with coaches other than when he visits schools or they stop by Dowling, his communication hasn't gotten too extensive with programs other than Iowa and Iowa State. The Cyclones were the first program to offer him a scholarship.
Evaluation
First things first, you can't teach size, and Barrett already stands at 6'5" and 275 pounds as a freshman. Not only that, but he was a good enough offensive lineman to start at left tackle for Dowling Catholic -- traditionally a powerhouse in the state of Iowa -- as a freshman. Those two things in and of themselves turn heads when it comes to the young prospect.
Turn on the tape, and coaches only become more enamored with Barrett.
The youngster doesn't explode off the ball, but when he makes contact, he's not letting go. Barrett is a strong, dominant presence on the left side of the Maroons OL that plays until the whistle. With a powerful frame and a mean streak, Barrett puts his feet iin the ground and moves forward -- and so does anything standing in his way. Despite being just a freshman, Barrett is seemingly unshaken by speed or power from opposing defensive lineman.
He also doesn't care who you are or where you came from -- he's going to step up to the line and physically dominate whoever lines up across from him... and he did it at the 5A level as a freshman.
The thing is, there's still plenty of weight and strength to be added to his frame and body. As his trainer at StrengthU JC Moreau told national analyst Greg Smith, Barrett "has five-star potential." The sky is the limit for the young prospect.
