Iowa remains hot on the recruiting trail

When the world of college football recruiting changed two years ago, the Hawkeyes weren’t sure how they were going to approach the seismic shift to an early signing period and the option of official visits during the spring and summer.

While Kirk Ferentz was a supporter of the early signing period in December, initially he wasn’t all that warm to the idea of having official visitors in the spring. Ferentz had always liked the large group of official visitors later in the recruiting process.

Back in the old days, Iowa would bring in a large group of visitors, mainly prospects who were already verbally committed, along with a few undecided prospects, during the month of January just ahead of the February signing period.

When the rules changed to open up a signing period in December, Ferentz moved that date to early in that month.

But, he was firmly undecided about using official visits in the spring when he was asked about it early in 2018. The test case was 2019 running back Tyler Goodson, who made his official visit during spring practice in April of 2018. Goodson ended up committing early to the Hawkeyes shortly after the visit and officially announcing his verbal pledge on July 3rd.

Using the success they had with Goodson, Ferentz approved using a late June weekend just before the recruiting trail goes dark for official visitors last year. Iowa had already been bringing in a good number of prospects during the month of June, but per NCAA rules, they were always unofficial visitors. This time they would be on official visits and Ferentz was on board with slight change in philosophy.

That weekend brought 12 prospects from the Class of 2019 to Iowa City. Four were uncommitted and eight others were already on board. Three of the four uncommitted prospects ended up signing with Iowa and only one signed elsewhere.

The success of that weekend and the overall changes to the world of recruiting brought us to this weekend. Having covered recruiting for going on 17 years on a day to day basis, I’ve never seen a weekend like this, especially this time of year. Iowa had 22 official visitors on campus, including 9 verbal commitments and 13 uncommitted prospects.

Back in the old days before the early signing period, you might run into a big weekend in January, but nothing like this one.

Let’s not forget that Iowa came into the weekend on a little bit of a recruiting run. The week before they had picked up verbal commitments from Class of 2020 offensive lineman Mason Richman, who had made his official visit the week before, defensive lineman Yahya Black, who was in for Iowa camp last week, and a pair of Florida prep standouts in wide receiver Quavon Matthews and defensive back Keylen Gulley (with an assist from former Hawk Marcus Paschal, who is their high school coach).

Let’s not forget that the Hawkeyes were also making some headway with the Class of 2021 with the verbal commitment from offensive lineman Gennings Dunker earlier this month and then four star in-state offensive lineman Connor Colby gave his commitment on Friday to begin this big weekend.

As of Sunday evening four more prospects to the fold in the Class of 2020 to bring the total for this group to 18 (with a couple more potentially coming very soon). Jumping on board first this weekend was defensive back A.J. Lawson from Illinois. He had picked up an offer from Iowa in early May and it felt like it was a matter of time before he gave his pledge, which he did on Saturday.

Then on Sunday after concluding their visits, the Hawkeyes added three more prospects to their growing 2020 Class. On Friday Blair Sanderson reported that Iowa would be hosting Michigan defensive back Brenden Deasfernandes and defensive lineman Lukas Van Ness from Barrington, IL. Deasfernandes is the classic Phil Parker Special. Every year Parker secretly identifies a defensive back in the recruiting process and usually sneaks them in late. This year he found Deasfernandes at a camp, got him to Iowa City for another look, and then locked him up this weekend. Van Ness has a really solid offer list Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, and Kansas State, but was ultimately sold by a speech given to the recruits on campus by 2020 quarterback commit Deuce Hogan, who was the first commit for this class.

"Deuce was the first of my class to commit and has taken a leadership role. He talked about why he chose Iowa so early and how they have stayed so true to their word. He mentioned how Iowa doesn’t try to sell you on their program, but rather shows exactly how it would be to play there,” Van Ness said. “It was so genuine and true. His speech resonated with me because I felt the same way. From the moment I met with Iowa months ago, everything the coaches have said to me stayed true and honest. I knew exactly what I was getting.”

The speech by Hogan wasn’t really planned.

Iowa holds player panels during the visit and current Hawkeyes like Nate Stanley and Ihmir Smith-Marsette were part of the group on stage. As they were walking to the room, Iowa quarterbacks coach Ken O’Keefe asked Hogan if he would say a few words and he agreed and spoke from the heart about why he picked the Hawkeyes.

“Coach O’Keefe asked me if I would say a few words to the guys and their families. I have said this before, no decision is made randomly. It was 100% from the heart. While the other guys were talking I just thought it would be a great opportunity to express why I chose Iowa and who they or their sons would be in the huddle with and leading the team. I was really honored to tell them why I committed to the Hawkeyes,” Hogan said.

Also jumping on board this weekend was Indiana linebacker Jay Higgins, who was offered by the Hawkeyes earlier this month.

While not exactly the same because the visit side of recruiting was still under the old rules, this run in June kind of feels like the one that that the Hawkeyes got on back in June of 2015 when they picked up 15 verbal commitments in 21 days. Including in that run were players like T.J. Hockenson, Cole Banwart, Amani Hooker, Amani Jones, and Nick Niemann. If you want even more comparisons to that 2016 class, it was started with a verbal commitment from a quarterback Nate Stanley.

As mentioned earlier, there will likely be a couple more additions to this class from the group of visitors this past weekend to push the Hawkeyes up to 20 verbal pledges, which is pretty amazing given that we haven’t even reached July.

One other note on this class as it comes together very quickly, 13 of the 18 commitments held offers from power five programs, so the Hawkeyes are beating out a pretty impressive list of schools for the major of these prospects.

As mentioned earlier, college football recruiting is changing. The old days of it being a slow process that really took shape in December and January are now a distant memory. Iowa has ramped up their evaluation process, identified prospects who would be a good fit for their program, gotten them on campus, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Given the success that the Hawkeyes have had with this late June official visit weekend, you can bet that it will be a staple for Iowa football recruiting moving forward.