National Signing Day 2016: Full List of Hawkeye Commits
By Dylan Burn
National Signing Day is always a crazy day for college football. It usually isn’t too crazy for our Iowa Hawkeyes as they usually already know who will be committing. However, they do have one unknown.
Right now, the Iowa Hawkeyes have 24 young men committed to their program. They figured they may get another one on Monday afternoon when Detroit, MI offensive tackle, Alaric Jackson, was expected to make his decision.
However, something must’ve come up – a lot of people are speculating that Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh has gotten in on the action – and Alaric decided to push his decision back until later today.
I’m assuming he’ll do so after school like he had originally planned on Monday before these “difficulties” came up. Other than Jackson, Iowa isn’t awaiting a commitment from anyone else. They thought they may be losing Noah Fant, but the Nebraska tight end decided to cancel his visit to Minnesota that he was supposed to take this past weekend and is now fully committed to the Hawkeyes.
Now, lets take a look at the full list of kids committed to the black and gold:
- Toks Akinribade, ATH, 3 star Rivals
- Cole Banwart, OL, 2 star Rivals
- Shaun Beyer, TE, 3 star Rivals
- Lance Billings, DB, 3 star Rivals
- Cedric Boswell, DB, 2 star Rivals
- Frank Darby, WR, 2 star Rivals
- Noah Fant, TE, 3 star Rivals
- Chauncey Golston, DE, 3 star Rivals
- T.J. Hockenson, TE, 3 star Rivals
- Amani Hooker, DB, 3 star Rivals
- Amani Jones, LB, 3 star Rivals
- Cedrick Lattimore, DE, 3 star Rivals
- Romeo McKinight, DE, 3 star Rivals
- Nick Niemann, LB, 3 star Rivals
- Emmanuel Rugamba, WR, 3 star Rivals
- Austin Schulte, DE, 3 star Rivals
- Brandon Simon, DE, 3 star Rivals
- Nathan Stanley, QB, 3 star Rivals
- Kyle Taylor, LB, 3 star Rivals
- Barrington Wade, RB, 3 star Rivals
- Kristian Welch, LB, 3 star Rivals
- Spencer Williams, OL, 3 star Rivals
- Devonte Young, WR, 2 star Rivals
- Toren Young, RB, 3 star Rivals
Pretty typical for a Hawkeye recruiting class. They’re going to take a lot of 2-3 star guys and develop them into serviceable starters for a Big Ten team. It’s been their formula for how long? Why expect it to change now.
I’m most excited to see how Noah Fant ends up.
Fant was set on taking a visit to Minnesota this past weekend, but suddenly cancelled and gave his full commitment to the Hawkeyes. A lot of fans aren’t very pleased with how Fant handled the situation and think he’s got future transfer written all over him. Only time will tell.
Other than Fant, I’m most excited to see what Alaric Jackson ultimately decides later this afternoon. Jackson is a big kid at 6’7″ 285 pounds. Rivals has him as a three star recruit out of Michigan and it appears he’s down to Iowa, Michigan State, Iowa State, and Wisconsin. Jackson has the size and skill to be successful at Iowa, all he needs to do now is commit.
Other headliners include; Nathan Stanley, the quarterback out of Wisconsin who was the first commitment Iowa received in the class of 2016 back on November 10th, 2014. Stanley stayed strong with the Hawkeyes even when his home state Wisconsin Badgers came calling. Toren Young is another kid I am intrigued with. Young was actually the second commitment the Hawkeyes received and he had a monster senior year out of Monona Grove, WI. He carried the ball 333 times for 2,779 yards and 30 touchdowns. That’s an average of 232 yards per game and 8.3 yards per carry.
Young has the potential to be a big time running back for the Iowa Hawkeyes in the near future.
Next: Hawkeyes vs. Nittany Lions: Game Preview
Hawkeye fans shouldn’t expect any surprises from any of the commits, but should be on the lookout for what Jackson is doing. We’ll keep you updated as best we can on his status.
We’ll provide coverage of NSD all day as the Hawkeyes welcome in another great looking class.
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