Iowa football: Three things we learned from yesterday’s early signing period
By Andrew Wade
The excitement to be Hawkeyes is real
The Iowa football team’s recruiting class ranks 38th in the nation and 9th best in the Big Ten, which says more about the strength of the Big Ten when it comes to recruiting than it does Iowa, but what impressed me most is the excitement shown by the new recruits, many of which have been committed to the Hawks for months.
Ezra Miller likely set a record for how many times he visited campus (29) and guys such as Cherry Creek High School quarterback Alex Padilla have been committed since mid-summer. Padilla, for example, received late interest from Georgia, but stayed strong to the Hawks and will even be early enrolling so he can participate in spring practice.
He’s not the only guy eager to be a part of the time. In fact, five others will be joining him when the second semester begins, which Kirk Ferentz is quite excited about as long as it makes sense for the player.
"I’m for it under two conditions: First of all, it’s got to be their idea and not our idea. We don’t push it on guys because we did have a bad outcome, I’m probably going back eight or ten years ago where a guy came out here and pretty much sat in his room and really missed his girlfriend, did poor in school and that was a really bad combination. If a guy is not ready to leave high school, it’s a really bad idea and ready for the right reasons."
The second piece was if the students were ready for the academics portion of it and not still stuck in high school mode.