Iowa football: 2020 WR commit Quavon Matthews is explosive

The Iowa football team picked up their first WR commit in the class of 2020, and he looks like he could be an explosive playmaker in the future.

As we’ve mentioned multiple times, the Iowa football team has gotten off to a strong start with their class of 2020, and this weekend that class got even better with the addition of their first wide receiver commit, a position of need so far in this class.

Quavon Matthews, a Largo, Florida native is currently rated as a 3-star prospect according to Rivals and held just three offers. Before his recruitment really took off though, the Iowa football team swooped in and offered him a scholarship last month.

A few weeks later, Matthews accepted the opportunity to play for the Iowa football program and join the Hawks in the class of 2020.

Although the Iowa football team isn’t known for possessing a significant amount of speed guys, in recent years the recruiting trends have changed as they have looked to pull in a few smaller, faster guys such as Ihmir Smith-Marsette. Matthews isn’t Smith-Marsette, but he is in the same mold.

At 6’0” and 170 pounds, Matthews is a pretty thin guy (for context Smith-Marsette is 6’1” 177 pounds), but it doesn’t matter much if the other team can’t catch him.

Against high school competition, Matthews shows great burst and breakaway speed. He’s dynamic in the punt return game, and his high school’s offense features quite a few go routes to get him the ball. They’ll even put him in the backfield from time to time at running back.

Essentially, they find ways to use his speed and to get the ball in his hands.

What I liked though was his willingness to get involved in the run game from a blocking perspective. He threw his body around as needed and stuck with his man throughout the duration of plays. He’s small, but the effort is what is most important.

The only concern I have from his tape is there were few variations in routes. Primarily, I saw him running deep and on occasion doing a few zone-buster types of routes, but that was the extent of it.

With the addition of three transfer wide receivers in the last week and a significant amount of younger guys in line for playing time next year, there is a good chance Matthews redshirts in year one, thus giving him a chance to develop a more complete route tree and put muscle on his frame.