Iowa football: Hawks building pipeline in Largo, Florida with latest commit

The Iowa football squad just got a big commitment from another 3-star Largo High School recruit. Kirk Ferentz’s 2020 class is now second in the Big Ten.

For the second time in the three days, the Iowa football team has landed a recruit from Largo, Florida. Quavon Matthews, a 3-star wide receiver from Largo High School committed to the Hawkeyes over the weekend and they just received a commitment from Keylen Gulley who visited Iowa last week.

Gulley is a 3-star defensive back and stands at 6-0, 165 pounds. He had offers from just Southern Miss and Iowa but had some level of interest from Eastern Kentucky, Middle Tennessee State, North Dakota State, Rutgers, and South Dakota.

Both Gulley and Matthews will join 2018 recruit, Calvin Lockett as guys from Largo High School. A big reason for that is because their head coach is former Hawkeye Marcus Paschal, who played for Coach Ferentz between 2003-2006.

It’s amazing how Iowa has been able to tap into the Florida pipeline the last few seasons and grab natives like Gulley, Matthews, Lockett and Mekhi Sargent. Very rarely do the warm weather guys want to spend their football seasons in the cold weather.

As for Gulley, he primarily played safety and quarterback for Largo High. He’s extremely athletic on both sides of the ball. The Hawkeyes like him better on defense and for good reason. Watching his film, he shows the ability to make the open field tackles and even do it all himself.

If you watch at the 0:30 mark, Gulley starts up tight on the defensive line. The quarterback throws it to his left, Gulley catches the receiver, pops the ball out, and recovers it. He’ll get a chance to add some weight to his frame once he gets on campus, but his height is already a plus.

If I had to compare him to someone right now, he reminds me a lot of Kentucky’s Mike Edwards who was selected in the third round of this year’s NFL Draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That tall, lanky body with good speed allows him to roam freely in the defensive backfield and make a play on any deep ball.

Gulley’s commitment has shot the Iowa 2020 recruiting class up to 19th in the country and 2nd in the Big Ten. With 14 commits now in this class, this could end up being Kirk Ferentz’ best class ever.