The Iowa football team was busy hauling in recruits to the 2020 recruiting class when 2022 prospect Aaron Graves committed. His commitment is unprecedented.
Landing 2021 recruits Connor Colby and Gennings Dunker this early in the recruitment process was fantastic for the Iowa football program, but landing 2022 prospect Aaron Graves right now is not just early, it’s the earliest in Iowa football history.
Since Rivals started tracking college recruitment back in 2002, there has not been a single prospect to commit three years before they anticipate stepping foot on campus.
Two former Iowa football players committed pretty early though. Linebacker James Morris committed 2.5 years before his scheduled date to join the Hawkeyes and last year’s top lineman Tyler Ezra committed just over 2 years before his scheduled date to join the Hawks. For those of you keeping track at home, Graves has those guys beat by 6 months.
More often than not, prospects don’t commit until the final 6 months of their recruitment process, otherwise known as a year before they are likely joining the team.
As we saw with the recruitment of 4-star quarterback Deuce Hogan, getting a guy early can build a lot of positive momentum on the recruiting trail. Hogan has been a huge advocate to potential Iowa football players and these recruits are responding positively to him. If the Hawks can get another 2-3 commits over the next year for the class of 2022, we could see a similar domino effect.
As for Graves, he is a 6’4” 230-pound strongside defensive end hailing from Gowrie, Iowa, and he will be entering his sophomore season in 2019 so the kid has a lot of room to grow. Despite age, one thing is for certain about the kid, he always wanted to be an Iowa football player.
Sean Bock of 247Sports posted this earlier about a conversation he had with Graves.
Caught up with #Swarm22 DE commit Aaron Graves.
— Sean Bock (@SBock247) June 26, 2019
Graves was teaching swim lessons when Kirk Ferentz called to offer him a scholarship. He accepted it almost as soon as KF extended the offer.
“My goal of my football career was to play for the Iowa Hawkeyes.”
Graves sounds like my kind of guy, and I am excited for the Iowa football team to continue building a class around him.
As of today, the Hawkeyes have extended 15 other offers to class of 2022 prospects.