Iowa football: Five biggest recruiting busts in the Kirk Ferentz era
By Andrew Wade
Kalvin Bailey
It’s not very often you see a fullback rated highly, let alone in the top-100 of a recruiting class. Boy has times changed since then. Considering the Iowa football team typically just puts walk-ons or backup linebackers at fullback, it’s actually a bit surprising they pursued Kalvin Bailey.
Bailey was a 5’11” and 245-pound fullback out of Florida and he was rated a four-star recruit and a top-100 prospect in the entire nation in the class of 2005.
He had six offers coming out of high school including an offer to national powerhouses Florida State and Miami.
Yet, he chose to head north to Iowa City, Iowa and play for the Iowa football team.
Unfortunately, he never actually did much for the Hawks. He spent one year in Iowa City, registering zero statistics before being declared academically ineligible.
After briefly playing with the Iowa football team, Bailey went to Northern Iowa Area Community College for a season before bouncing around and eventually bowing out of college football.
To be fair to Bailey, a four-star fullback shouldn’t ever actually happen, but in an offense like Iowa’s, a fullback that talented should thrive, and he didn’t.