Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa football 2022 recruiting class set to be historic haul for Hawkeyes | Iowa Hawkeyes Podcast

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

It is the early signing period, and the Iowa Hawkeyes are in a position to land a historic haul led by 5-star safety Xavier Nwankpa and followed by a 4-star defensive end in Aaron Graves who has been committed for nearly three years and several guys making decisions today about their future. It's a recruiting period unlike any other for the Iowa football team, and if all goes well today, we could see the 2022 recruiting class jump into the top-25.We also take a look at the early enrollee's for the Iowa Hawkeyes and which guys could make an impact early before wrapping up with a quick review of past recruiting classes and what makes this class so special.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.PrizePicksDon’t hesitate, check out PrizePicks.com and use promo code: “LOCKEDON” or go to your app store and download the app today. PrizePicks is daily fantasy made easy!NetSuiteOver twenty-seven thousand businesses already use NetSuite and RIGHT NOW through the end of the year NetSuite is offering a one-of-a-kind financing program to those ready to upgrade at NetSuite.com/LOCKEDONNCAA.Omaha SteaksThe holidays are around the corner and finding the perfect gift is tricky. Omaha Steaks makes it easy to send friends and family an unforgettable gift guaranteed to be loved. Go to Omaha Steaks dot com and enter “College” into the search bar to order The Perfect Gift Package. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back Hawkeye Nation to a Wednesday morning episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and as I have been doing this entire week, I'm coming at you live from a hotel room. We changed up hotel rooms. Our last hotel, the water kept getting cold during the shower.

My wife's pregnant. She was getting very upset. So anyways, we moved to a hotel room, so the background might be different. I'll be back at my own home office on Friday, though. So two more episodes, this one, the next one, where we'll be breaking everything down in the Iowa Hawkeye sporting community from a hotel room. Before we get into anything for the show, and this is going to be an awesome show today, it is the early signing day.

That means the future of Iowa football is being set today. And we have a lot of action to cover for you on the show today. Before we get to that, though, I want to thank you all for making the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get podcasts at and also on YouTube by searching Locked On Hawkeyes. So, as I said, it's 2021 early signing day for the class of 2022, and it's kind of an interesting period for Iowa. More often than not, Iowa doesn't have very many last-second decisions, at least from a fan perspective.

Most guys, most classes are wrapped up well in advance for the Iowa Hawkeyes. I'm thinking about that 2020 class. That class was pretty much entirely wrapped up in early July. So this class has been a bit interesting. There were a lot of concerns. People were freaking out a little bit. August comes, we only have a couple of commits. People are like, what is actually going on?

August comes, we only have a couple of commits. People are like, what is actually going on? Now that we have Xavier joining the program from Southeast Polk, five-star safety, people are starting to loosen up a little bit and not be as worried. But also the fact that Xavier is actively recruiting people to come to Iowa, we could see arguably the most exciting recruiting day we've had in a decade, two decades since Kirk Ferentz took over. I mean, this is an exciting day. There are four or five guys who we have not officially heard have committed to the Iowa Hawkeyes and they're signing their NIL deals or a national letter of intent today. Let's break it down. We've got TJ Hall, Orlando Trader, Keon Entryger, Brian Allen,

Kerryon Crawford, and Landon McKeekrix. I might've just butchered his name. Yeah, no, Landon McKeekrix. That's six, seven guys that we don't know where specifically they are going. Now we have crystal balls in for some of them. There are some reports coming out about most of them. For example, pretty sure TJ Hall has come in Iowa. Orlando Trader appears to be going to Iowa, but right now technically committed to Central Michigan. Cohen Entry is a guy who has had a strong push towards Wisconsin and Michigan for most of his last part of his recruiting period. But with the emergence of Xavier coming to Iowa, with him being on site this past week or on campus this past week, it seems like things

are trending in Iowa's direction. And there was actually a crystal ball put in at a level six for him to go to Iowa. Landon McKeekricks is a very interesting situation. Does he want to go to Iowa? Does he want to farm? I mean, it's really, it's definitely a unique situation for most ball programs, maybe not as much for Iowa. Brian Allen, his recruiting has been literally all over the place. And I want to talk about him in a second. And then we have Kerryon Crawford, who has been a recent kind of priority for Iowa. And it looks like the crystal ball has him going to Arkansas State. People are sitting there wondering, why go to Arkansas State? That's not really any of our business, to be completely honest.

However, with Kerryon Crawford, if he's looking for early playing time, if he wants to get into a program where he can be playing quicker, a program that is closer to home, Arkansas State does make sense for him. Plus, with the transfer portal, if he does develop well, performs really well as a freshman or sophomore, there's always that opportunity for him to transfer out. I know that's not the intent of the transfer portal, but it's an option as a young athlete, you have to be thinking about in the back of your mind. And if you want to get NIL deals, being able to play early can be prioritized over being able to play later, even if it's the difference between Arkansas State and in Iowa. So carry on,

Crawford, more than likely not going to the Hawks, which is neither here nor there. Brian Allen is a guy who I do want to talk about, though. We're going to talk about some early enrollee type stuff and also why this class is actually one of the best classes Iowa has ever signed, quite possibly by the end of it. But when you look at Brian Allen, he has had a very interesting recruitment. It came down to Illinois has had a very interesting recruitment. It came down to Illinois and Iowa a couple months ago. He committed to Illinois. Iowa starts winning.

He decommits from Illinois. All the hype was that he was going to flip to Iowa. Then all of a sudden, Oregon gets involved, and all the hype is Brian Allen going to Oregon. Then Oregon's head coach leaves for Miami, and now we don't know what's going on. And honestly, the reports coming out are so all over the place with Brian Allen. Here's the thing.

At the end of the day, I want someone who wants to come to Iowa. I want recruits who want to play for the black and gold. I do not want recruits who don't know what they want. Those are the kind of recruits, and I know it's tough. They're young athletes. They're high school athletes. It's tough to know exactly what you want, but when guys like this are flip-flopping back and forth, back and forth, that is a recipe for disaster. I think back to last year, Jordan Oladukun. He was a guy who committed, decommitted, committed, decommitted from Iowa several times, ultimately ended up at Sanford for whatever reason,

and is already in the transfer portal. There is a history of that. If you are constantly flip-flopping your mind, there is a chance, I would love to see studies on this, but there is a chance you're going to be a similar way when you get to a collegiate program. Iowa wants guys who are going to be committed to being a Hawkeye. They want guys who are willing to step in, work hard, and really prepare for their shot two to three years down the line. Is Brian Allen that guy?

I honestly don't know. If he decides to commit to the Iowa Hawkeyes, I will be all on board, fully supporting him. Very talented player, but there's always going to be that question in the back of my mind. How long is Brian Allen going to stay with this program? Or will he stay with this program? So it's going to be a really interesting day. We got a lot of excitement. As I mentioned earlier, Iowa typically doesn't

have more than one or two guys, even if that, deciding their future on the day of signing day. That typically just doesn't happen for the Hawks. Typically they already have people who are committed. So the fact that we have four or five guys, now granted, the guys in the building, and there's rumors, that's why there's rumors, there's guys in the building who know what and who are most likely committing, but the fans, the media doesn't exactly know with 100% certainty. And so it makes recruiting day or signing day a little bit more exciting for Iowa Hawkeye fans. And we're going to hear all about that throughout the day. Whatever happens in today's conversation for recruiting and the early signing period,

we're going to be breaking that all down on tomorrow's show. So be on the lookout for that. And we'll try to break stuff down as things and news comes out throughout the day. There's going to be NLI signings throughout the day. So we'll make sure to break that down today and also on tomorrow's show. Coming up, I wanna talk a little bit about early enrollees and how that can impact playing time coming up this year. Before we get to that though, I've been telling you about PrizePix.

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single day. Also make sure to check out the ultimate college football playoff preview 2021. Local experts, betting advice, and draft analysis. The most comprehensive college football playoff preview begins this Friday. That is in just two days. Segment one, we talked about what to expect. There are several guys who are going to be committing potentially to the Iowa Hawkeyes today that we don't actually know about. So we're going to be covering that on tomorrow's show.

I do want to talk about early enrollees and how it can be important and detrimental to players' experiences. And that's one of the reasons why Iowa does not push guys to enroll early. They want them to enjoy their senior year. They want them to be ready to go to the Hawks. Now, you can look back on several situations and say, what would have happened if, for example, Deuce Hogan decided to not enroll early, wanted to finish out his senior year. Now, granted, it was a very interesting time with kind of the pandemic beginning to start, right? What happens if he enrolls early and can at least have contact with the coaches in regards to playbooks and all that stuff? Does Deuce Hogan have a leg up on the competition? Does Deuce Hogan not transfer? On the flip side of that, let's look at guys like Arlen Bruce, Keegan Johnson,

Connor Colby. These three guys all enrolled early. They had an opportunity to go through spring ball, which is what everyone will tell you is the biggest opportunity for growth for an Iowa football player. And they had the opportunity to do it without the stress of playing games and without as heavy of a practice dosage. They able to get kind of their feet wet with the college atmosphere, understanding classes for the first time, understanding how to balance that with football before they got into the fall season and their head is absolutely spinning.

So they're able to get a leg up on the competition and that you can actually attribute that to the fact that Arlen Bruce and Keegan Johnson maybe aren't starting by the year by year's end. If they hadn't joined the program in the spring, Connor Colby probably isn't starting. Had he not joined the program in the spring. So there's clear examples of where that can be successful again iowa doesn't want to force guys in there because if they force them in there now you start missing home you become homesick maybe you missed your prom maybe you missed playing high school baseball for the last time in iowa maybe you missed the end of your wrestling season if you're missing those things that's a problem you want to be wrapped up with your high school career so you can begin the next step into football.

Look at Tyler Linderbaum, a guy who didn't come in early. He played football, played wrestling, baseball, all that fun stuff, did not want to quit on his team. Made a pretty good name for himself, I would say. So it works both ways, and neither is right or wrong, but it is valuable in assessing who could play sooner rather than later. So the early enrollees, as far as we are aware, at this point, Caden Crawford, Xavier, Drew Stevens, the preferred walk-on kicker, Jazzy and Peterson, Brian Allen, potentially if he commits to Iowa,

and TJ Hall. The two people I'm most excited about in that group is Xavier, who I think if he enrolls early, which he's planning on, I think he could be getting playing time next season. There are several open spots in that secondary. And as Phil Parker has always said, he wants to play his best guys. It doesn't matter who they are. He'll find a spot for them. And there's a lot of wiggle room depending on who goes pro. If Riley Moss does ultimately go to the NFL, if Jack Kerner does go to the NFL, maybe you see a Kayvon Merriweather slide over into Jack's spot, and you see Xavier or Dane Belton playing that strong safety spot. What about Cooper DeJean? We could see him at corner if they feel like that's the best spot

to get him on the field as early as possible. Iowa wants to get their best players there, so that's really interesting to me. Xavier joining early. There's a good chance he is not redshirting next year. Iowa doesn't get those kind of guys look at how they handled AJ Epineza now granted AJ Epineza on the defensive line they like to rotate a lot of guys in but AJ Epineza was not going to be getting red shirted that first

year he just too talented to hold him back same thing with Xavier Drew Stevens is also interesting you think about from a kicker perspective you don't necessarily need a ton of time to be a kicker, right? There's not a lot of plays you're learning, but Drew Stevens, an opportunity to get into the weight room, maybe gain some strength and compete and get a leg up on that kicker battle between Aaron Bloom, him, Lucas Amaya. There's a lot of guys kind of in that room for kicker who've been waiting for their shot after Keith Duncan, after Caleb Shudock, Drew Stevens, by all accounts, a five-star kicker who has been getting scholarship offers in the Big Ten and chose to come to Iowa instead with a preferred walk-on opportunity. A huge get for Iowa. I would not be surprised to see Drew Stevens taking over place-kicking responsibilities as a true freshman, giving Iowa another line of fantastic kickers.

The other guy to watch out for here is Jazzy Patterson, a running back out of Florida, a guy who was highly recruited, had kind of a down year, and then the recruiting kind of picked back up. Iowa came in, snatched him, a four-star running back by some accounts. He is a guy to watch out for, especially with this running back room, kind of in a little bit of chaos, right? Tyler Goodson going to the NFL. Ivory Kelly Martin has not shown the ability

to be that lead back, had a lot of issues with fumbles. Now you have Gavin Williams, you have LaShawn Williams potentially getting most of the carries in the bowl game, but Kirk is not afraid to turn to a freshman running back if he needs to. That is not a problem for him at all. And I think you have to be wondering, is there an opportunity for a Jazz and Patterson to make that mark? Is there an opportunity for him to get in early and become the guy? You also have to watch out for four-star running back Caleb Johnson as well.

Those are guys who could play early. Now, it's interesting that Jazzon's coming. Caleb is not. Caleb looks like a grown man already. But the running back spot is a spot that is really still kind of open. I know a lot of us like what we saw from Gavin Williams. A lot of us have liked what we've heard about LaShawn Williams. But a lot of us like Torin Young as well,

and we liked what we saw from Makai Sargent and Tyler Goodson just look better, and that's ultimately what happened. Plus, Iowa does a really good job of rotating backs in and out, so there's opportunities for multiple guys, even if they are not technically the starter. So that will be really interesting for me as well to watch coming up this spring for those guys who are early enrollees. So again, some guys are going to be early enrolling. Some guys are not. It just makes sense for some. It doesn't make sense for others.

And that's totally fine. Both paths can work and can get you to the right spot. However, the early enrollee path is probably the easiest way if you have the right talent and work ethic immediately to get you on the playing field quicker than most athletes can. Coming up, we're going to talk a little bit about this signing day and just give you some numbers to make you feel better about, you know, there's been a lot of concerns in regards to this recruiting class and whether or not it's a top tier recruiting class.

I don't want to spoil it, but by all accounts, it is. And also, I want to give you a little bit of a review of Iowa and their recruiting history, three star, four star, five star, and why at the end of the day, we don't know what to expect from each of these guys until they get into the building. So we're going to be talking about all that coming up in a few short moments. Before we get into that, though, betonline.ag has you covered for all the seasons that are going on with more props, odds, and lines than ever before. As football season continues, the march to the playoffs, basketball season continues

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And I started looking at the numbers and there's something that kind of jumped out to me. So I'm going to pull these numbers up and kind of walk you through them. I was looking at where does this class rank? A lot of people look at where it ranks in terms of overall ranking and the Big Ten. It doesn't look as good from that angle. But what they're looking at is overall points. They're not looking at the talent within those groups. So, for example, if a team has 25 commits and they're all three stars and a team has 10 commits and they're all four stars,

the team with 25 commits is going to look better according to 24-7 sports. So right now this class is ranked 10th in the Big Ten and 42nd in the nation. With four or five guys committing today, that is expected to jump quite significantly. But the one thing I want to call out, actually the two things. First of all, we knew this was going to be a smaller class. It's a very small senior class. We've had some transfers. But Iowa was not expected to bring in a huge class.

This was never going to be the case for the Hawks. This is exactly how Tyler Barnes thought this was never going to be the case for the hawks this is exactly how tyler barnes thought this was going to play out two when you look at the numbers of these classes this is actually right now the highest rated class in the last eight years so let's go through the numbers and also i'm going to call out some of the best players from those classes and where they're ranked at and i'll explain all this and why after I get through that. Right now, the 2022 class, 88.3. 2021, 87.7.

2020, 86.4. Again, these are the rankings or the average ranking per athlete. 2019, 85.9. I want to call out the fact that Sam Laporta was in this class. He was the seventh lowest rated commit for the Iowa Hawkeyes. 2018, 85.6. Now, Tyler Linderbaum was the third highest ranked commit. However, four out of the five lowest rated commits have been key contributors.

Starting safety, Kayvon Merriweather. Starting linebacker, Seth Benson. Big 10 defensive back of the year, Riley Moss. And starting kind of off and on starter, Nico Regani at wide receiver. 2017, 84.5. The two biggest guys here, AJ Paneza, Tristan Warfs, first and third highest rated recruits in that class. 2016, 84.2.

TJ Hawkinson, the fifth lowest rated commit in that class. 2016, 84.2, TJ Hawkinson, the fifth lowest rated commit in that class. In 2015, 83.2, James Daniels was the best out of that class, out of everyone I saw, and was the highest rated commit in that class. So the stars don't always matter. Now, they are important, and I have no doubt that Xavier is going to be a big time player. When you get a five-star recruit, Iowa doesn't typically get those guys, but more often than not, they're going to work out. Now Iowa has had cases back in 2004 where five-star recruits didn't work out, whether it's injuries and effectiveness, whatever it might be, didn't work out. But generally speaking, those guys are going to make it. But I want to tell you that because I think it's important that while we're all very excited about some of the higher rated guys, more often

than not, it's guys that we sign on the last day. It's the guys that no one is looking at. People are overlooking entirely. It's guys like an Orlando trader or a TJ Hall who signed on the last day and end up becoming big time players for the Iowa Hawkeyes. It's guys like Addison Ostringa or Cale Vanderbush, tight ends who weren't even really being recruited heavily and ultimately committed to Iowa. It's guys like that who come out of nowhere and Iowa ultimately has an all-American player on their hand. Look at Josie Jewell out of Decorah. Forgot to add him on this list as well, but Josie Jewell out of Decorah, a two-star guy.

Riley Moss is a two-star guy. So it's important that we – it's always good and it's fun to see the rankings and Iowa having a fantastic ranking. Iowa may be jumping up into the top 25 depending on who all commits today, but it is not the end-all, be-all of the success of the Iowa program. Iowa, more so than any program in all of college football, does the most with the least on paper. I say that because these players are not bad players. They just were under-recruited. People couldn't see how they could develop. They didn't see the intangibles of the work ethic and the willingness to do whatever it took to be on the field playing in Kinnick Stadium.

Iowa does a phenomenal job of finding those guys, developing those guys, and turning those guys into NFL players. So when you're looking at this class, don't forget about those guys who are not Xavier and not Caleb Johnson, not Aaron Graves. Aaron Graves is going to be a fantastic player, but don't forget about those under-recruited guys who Iowa also brought in, that Iowa also landed, who likely will have a big impact on the future of this program for years to come. And again, for as much concern as there was back in August about this program, this class, 88.3, the highest rated class since at least 2014 for Iowa.

That's pretty impressive. And the rankings are going to continue to jump up as Iowa lands commits today that we do not have currently locked in to this point. That does do it for our show today. I hope you enjoyed the recruiting preview. As we get recruits coming in and commits some of those surprise commits, I'll make sure to be covering that on the Twitter account, Facebook, Instagram, maybe drop some locked on nows, but we will have an episode tomorrow breaking all that down as well.

So make sure to tune in for that. If you want some betting advice and where to place your bets at, at betonline.ag, check out the Locked On Bets podcast hosted by your boy Q and handicapping expert, Lee Sterling of Paramount Sports. They've got three to four picks every single day. So even though Iowa isn't playing, you can bet on sports by going to Locked On Bets, listening to them, placing your bets at betonline.ag. Again, thank you all for tuning in. I hope you have a fantastic Wednesday and as always Hawkeye Nation, let's go Hawks.