Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Should we be concerned by the Iowa football team's 2022 recruiting class size?

Episode Date: July 6, 2021

The 2022 recruiting class for the Iowa football team is off to a slow start. We discuss why we should and why we shouldn't be concerned about progress in the class and also ask the question, why isn't the Tight End University pitch working for top tight end recruits?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.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. 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 Tuesday morning episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and today's episode is brought to you by rockauto.com. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. Visit rockauto.com and tell them Lockdown sent you. And on today's show, I did tell you yesterday we were going to drop a show today.

Typically, we are Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We are more than likely this week going to be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. So stay on the lookout for those two episodes coming later this week. On today's show, though, we want to talk a little bit about recruiting because that is such a hot topic in the Iowa football world. We have lost a couple potential commits, I should say. They weren't commits yet, but guys who Iowa felt like we were, or Iowa fans at least, felt like we were going to get lost a couple guys like that. There's some crystal balls going against Iowa. We want to talk about where is Iowa at from a recruiting perspective? Why should we be worried, and why shouldn't we be worried? And we're going to take a look at the tight end position specifically, because you got to start wondering after a couple

years not being able to nab a top tight end, What is going on? That is something we're going to talk about on today's show. We're also going to talk about Joe Wieskamp and the fact that he has officially declared for the NBA he is not coming back and why this could be a phenomenal move for him and why he could even be better in the NBA than he is in college basketball. That's all on the show today. Let's kick it off with some recruiting news, though. As I mentioned a couple seconds ago, there have been a couple commits or a couple guys who are not going to Iowa. We also did get a commit, though. Let's actually kick it off with the good stuff here. The Iowa Hawkeyes landed Jacob Bostick, a 6'3", 170-pound wide receiver out of Palatine, Illinois. He had 19 offers, including Illinois and Louisville. He is ranked the 672nd positional player in the 2022 class.

This is awesome for Iowa. They didn't need to get a lot of wide receivers, especially after getting three in last year's class with Arlen Bruce, Keegan Johnson, and Brody Breck. If Brody Breck does decide to go to Iowa, that obviously could change how Iowa recruits the wide receiver position, but it sounds like the fact that Iowa was only getting one wide receiver in this class was a big draw for Jacob Bostic, and he has decided to join the Iowa Hawkeyes, which is awesome news to get another commit, moving Iowa up to seven commits on the year.

The comparison for Bostic has been, he's kind of been getting the comparison from to Amir Smith-Marset from some of the guys at 24-7 Sports. When I watched his tape, you can definitely see the speed, the great acceleration. He had a couple of great kickoff returns, a lot of deep routes. So I can see where that comparison Amir Smith-Marset is actually coming in to play there. Obviously any any wide receiver coming into Iowa, though, wants to be their own person. And the fact that Iowa is continuing to get some very good athletes at the wide receiver position only bodes well for the offensive production for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

On the flip side of that, Iowa did not get tight end Andrew Keller, a guy who goes to high school with Jack Dotzler, another Iowa commit, really felt like that was going to happen. You just felt like you knew Andrew Keller was going to be an Iowa Hawkeye. Iowa wants two tight ends in this class. We knew that. Again, Andrew Keller out of Wanakee. We knew that Iowa wanted two tight ends. Andrew Keller was a guy who we felt like Iowa had a very, very good chant at.

The fact that he goes to high school with a guy who also committed to Iowa felt like that was even a bigger deal. When some of the guys reached out to him, he was very excited about his visit to Iowa. He even had crystal balls in for Iowa. This is a top 500 player, 23rd ranked tight end in the whole class, 6'6", 210 pounds. He goes to Iowa State. Now, he hasn't visited Iowa State for, he visited them June 11th. He's now visited Iowa June 25th.

So clearly Iowa just couldn't sell him on that. And there were some rumors coming out of that visit that maybe it didn't go as well as we had expected. I don't know what actually happened there, but I can say this. I can understand there are some concerns when we're losing out-of-state guys that we're targeting against Iowa State to Iowa State, especially when it comes at the tight end position where Iowa has been dominant over the last 20 years at that position. Now, we all thought, okay, not a big deal. We're going to get Micah Riley-Ducker, or at least that's how I felt. I thought we can find another under the radar tight end, but we can at least get Micah Riley-Ducker, the product out of Bellevue

West. Yet, that seems to have changed as well. Micah Riley Ducker, the Bellevue West tight end. Iowa has been linked to very heavily. 6'6", 235 pounds, top 400 tight end. There are a couple predictions in for Iowa, but they are a little bit later in the process. There is one crystal ball, and it comes from our very own Sean Bach, and it is to Auburn.

And that is clearly concerning for a lot of reasons. Sean put that in on July 2nd. Again, I don't know. That doesn't mean that Micah is committing to Auburn. It just seems like that could be trending that way. Sean has a very good history of predicting these kind of outcomes. And, again, that would actually to me be a bigger loss just because of how heavily Iowa has been recruiting Micah,

how much he's enjoyed being at the school, how many times he's even visited the school, and the fact that he has connections at the school with Keegan Johnson, a guy who is also at the University of Iowa. Micah is announcing his commitment tomorrow, so be on the lookout for that. We'll be giving a breakdown after that happens. Hopefully he surprises us and he ends up at the University of Iowa. But as of right now, it is not looking

that way. So that kind of raises two questions. What is going on with the tight end position? Iowa is tight end U. Why can we not recruit the tight end position very well? And also, what is going on with this class? This is looking like a little small of a class. Iowa has the least amount of commits, or at least tied for the least amount of commits in the Big Ten. They're 14th in the Big Ten overall rankings. Not exactly what Iowa fans love to see, but we're going to be talking about that on segment

two, talking a little bit about why that's not concerning and why it is concerning. And then also talking about the tight end position. Should we be concerned about the fact that Iowa is not landing top tier tight ends? Yes and no. I know I'm giving you some vague answers. I want you to come back and listen to the show. So come back on segment two. Before we get into segment two, I do want to tell you about rockauto.com because this episode is brought to you by them. With the ever-increasing numbers of makes and models, it is now impossible for your local chain auto parts store to stock all the parts you need. Why endear often pointless or seemingly intimidating questioning and wait while the person behind the counter orders the parts on their computer, choosing only the brand their warehouse happens to carry? You have the power to do this yourself.

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ever need. Visit rockauto.com. All right, we're getting back into the recruiting talk. And just a reminder that we will be back on Thursday and Friday. We will not have an episode tomorrow for episode week. And we'll be back for full time, which means we'll be back Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, beginning July 19th. So stay on the lookout for that. And as things pop up, right, commitments, decommitments whatever it might be we'll be covering all that on the show so we talked before the break we want to talk about tight end you we also want to talk about the class itself let's kick it off with the class though

and iowa right now is 54th in the nation in terms of recruiting 24th it was the ranking last year by the end of it and they're 14th in the big Ten. They only have seven commits. Nebraska only has seven, and the next closest team has nine, and that is Indiana, or at least when I did my rundown about a day ago. So why is this happening? Let's start with that, and then we'll get into why we should or shouldn't be concerned. First and foremost, COVID. I don't want to keep placing a blame on COVID, but it does impact the recruiting cycle. A lot of these kids,

you know, now they've had a chance to see these, you know, see these schools, but they hadn't had the chance until recently that also hurt Iowa from a camp perspective. A lot of those 2022 guys, you know, they're seeing them for the first time in camp this summer. That's tough. You want to get them in camp or not say camp. They're coming for official visits, but you want to see them in camp a year ago, two years ago. They didn't have that opportunity to do that. Iowa also is not going to change their approach because of COVID.

They don't like guys committing before they've seen the campus. Typically, they want guys who go there and love, not just the program, not just what Iowa coaches are telling them, but they love the feel of the community because that is just as important to make sure they are comfortable with the school. Iowa is not going to change their approach there. Okay. They've also had some phenomenal classes. So as far as targeting certain positions, they don't have as much of a strenuous need at a lot of positions as they typically have in the past. Now that's not to say they don't need those positions, but they don't have as big of a need at those positions, right? It's not the tight end position two years ago where all of a

sudden we're losing Noah Fant and TJ Hawkinson and we're going into the season with Nate Weeding and Sean Byer, a former wide receiver and a couple of walk-ons, right? So that's the other thing. Also, we're missing out on a lot of top twos. We are so close. A lot of times I was able to close the deal. I don't know why they're not closing the deal now. I don't know what is happening. It feels like more so than other years when Iowa has gotten to that top two, we're not getting the recruit. Look at Javon Tracy, Tyrone Tracy's brother. We're in the top two. I expected Iowa to get Javon. They don't. He goes to Miami of Ohio. He has a brother there. He's closer to him. I understand that. Andrew Keller, Iowa's top two. He goes to Iowa State. We can go down the

list here and you can see where this has happened multiple times in this class. Even Ian Pugh, a wide receiver that Iowa was recruiting heavily in addition to Jacob Bostic. Nothing. So what is happening? I'm not sure in regards to why Iowa can't close the deal on that, but Iowa is close. So you know the pitch is still working there. So why should we be concerned? I'm concerned about the fact that the concept of tight end university is not a good selling point, clearly. We've missed out on a lot of top tight ends over the last couple of years. Several to Nebraska even. Now, some of those are because they grew up Nebraska fans.

It's hard to compete with that. But when you're losing guys like Andrew Keller, who maybe didn't grow up an Iowa State fan, I don't know how you lose that. I don't know how that isn't a big pitch. If Micah Riley-Ducker does go to Auburn, I understand the allure of Auburn. But how does that not work for you? So, Auburn, I understand the allure of Auburn, but how does that not work for you? So to me, that's a little bit of a concern. Why is Iowa unable to land these

top-end tight end commits? I don't know, but that's a little bit of a concern. This year, they struggled at getting a quarterback. They got Carson May. That's a big deal, but oftentimes when they can't get a quarterback early, that hurts the class as well. But oftentimes when they can't get a quarterback early, that hurts the class as well. Now, why shouldn't we be concerned? We knew it would be a smaller class. We absolutely knew it would be a smaller class coming into this. Kirk has even said that.

Again, this is the way Iowa wants. They're not concerned about it. I think, honestly, the biggest thing I'm concerned about is the fact that Iowa is losing out on so many top twos and so many guys that it feels like they're really close on and then they don't get. And now Tyler Barnes, Iowa's director of recruiting has made some comments on Twitter saying that Iowa, or basically saying, if you have to negatively recruit against the school, then as a recruit, you need to be thinking about what does that school bring and why are they focusing on some other school more than they're focusing on you? I don't know what that alludes to,

but I can only imagine schools are still out there talking about the events of last year for the Iowa Hawkeyes, and that has been an issue for some recruits. Some recruits don't even want to look at the school because of what happened last year that came out with the racial bias allegations. Now, if schools are using that against Iowa, that is pretty crappy. In fact, I don't really agree with negative recruiting in general. Maybe it's just the fact that I have grown up seeing the way Iowa recruits. I don't appreciate the negative recruiting. I think

you should always be focusing on yourself first and foremost. I was in a fraternity. We did not talk bad about the other fraternities. We only focus on what our fraternity brought to the table. You want to bring people in because they're excited, not because they're scared of going somewhere else. Okay. Now that is concerning to me. It'll be interesting to see if Kirk has any, uh, deliberate or pointed comments about that. He's mentioned that in the past. Um, I can only imagine that is why certain coaches Kirk isn't a big fan of, such as P.J. Fleck, maybe. Now that's just all speculation there, but again, that's a concern that that negative recruiting pitch seems to maybe be getting to some recruits.

Again, going back to why we shouldn't be concerned, though, that's where I was going at, and I remembered one of my other points. We knew it would be a smaller class. We knew Iowa wasn't going to grab as many people. And the other thing is, Iowa does a phenomenal job of finding under-the-radar talent. They do a tremendous job of finding guys who were not four-star recruits and turning them into phenomenal players.

Look at some of the best athletes Iowa has ever had at the university, or best players, I should say. Heck, Amir Suthmar Set and Brandon Smith, they were very unheralded. They were in the 1,000s in terms of rankings. Josie Jewell was going to play D3 football, right? I mean, this is the kind of stuff where Desmond King was not getting recruited by any major schools.

Iowa finds a way to make it happen. George Kittle, probably the most famous one of them all. The fact that he didn't have any big offers. His offer from Iowa came the day of signing day as a wide receiver. So Iowa out of all schools does the best job of finding under the radar guys. And they are going to continue their recruiting pitch into the season. They're going to look at high school athletes. They're going to look at guys who may be exploding the scene. And there's going to be more. And there's another reason why we shouldn't be concerned. There are going to be more players that are going to be there out of this. I should go back and explain

this. So this, this season specifically, this 2022 class, there is a better chance that there is under the radar guys, guys who have not been seen guys who are going to be high performers at the collegiate level. And we don't know about than in typical years because of the lack of camps because of lack of the lack of exposure depending on their high school football schedule there are going to be more guys that are going to come out of nowhere from this class mark my words that is going to happen and if anyone can recruit those guys it is the University of Iowa so that is something to watch out for as well again Iowa does a phenomenal job of going through the state of Iowa going through through the surrounding states and finding talent that maybe is overlooked. And coming up on segment

three, we're going to get into some of the tight end rankings and why that can give you an insight as to how Iowa can recruit. We're also going to talk about some of the recruits that are coming up for the University of Iowa, right? There are some guys who are making decisions very soon that could help change the perception of this class. That is all coming up on segment three of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Before we get into that, though, you know, I want to tell you about Bilt Bar. Bilt Bar is the best steamed protein bar on the market today. And right now they have a limited time flavor grasshopper cookie.

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Use the promo code LOCKED15 for 15% off at BiltBar.com. All right, y'all, we are back for our third and our final segment of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. And as we talked about a little bit, we are going into some recruiting talk today. So we've talked a lot about recruiting the last two segments. We talked about why it is concerning that Iowa doesn't have as big of a class. We talked about why it isn't as concerning.

And one thing we didn't mention was how the tight end class can give us an insight as to why this isn't concerning. Before we get into tight end rankings in the past, I think we'll give you a very good understanding of what we can expect from a recruiting perspective. I want to talk about the recruits that are coming up. Iowa is in the mix for several guys, including Christian Stokes,

who's going to be committing very soon. He's a safety prospect, has ties to the University of Iowa. He is down between two schools at this point, I believe, Michigan State and the University of Iowa. We also have Aiden Lowry, a guy who is also between two schools. We have the University of Illinois, and we do have the University of Iowa there. He is a running back prospect, and it sounds like he has really enjoyed his time with the Iowa Hawkeyes. So, again, going back to Christian Stokes, just to confirm here,

I'm looking up his top two. Yep, it looks like it is West Virginia, excuse me, not Michigan State. So, Christian Stokes between West Virginia and the University of Iowa. He has been recruited very heavily by Iowa and would be a huge commit for the Hawks. Again, having a lot of ties being that Detroit area, Phil Parker does phenomenal there. Aiden Lowry is a guy who is looking between Illinois and Iowa as well. He is going to be making a decision very soon to be on the lookout for that. Again, this is how this class turns around pretty quickly. You get

some guys in there very soon. Could be a lot of fun. Also, Carson Hinsman, a tackle prospect. He is a guy who is leaning UW, but maybe there's a chance he goes to Iowa. He has had a great visit to the University of Iowa and University of Wisconsin has done a great job of recruiting offensive line talent this year. Maybe he wants to go to a spot where he can be kind of the big guy there. On the defensive line, Hunter Dayo is a guy to watch out for. He has been rumored to the Hawks for so long. If Iowa lost out on this, this would be very concerning to me in my personal opinion. And then Brian Allen, a guy who Iowa has been on late, very late,

but seems like he is really enjoying his time talking to the University of Iowa. I believe he is trying to look at either Michigan State or the University of Iowa, so be on the lookout for him, a three-star defensive end. Those are the guys on the radar right now. Again, Micah Riley-Ducker, another guy who is on the radar who is committing tomorrow, but I already talked about him, so I didn't want to necessarily bring him up. Now, again, we talked about why Iowa shouldn't be worried, why Iowa fans shouldn't be worried, and whatnot.

And I want to talk to you about the tight end position specifically because I think when you look at what Iowa does a great job of, they do a great job of producing tight ends. But when you look at previous rankings, you shouldn't have a reason to be concerned at this point, right? We don't typically get those big-time recruits. In fact, outside of CJ Fedorowicz, who was a top 100 recruit, the highest ranked tight end prospect Iowa has gotten since 2004 is Noah Pham. 536 in the nation, and a lot of schools wanted him to be a defensive end. So let me run through some of the tight ends Iowa has sent to the NFL and where they were ranked. Sam Laporta, you might not remember this, unranked. When I say unranked, unranked by 24-7 sports, that means more than likely he was a top 1,000 prospect

or didn't have rankings in other sites. So I think that's a really important caveat to make. When I say unranked, it doesn't mean that he was not ranked at all. It means he was more than likely not ranked by other sites or a low recruit in that regard. And actually, let me confirm on the Sam Laporta talk again so I can just make sure I have that. And I'm not lying to you on the show here. I would never want to do that.

Sam Laporta, unranked on the initial. Yeah, he was 1,174. So typically you're going to be a pretty low-ranked prospect if you are unranked on the initial site for 24-7 sports. Again, this is also I'm talking through guys who have either performed well to this point or are in the NFL. So I'm not talking about Luke. I'm not talking about Josiah. Elijah, excuse me, not Josiah. Or Josiah, really, Maiman or Elijah Elverton.

Not talking about those guys. I just want to talk about the guys who have performed well to this point or in the NFL. So again, Sam Laporta, unranked. Going down the list, we have Sean Beyer, unranked three-star wide receiver playing on the Broncos right now. Nate Weeding, jumping around practice squads, unranked

walk-on. Noah Fant, three-star, 536th ranked tight end, but also people wanted him to be a defensive end. TJ Hawkinson, three-star, 536th ranked tight end, but also people wanted him to be a defensive end. TJ Hawkinson, 3-star, unranked. Parker Hesse was a defensive end. George Kittle, 3-star, unranked. Henry Krieger-Kobel, 3-star, 668th ranked prospect.

Jake Dusey, 3-star, 757th ranked prospect. CJ Fedora was 4-star, 68th ranked prospect, CJ Fedora was four-star 68th ranked prospect drafted in the third round. Big deal. AJ Derby, four-star quarterback who they turned into tight end, went to JUCO, then went to Arkansas and played in the NFL for a couple of years. Alan Reisner, two-star unranked.

And Brandon Myers, no-star unranked. All right, when we talk about the fact that Iowa does a good job of producing tight ends, this is why. These guys are not big guys. These guys are not expected to be in the NFL, and yet Iowa turns them into NFL players. So when you look at rankings, rankings are not everything. Rankings are not the end-all, be-all.

We all know that Iowa does a phenomenal job of developing talent, and they do no better of a job than tight end and the offensive line. That is where they have their bread and butter. So if Iowa doesn't land Micah Riley-Ducker, does it suck? Yes. Is it the end of the world? No. And from a recruiting perspective, from an overall class perspective,

this does not mean Iowa is out of the game. They do such a good job of developing players. They can do it again. From a tight end perspective, there are several tight end prospects in the state of Iowa and the surrounding areas that don't have scholarships yet that really fit that mold of what Iowa does well. Finding those guys late in the game, getting hard workers who can block, turning them into NFL prospects. That's what Iowa does. That's what Iowa has been doing. They're going to stay true to the course. And if they don't land a Micah Riley-Ducker, it is not the end all be all. That does do it for our show today. I went a little long on the recruiting aspect. So we're

going to talk about Joe Wieskamp on Thursday. We're going to have some other conversations as well to talk about at that time. We have some basketball talk, the basketball schedule. Iowa's schedule is getting a bit more filled out, getting Virginia and Portland State in their schedule. So we're going to talk about that as well on Thursday. And any commitment news, we'll also make sure to talk about on the show. Thank you for tuning in, though. Appreciate you all listening to today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. And if you want more Locked on content, check out the Locked on Today podcast.

You can get all the sports news you need in under 20 minutes with the Locked on Today podcast. Host Peter Bukowski updates you on the latest news in every major sport with the help of our local experts. Follow the Locked On Today podcast on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast app. And again, thank you for tuning in. Make sure to check out our show yesterday. We talked about Iowa women's basketball.

We talked a little bit about recruiting and it was a blast. We also talked about some name image likeness stuff as well. Again, thank you all for tuning in on today's episode. Have a fantastic Tuesday and even better week. And I'll talk to you on Thursday, Hawkeye nation. Let's go Hawks.