At Iowa? Yes, fairly normal. The players at Iowa who tend to get drafted and move on to the NFL were not 4 and 5 star players. If you took a list of the players who came into Iowa 4 stars or better and compared it to the list of players 3 stars or lower who ended up getting drafted and/or playing in the NFL, the latter would be much larger. In fact, I am hopeful AJ Epenesa will be the first 5-star player, out of a handful of 5-star players Ferentz has landed during his tenure, who will actually pan out and have an All-American career at Iowa before moving on to the NFL.
Wisconsin is without question the standard bearer for all non blue-blood programs in the B1G. I don't follow their recruiting that closely, although I've heard they are getting much better rated players in recent classes. Regardless, Wisconsin has been successful not because they outrecruit Michigan, Ohio State, etc., they are successful because they have perfected a system and do it better than anyone. They are consistent. Iowa is not. They are what many Iowa fans thought/hoped Iowa would become during the 2002-2004 run. What's so impressive is how Wisconsin has maintained consistency despite head coaching changes. Regardless, I think a couple things stand out in comparison to Wisconsin. 1) Wisconsin is consistent and rarely, if ever, get beat by inferior teams. Iowa has had too many seasons hindered by one or two WTF? losses. That has been a consistent problem in the Ferentz era, losses to MAC schools, pitiful ISU teams, or bottom of the barrel B1G teams. Some years, it's been the difference between going 7-5 and 9-3. 2) After the Orange Bowl win, it SEEMS, and I emphasize seems, Ferentz got a little too comfortable and lax and the program got a little stale. While Ferentz will never divert from his philosophies and style of play, there have been noticeable changes, such as shaking up his coaching staff, recruiting a little better, etc.
I think Iowa will compete well with Wisconsin this year and one can only speculate what the years to come will look like. The greater point is Iowa has been close to having similar success, and at times throughout Ferentz's tenure they've been more successful than Wisconsin. The issue has always been consistency, which is an issue for a lot of teams not named Alabama, which makes the fact Wisconsin has had 3 different coaches since Alvarez stepped down and has still managed to maintain mostly 10 win seasons that much more impressive.
