Purdue torched Rugamba, Ojemudia, AND Hankins. It wasn't until Phil finally matched up Jackson on the guy that the bleeding finally stopped.
Iowa's 2018 Spring Depth Chart
- Thread starter Blair Sanderson
- Start date
Actually, it's when you do her before, after, and during halftime of a Hawkeye victory.
I wouldn't worry about their placement on paper right now. I don't know if Jackson was even listed as the starter last spring, but I know that everyone expected Rugumba to be the breakout star, and no one was talking about JJ. New year, new story.......
I think it would be funny if they came out with a lineup that had all o line and D line men as a way of throwing those guys a bone. People would lose thier minds.
Nice perspective! Here's a list of just a few of the "surprises" ...
- spring '17 TE depth chart: Pekar, Fant - what did we end up seeing? Fant ended up being our #1 and Hockenson, a RS FR, ended up becoming the #2.
- Josh Jackson was listed as the backup RC. He ended up being the starting LC.
- Wirfs was still in high school last spring ... Jackson was listed as the back-up LT. Now Wirfs is listed as the starting LT and Jackson is listed as the starting RT.
- Matt Nelson was listed as the backup DE behind Anthony Nelson ... and now he's projected to be a starting DT (although he's not listed on the depth chart because of the shoulder injury he's rehabbing)
- Toks Akinribade and Derrick Mitchell were listed as back-up RBs ... Derrick ended up leaving the program ... and Toren Young and Ivory Kelly-Martin have surged to be the top RBs on the '18 depth chart.
- Gervase and Hooker were listed as top backup safeties in '17 ... now they're both returning starters and listed as the starters on the spring '18 depth chart.
I thought Duncan redshirted last year for that very reason...do I not recall correctly?
Yes it's awesome when fans write players off immediately. Rugamba still has tremendous ability. Last year he never got it going due to injuries and his own issues. It started with the one-game suspension for undisclosed team rules violation. From then, he just never got healthy and when he was in games was just not the same player. Sometimes players need to experience a bit of failure to get to where they need to be. In 2016, Jackson was beaten out as the nickel corner by Rugamba and just a year later he's arguably the best DB in the country. The good news is Iowa has more good athletes in the secondary than I can remember in the KF tenure. Whoever wins playing time is going to be good it appears.
For sure, the coaches know plenty and I know nothing about the situation.
I have no problem trusting the decision made. It just seems everyone keeps saying he'll be around to play his 4th/5th years although neither are a guarantee.
I think people also forget that MI had chances to score(not sure which defender was being targeted) but speight was/is garbage.
Purdue spit in their faces and MSU schooled Ojemudia as well.
That said, they'll have another year to prepare and hopefully they are working hard.
You’ll understand someday little fella.I guess I did. What exactly is your point old fella
I think I remember most of the academic stuff being an issue from his freshman/sophomore years (maybe a change of schools?) and he just never completely caught up but was doing very well after that.
You might want to read this summary by Rob Howe... The early signing period is in December of the student's senior year. Are you seriously proposing that the NCAA start allowing juniors to sign LOI?
https://www.hawkeyenation.com/football/iowa-leaning-toward-holding-off-early-official-visitors
I actually thought about going back and editing my post. Allow me to rephrase. I believe with the early signing period most kids will have made the decision and committed prior to thier senior year, as a way of being able to tell thier high school friends where they are going. The recruitting gets done your soph and junior year mainly, some late bloomers come through but by the time you are a senior in high school the coaches are working on the next class (in my experiance)
56 official visits is still the number.
Iowa used less than half of those (24) last year for scholarship recruits if that changes your mind any. They used a few additional ones for walk-ons.
When you're only doing official visits in December and January, it's a pretty small pool of undecided recruits by that point, at least in comparison to June.
This is just my opinion obviously, but personally I'd like to see them bring in say 5-8 of their top realistic targets from Georgia/Florida/East Coast in April for the spring game (like some other schools are doing) or probably more likely for Iowa is June for the Hawkeye Tailgater. Also would like to see them be more open to official visits during the season for kids outside the Midwest. Just thinking in terms of broadening their recruiting area.
The fact we didn't use all of the available official visits is telling. That's flat out garbage. The university has way more money and way more resources than the "little old iowa" narrative suggest.
Well, a big part of that for schools under the old rules was kids couldn't take official visits until September and by then a lot of schools had their recruiting classes maybe 75% full. In Iowa's Class of 2016, I remember Iowa had basically all but 1-2 spots filled by late August, so that year their official visits consisted of basically just their commits because the class was already full before kids even had a chance to take official visits. The new April-June official visits is trying to change that for schools and kids so they are able to evaluate their options earlier on the school's dime instead of their own. How much those visits get used remains to be seen though because a lot of schools, not just Iowa, are kind of in a wait and see mode.
I understand the rules are changing. I still find it hard to believe the staff couldn't have mined more and gotten more kids on campus. He'll they should have paid for will honas to visit every weekend if that's what it took( only mildly jokeing)
Great post with the numbers we needed. Thanks Blair. So Iowa signed 20+, but only had 24 official visits? Seems really low. Given those numbers I agree with your opinion 100% Blair. Get some kids on campus from Cali, FL, Texas. etc.
Yeah, and a couple commits - Nico Raigani and Logan Klemp - never even took official visits since they were offered and committed on the spot basically.
The only recruits that made official visits to Iowa and ended up going elsewhere were James Miller, Will Honas, Drake Stoops, and decommitment Ben VanSumeren
Both Nico and Logan had camped at Iowa previously and knew about Iowa pretty well before committing. Thus, they at least had been on campus before committing ... it was just on their own dime.
From what I understand about Miller, the coaches didn't seem confident that they were going to land him - so they pulled the trigger for Logan instead. Given that Miller ended up committing to Indiana ... it's possible that Iowa had a better shot than they suspected. Of course, it's also possible that the coaches didn't want to "wait and see" while they still felt confident that they could land Logan.
The coaches could probably use to "spend" some of those officials early in order to entice guys who are less capable of visiting on their own dime. Of course, part of their strategy is also to use the officials to gauge interest/loyalty of commits. It's not a coincidence that they often have a lot of committed guys visiting at the same time they have top JRs and SOs visiting toward the end of the season - it's also a positive to have guys who feel strongly about the Hawks advertising to guys in the following classes.
Blair posting the number of official visits last has made me change my opinion. The 'rate of return' of having juniors visit might be very low, but the return on not using 25+ visits is zero. Show some kids that Iowa City is a pretty nice town. If they don't get results after 2 or 3 years then maybe sticking to the later visits is the best idea.
A lot probably depends on how early they lock up their recruiting class. Over the past 2 years, a significant percentage of our recruiting was done before guys could even take their officials. We'll see if that trend changes. Given how Ferentz even tends to "spend" scholarships ... he seems to typically like to have some in his back-pocket too. That usually affords them the opportunity to reward high performing walk-ons with a 'ship. Similarly, I wouldn't be shocked if some of the visits are kept in the back pocket in case they run into more desperate circumstances (like if we have very few commits by some juncture in the late summer).
However, as I stated before, I'm more than happy for the coaches to spend more of the official visits earlier (particularly for guys who cannot afford to visit on their own dime). As you and others (like Blair) have stated ... the more folks who come to appreciate that Iowa City is a pretty special place ... the greater the chance that we can keep them interested in the program.
I give you Exhibit A of how a parent should handle something like this on Twitter!
I didn't know that, what a crock!! Gotta protect those blue bloods though
I can't believe they made kids wait until they are back in school and in the middle of their last football season.
I sure hope all the visits are used by the end or the year.....no reason not to(other than already having a top 10 class
)Regarding official visits, the coaches clearly feel the risk of decommitments from recruits who commit in spring/fall and reside outside the geographic footprint is too high to merit aggressive recruiting in the early signing period.
It seems we are going to recruit the Southeast, but only do so aggressively in the second signing period or if kid is really enthralled with us.
It seems we are going to recruit the Southeast, but only do so aggressively in the second signing period or if kid is really enthralled with us.
I want to make sure I understand what you are saying. In the early signing period this past class, Iowa got guys from California, Pennsylvania, Florida and Indianapolis all to sign. Iowa was in early and often with a lot of guys in Georgia over the last couple of years, but getting them to come to Iowa is hard. Creamer last year and McDonald this year. McDonald Iowa liked all along, but they had moved on after he committed to Rutgers. When he didn't sign early, Iowa got back in the game.
It seems like Iowa is more than willing (and would actually like it) if a guys signs early. If he signs, you can move on, he's coming to your school.
CA kid was a QB and different recruiting rules apply to QBs, plus that was a rush recruitment after the season ended.
The PA early signing kid was a kid we had a connection with through Jovan Johnson, who drove himself from the east coast to attend an Iowa summer camp. That’s falls within the special exceptions category—if a kid from Florida or Georgia drives himself to Iowa for a summer camp I’d bet the coaches would accept a commitment.
Locket from Fl was a commitment after the season who is coached by an alum. another example of Cherry picking and a quick recruitment.
Indy is within the geographic footprint. It’s like 4 or 4.5 hours drive.
I don’t think the generally the coaches want to take commitments from out of geographic footprint recruits before the start of the season and they don’t really recruit during the season. That’s my observation.
What's the advantage of not using all 56 official visits (other than saving $)? If a kid from Florida verbals early, do you think that lowers the chances/interest of kids from the Midwest?
Is there anyway of seeing what other big 10 members numbers were? (Is that public knowledge?)
Recruiting is tricky stuff, and $ is a factor. Would you rather (1) spend $ on airfare, hotel, food flying a recruit and his parents from Miami to I.C.; or, (2) spend $ on airfare, hotel, food, and rental car flying a Hawkeye Ass't. Coach to Miami to do in home interviews with six local recruits?
If the requirement is a kid has to visit before they have a computable offer the answer can only be (1).
I pulled some numbers from 247. I am not sure how accurate they are fwiw.
School. 2017. 2018
NW 19, 4
MN 48,37
Mary 23, 35
Neb 49, 54
IA 16, 21
ILL 17, 23
Ind 31,35
Wisc 11,18
MSU 48, 18
School. 2017. 2018
NW 19, 4
MN 48,37
Mary 23, 35
Neb 49, 54
IA 16, 21
ILL 17, 23
Ind 31,35
Wisc 11,18
MSU 48, 18
Not if they've previously visited unofficially, or attended a camp.
I'm not buying it. Our program is so broke we can't spend more than 10% of what KF makes in recruiting players?
i doubt i'll ever understand being penny wise and dollar foolish!
They can only verbal until December of their senior year though. They can still date others if they really wanted to until that point. Then its crap or get off the pot.
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