6. Iowa
Adjusted average: 2.81
Class rank in 2018: 39th
Four-year record: 35-13
Attrition: 35%
Top signees: OL Tyler Linderbaum, DT Daviyon Nixon, CB Riley Moss, LB Seth Benson, RB Mekhi Sargent
Iowa turning three-stars into the best linemen in the Big Ten is very on brand and a huge reason why this class graded out so highly four years later.
Linderbaum was a four-sport athlete – football, wrestling, baseball, shot put/discus – out of Solon, Iowa, with offers from Iowa, Iowa State and Minnesota State when he committed. He was a defensive tackle until the end of his freshman season. And then he turned into the best center in college football, a unanimous All-American and future first-round draft pick.
Nixon, the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in 2020, was supposed to join the Hawkeyes in 2017 as a low three-star out of Wisconsin but didn’t have the grades. He made a one-season stop at Iowa Western, put in two years of hard work and made good on his potential as a unanimous All-American and fifth-round pick.
They emerged as the biggest stars of a class that also yielded a second-team All-American in Moss, a former two-star who’s now the Big Ten’s Defensive Back of the Year, and 11 starters on the 2021 Hawkeyes squad that played for a Big Ten championship and won 10 games. This class has achieved four consecutive top-25 finishes, a first for the Kirk Ferentz era. Not bad for a class with zero composite four-star signees.
As good as this one was, it could’ve been even better if one scenario had played out differently. When quarterback Spencer Petras flipped from Oregon State to Iowa right before the early signing period, the Hawkeyes ended their pursuit of Zach Wilson, the future No. 2 overall pick.
