TYLER BARNES: Appreciate everybody coming out here. Just going back to really July of '21 when we were first committing Maddux Borcherding-Johnson all the way up to just a couple days ago with Terrell Washington, as years past, this has been two, three years in the making, guys coming to camps, unofficial visits, official visits, game day visits, our coaches spending countless hours on the road developing a relationship with these guys. We're excited about the 23 guys we're bringing in.
One thing I will say, we're not done yet. This is really signing day part one, if you will. We have some spots left. We have a couple spots we'll look high school-wise and then three, four, maybe five, we'll see, spots that we'll look in the portal. One thing that's -- you guys cover recruiting, year-round football, obviously the landscape is changing tremendously.
High school recruiting has sped up. There's earlier offers. There's quicker commits. The thing that's probably even more difficult with this transfer portal window, now the window is being opened up, is the transfers move even faster. Kind of what coach alluded to a little bit is we still want to try and do things the same way in terms of digging on guys. We need to find out who they are, what they're about, why they're leaving.
Some of these guys we recruit in high school, so at least we have a base, which certainly helps, and some guys we don't. You have to act quick, and there's certain red flags that may turn us off on guys, and we'll move on, but there's going to be plenty of guys out there, and I think everybody is well aware of December 5, just the pure number of guys that hit the portal and what happened there.
I'm guessing there's probably going to be somewhat of a small rush again post bowl games, too. Could be wrong on that front, but just kind of going back on history and how things played out, I think we'll see that take place.
But really, just as coach said, our goal is still going to remain the same. We're not going to live in the portal. We're going to build our team through the high school ranks. I was watching the 247 signing day show all day today in my office, and they kept calling it the draft. This still is our draft, and for us to be sustainable, at least we believe to be sustainable, you still have got to be able to recruit high school kids and develop those guys, and whether they turn out to be first-round draft picks or just pure depth guys, at the end of the day, that's going to be important to sustain where you're at.
Certainly if we have holes, we'll address that in the portal, and I think you've kind of seen that this year, and we're actively going to keep going that route.
Similar to years before, as well, I think you've seen we have a pretty strong regional bias in our class. Seventeen of the 23 guys are within a seven-hour driving radius, and I think now, more than ever, with the transfer portal, that's extremely important. It's just getting easier and easier for guys to hop out and go back closer to home or go somewhere else that may not be regionally from where they're at, but for us we're going to continue to wrap up the state of Iowa as much as we can, and then the bordering states, we're going to treat that almost like in state, as well and then kind of stay in our hot spots.
I think you've seen we have a couple guys from Florida this year, having Ladell on staff and Abdul coming from down there, I think we're going to work out a little bit bigger presence down in the state of Florida. We pulled a running back out of Texas. We're always going to be open, but again, our core is going to be that six-, seven-hour driving radius.
With that, I'll kind of open it up to any questions you may have about the class or anybody in general.
Q. With this being signing day part 1, is there kind of a magic number that you have in mind of how many more you would like?
TYLER BARNES: If you can tell us how our roster is going to look in two weeks, I'd happily give you a hard number. No, it's pretty fluid. I think in this day and age, it's extremely fluid.
Like coach said, what's unique is this is, I think, the first year I think I personally really felt that not only were we recruiting high school kids, we're attacking the portal pretty hard, but we're recruiting our own roster really hard, too, and that's certain guys just to stay and not go to the portal, that's certain guys that maybe have a COVID year that we could use to come back. There's some ongoing conversations with a few guys on the team about potentially returning, so that's obviously going to affect our overall number, but it's pretty fluid for the most part.
We know there are a couple of holes that we need to fill right now on our team, and we'll work in the portal to do that, and we'll get there.
I've seen, as I was telling Chad and Scott beforehand, there's this misnomer which is a little bit scary about the transfer portal, is there's a lot of schools that announced transfers today. We did, too, with Erick and Cade, but they are free agents until they start class on campus, so even though schools announced guys today, and there are some guys that were announced at certain schools today, doesn't mean we're going to stop recruiting. It's scary for us; it's great for the kid because they lock in a spot. The school is bound to them, but they aren't bound to us, if that makes sense.
It's fluid, and we're going to continue to talk through it, and I think we'll have a better idea once we get through the bowl game on what a couple of our own guys are thinking, and that's going to kind of affect where we're going in certain spots.
One thing I will say, we're not done yet. This is really signing day part one, if you will. We have some spots left. We have a couple spots we'll look high school-wise and then three, four, maybe five, we'll see, spots that we'll look in the portal. One thing that's -- you guys cover recruiting, year-round football, obviously the landscape is changing tremendously.
High school recruiting has sped up. There's earlier offers. There's quicker commits. The thing that's probably even more difficult with this transfer portal window, now the window is being opened up, is the transfers move even faster. Kind of what coach alluded to a little bit is we still want to try and do things the same way in terms of digging on guys. We need to find out who they are, what they're about, why they're leaving.
Some of these guys we recruit in high school, so at least we have a base, which certainly helps, and some guys we don't. You have to act quick, and there's certain red flags that may turn us off on guys, and we'll move on, but there's going to be plenty of guys out there, and I think everybody is well aware of December 5, just the pure number of guys that hit the portal and what happened there.
I'm guessing there's probably going to be somewhat of a small rush again post bowl games, too. Could be wrong on that front, but just kind of going back on history and how things played out, I think we'll see that take place.
But really, just as coach said, our goal is still going to remain the same. We're not going to live in the portal. We're going to build our team through the high school ranks. I was watching the 247 signing day show all day today in my office, and they kept calling it the draft. This still is our draft, and for us to be sustainable, at least we believe to be sustainable, you still have got to be able to recruit high school kids and develop those guys, and whether they turn out to be first-round draft picks or just pure depth guys, at the end of the day, that's going to be important to sustain where you're at.
Certainly if we have holes, we'll address that in the portal, and I think you've kind of seen that this year, and we're actively going to keep going that route.
Similar to years before, as well, I think you've seen we have a pretty strong regional bias in our class. Seventeen of the 23 guys are within a seven-hour driving radius, and I think now, more than ever, with the transfer portal, that's extremely important. It's just getting easier and easier for guys to hop out and go back closer to home or go somewhere else that may not be regionally from where they're at, but for us we're going to continue to wrap up the state of Iowa as much as we can, and then the bordering states, we're going to treat that almost like in state, as well and then kind of stay in our hot spots.
I think you've seen we have a couple guys from Florida this year, having Ladell on staff and Abdul coming from down there, I think we're going to work out a little bit bigger presence down in the state of Florida. We pulled a running back out of Texas. We're always going to be open, but again, our core is going to be that six-, seven-hour driving radius.
With that, I'll kind of open it up to any questions you may have about the class or anybody in general.
Q. With this being signing day part 1, is there kind of a magic number that you have in mind of how many more you would like?
TYLER BARNES: If you can tell us how our roster is going to look in two weeks, I'd happily give you a hard number. No, it's pretty fluid. I think in this day and age, it's extremely fluid.
Like coach said, what's unique is this is, I think, the first year I think I personally really felt that not only were we recruiting high school kids, we're attacking the portal pretty hard, but we're recruiting our own roster really hard, too, and that's certain guys just to stay and not go to the portal, that's certain guys that maybe have a COVID year that we could use to come back. There's some ongoing conversations with a few guys on the team about potentially returning, so that's obviously going to affect our overall number, but it's pretty fluid for the most part.
We know there are a couple of holes that we need to fill right now on our team, and we'll work in the portal to do that, and we'll get there.
I've seen, as I was telling Chad and Scott beforehand, there's this misnomer which is a little bit scary about the transfer portal, is there's a lot of schools that announced transfers today. We did, too, with Erick and Cade, but they are free agents until they start class on campus, so even though schools announced guys today, and there are some guys that were announced at certain schools today, doesn't mean we're going to stop recruiting. It's scary for us; it's great for the kid because they lock in a spot. The school is bound to them, but they aren't bound to us, if that makes sense.
It's fluid, and we're going to continue to talk through it, and I think we'll have a better idea once we get through the bowl game on what a couple of our own guys are thinking, and that's going to kind of affect where we're going in certain spots.
