Question About Recruiting

1977Hawkeye

1977Hawkeye

Well-Known Member
I was looking on Scout at the 2013's list of prospects:
Scout.com: Football Recruiting

First, I don't know if this is by any means a complete list, but going by what I see here, I sorted this list by those that show "yes" under the "Offer?" column, and I couldn't help but notice that there are apparently no 5* recruits that Iowa is recruiting, and just a handful of 4* recruits we've offered.

The vast majority of our scholarship offers are seemingly going to 2-3* recruits.

So my question: Is KF's philosophy to try and recruit players that are flying under the radar, and ignore most of the 4-5* recruits?

Queue the "Stars don't matter" crowd now, and that's fine - but that's a different discussion IMO.

It just seems like we are not really going after many highly rated players.. Or is this pretty common for most other schools to not offer scharships to many other 4-5* recruits? I'll admit to not looking at scholarship offers made by other good programs.
 
do you think a recruiting website has knowledge of all the offers given by iowa?

conversely:

do you think iowa recruits only the players that a recruiting website deems as '5*'?

finally: how would you like the staff to best use their time?
 
i look at it as that kf and company will look for the players they want. they are looking for talent but they may grade that talent differently than the recruiting websites do. to kf some of those 4 stars may grade as 5 stars to him. i know one thing and that is kf seems too look for versatile guys that they can move around if necessary because those guys tend to have a higher upside even though they may not grade out as high coming out of hs. since we arent a big name school and we dont have the fertile recruiting area we have to recruit more under the radar types.
 
Some of the 4star kids that Iowa has offered have already committed to other higher profile schools.
 
finally: how would you like the staff to best use their time?

This is it. Iowa would love to have a lot of those 4 and 5* players, but those players have to give Iowa the time of day. They are not going waste their time on somebody that never returns their calls.
 
The amount of total 5* players in the country is small. I'm not sure how many there are, but I know its not many and most of them already committed to Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Alabama and Auburn. We go after a few here and there like Gunner Kiel and Kouandijo. They went to Alabama and Notre Dame. Plus the difference between a 5* and a 4* can be just couple spots different on the position ranking. The coaches could just go out and throw offers to all the 5* players across the board, but they come at it much more strategically than that. They take into account academic standing, leadership qualities, work ethic, etc.
 
Additionally, at least on Rivals, There are about 3-4 players they have signed so far that are .1 away from being a 4 star.
 
there are Fifty 5 star rated players each class. It looks like so far this year just 34 are rated 5 stars.

Then look where they are from; TX, FL, CA, AL, OH, PA, GA etc. I only see one from our wheel-house recruiting territory of IA, IL, MN or even MO and that was Ty Isaac who committed to USC from Joliet, IL.
 
If you sort players Iowa has offered, it doesn't show a lot of the players that have committed to other schools already. On Scout, there are only 34 5-star players as of now. Of those 34, 20 have committed already. Of those 20, Iowa offered 5 players. And that doesn't include players that never considered Iowa and therefore never told the recruiting site that Iowa offered. Beyond the 5 stars, Iowa has offered probably 20 4-stars that have already committed to other schools or are no longer considering Iowa.

Of all the problems Iowa has with recruiting, I would never say not trying for top-level talent is one of them.
 
To contrast Scout with another recruiting site:

Under 247Sports' "Iowa Football Offers" page, there is a list of all the offers that Iowa is known to have issued thus far. On that page, there are 29 4-stars and 1 5-star listed. Of those 30 players, only 6 have yet to commit to a school.
 
Obviously Iowa has deserved some of the criticism they have received for their game planning and on field product. With that said their recruiting has been exemplary for some time and still is. I really enjoy how they seem to review prospects and hand out offers….clearly they pay very little attention to recruiting services and it kind of makes for an amusing thing.
 
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thejumper5 said:
If you sort players Iowa has offered, it doesn't show a lot of the players that have committed to other schools already. On Scout, there are only 34 5-star players as of now. Of those 34, 20 have committed already. Of those 20, Iowa offered 5 players. And that doesn't include players that never considered Iowa and therefore never told the recruiting site that Iowa offered. Beyond the 5 stars, Iowa has offered probably 20 4-stars that have already committed to other schools or are no longer considering Iowa.

Of all the problems Iowa has with recruiting, I would never say not trying for top-level talent is one of them.
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Sounds like you have this recruiting thing figured out. Better go talk to the coaches about it.
 
I always found it odd that the coaches at Iowa do not print them off a list of the top rated athletes listed in Scout & Rivals and use it as a recruiting guide. Recruiting would be so much easier that way.
 
David79 said:
Sounds like you have this recruiting thing figured out. Better go talk to the coaches about it.
Click to expand...

Everything in his post was researched and accurate. He had one small opinion at the end. It was a good post and I for one appreciated it.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
I was looking on Scout at the 2013's list of prospects:
Scout.com: Football Recruiting

First, I don't know if this is by any means a complete list, but going by what I see here, I sorted this list by those that show "yes" under the "Offer?" column, and I couldn't help but notice that there are apparently no 5* recruits that Iowa is recruiting, and just a handful of 4* recruits we've offered.

The vast majority of our scholarship offers are seemingly going to 2-3* recruits.

So my question: Is KF's philosophy to try and recruit players that are flying under the radar, and ignore most of the 4-5* recruits?

Queue the "Stars don't matter" crowd now, and that's fine - but that's a different discussion IMO.

It just seems like we are not really going after many highly rated players.. Or is this pretty common for most other schools to not offer scharships to many other 4-5* recruits? I'll admit to not looking at scholarship offers made by other good programs.
Click to expand...

There used to be a coach in the B1G who offered every 4/5 star the recruiting sites listed. His name was Ron Zook. If you google his name you can tell us where he is working now.
 
This question seems to come up about 10-12 times per year. It has even been presented to Kirk in a few ways over the years.


Most of the 4-5* players have been known entities for some time now as they are often players that are early stand-outs, so everyone already knows who they are and has been sending them mail, talking to their coaches, and gauging interest. Iowa offers most of them in our typical recruiting area regaurdless. However, as Kirk says, there has to be a mutual interest to have any value in spending the staffs limited time recruiting them hard. They are limited in staff and time. They can't chase everyone that shows no interest in us just because they are talented.
 
People just refuse to accept that Iowa isn't among the top places kids want to go. I find it most common in fans that have virtually never stepped out of the state and have lived here most of their lives.
 
alexzelada said:
There used to be a coach in the B1G who offered every 4/5 star the recruiting sites listed. His name was Ron Zook. If you google his name you can tell us where he is working now.
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There are probably about a dozen reasons why Zook is no longer at Illinois. Recruiting is not one of those reasons.
 
FCAS said:
There are probably about a dozen reasons why Zook is no longer at Illinois. Recruiting is not one of those reasons.
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True, but lest keep in mind his recruiting was NOT as good as the ratings indicated and some of us said that even way back them. More to the point, KF who has faded heat in the past over being a “poorâ€￾ to average recruiter,. Has more than proven he out recruited the oh so glorious Zooker…who Iowa fans jumped up and down about because he was such a great recruiter.
 
cmhawks99 said:
True, but lest keep in mind his recruiting was NOT as good as the ratings indicated and some of us said that even way back them. More to the point, KF who has faded heat in the past over being a “poorâ€￾ to average recruiter,. Has more than proven he out recruited the oh so glorious Zooker…who Iowa fans jumped up and down about because he was such a great recruiter.
Click to expand...

A few things here...

1. I also think Zookers acclaimed recruiting at Illinois was hyper-inflated. He did a good job, not a great job. Especially his last two years.

2. He did do a better job recruiting a couple of key athletes over the years than Iowa and other schools, which probably lead to some of that perception.

3. Iowa has always, under Ferentz and even under Fry, been known more for players development than recruiting. Which is fine in my book.

Besides, we've had some flops in the 4/5 start category...Jake Christensen for instance, just to name one.
 
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