Ranking in-state football talent from the 2000s

[JDeMoney]

I am breaking my self-imposed moratorium on message board posting to bring you this.

I had a piece published this week at the high school sports website MaxPreps.com. In it, I ranked the individual in-state football classes for Iowa from the decade just past.

I would love to read your feedback!

Iowa: Recruiting rewind Part I - MaxPreps News

 

[PJHawk]

I enjoyed reading it with a very interesting look back at each year's recruits.

 

[thejumper5]

How do you think these classes would have been affected by a few athletes that chose to play other sports when they could have been top flight football players? For instance, in the 2006 class (#8 of the decade), Ankeny's Aaron Jarosh turned down football scholarships from a number of schools so he could play college baseball. Another example is Matt Macri from Dowling. He was the Des Moines Register's elite all-state QB for the class of '01 (#3 of the decade) ahead of Kyle Orton, but he chose to play baseball instead (and now he's a major leaguer. There are people in the Des Moines area that say Macri was the top athlete in decades from Polk County.

Also, Kyle Schlicher of the class of '02 was a 2 time honorable mention all-Big Ten and a one time 2nd team all-Big Ten. Mike Elgin was only honorable mention once. I would pick Schlicher as the top player in that class (you didn't even mention him in your analysis of that class).
Edit: It was a really interesting read. Thanks for doing it!