The Self-Limitations of Recruiting at Iowa

T

thejumper5

Well-Known Member
A few observations on Iowa recruiting, especially about how the coaching staff has seemingly chosen to limit Iowa's recruiting in a variety of ways.

1. Iowa virtually ignores the juco world. Iowa Western CC is the premiere JuCo program in America; they finished an undefeated national championship season yesterday. They have 14 players who have FBS offers. Only one, RB Aaron Wimberly, has an Iowa offer, but he didn't receive his offer until after he had already committed to Iowa State. QB Jake Waters is down to Penn State and Kansas State; he's been called by some analysts the best juco QB in America. Waters grew up in Iowa, but he does not have an Iowa offer. If Bill O'Brien, who coached Tom Brady and helped turn Matt McGloin into the best passer in the Big Ten, thinks Waters is a scholarship level QB for Penn State, then I am 100% Waters is a scholarship level QB for Iowa. Yes, taking Waters would mean that Iowa has 5 QBs next year, two of whom would be 4th year juniors, but I don't think that is enough reason to ignore a guy who is as good at him.

2. Iowa virtually ignores the deep south, Florida, and California, three of the five areas of the country (the other areas are Texas and northern cities) that produce the most D1 talent. If you take a look at this map of Iowa's 2013 offers, you'll notice that almost all of Iowa's offers have gone to players in either Big Ten country or Texas. Yes, Iowa is likely to lose out on a vast majority of players they recruit from California, Florida, and the South, but, as the old saying goes, you can't win if you don't play.

Thoughts?
 
Just another glaring 'Kurtism'

I always cringe when he says in pressers that we can't recruit here at Iowa with the elite programs. I then think of Kansas State and Bill Snyder or Boise State.

With that kind of attitude I wonder how it rubs off on the team.
 
I agree on your juco assessment, KF got his "mulligan" with this years 4-8 finish another one would put him on the hot seat regardless of what his buyout is. Quite frankly KF should have started going this route once they lost a bunch of players to attrition in recent recruiting classes. The Hawks need to improve the talent in the upper classmen and the best way to do this is through junior college.

As far as recruiting the South, I do not think the coaches completely ignore the south as they do land a player from Florida once in a while. But I wonder if recruiting those areas heavily is productive. Not only are you fighting against every SEC school but the weather plays a part in it as well. If I am a high school senior on college visits the "atmosphere" of California schools and southern schools are hard to ignore.
 
trapperjon said:
Just another glaring 'Kurtism'

I always cringe when he says in pressers that we can't recruit here at Iowa with the elite programs. I then think of Kansas State and Bill Snyder or Boise State.

With that kind of attitude I wonder how it rubs off on the team.
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One little defense of this, both of those schools are much easier to get into than Iowa especially Boise State.
 
I think that a player who receives an Iowa offer will immediately put it on the back shelf. I agree TJ5, we have the JUCO nat'l champs right in our backyard and one offer. The kind of season(s) that we have watched, what kid would want to come here? This off-season means that our coaches need to knock every opportunity out of the park.....we need to continue to recruit good, quality kids to help get this program back on track. Hard to change Ferentz's attitude and his mannerisms.
 
thejumper5 said:
A few observations on Iowa recruiting, especially about how the coaching staff has seemingly chosen to limit Iowa's recruiting in a variety of ways.

1. Iowa virtually ignores the juco world. Iowa Western CC is the premiere JuCo program in America; they finished an undefeated national championship season yesterday. They have 14 players who have FBS offers. Only one, RB Aaron Wimberly, has an Iowa offer, but he didn't receive his offer until after he had already committed to Iowa State. QB Jake Waters is down to Penn State and Kansas State; he's been called by some analysts the best juco QB in America. Waters grew up in Iowa, but he does not have an Iowa offer. If Bill O'Brien, who coached Tom Brady and helped turn Matt McGloin into the best passer in the Big Ten, thinks Waters is a scholarship level QB for Penn State, then I am 100% Waters is a scholarship level QB for Iowa. Yes, taking Waters would mean that Iowa has 5 QBs next year, two of whom would be 4th year juniors, but I don't think that is enough reason to ignore a guy who is as good at him.

2. Iowa virtually ignores the deep south, Florida, and California, three of the five areas of the country (the other areas are Texas and northern cities) that produce the most D1 talent. If you take a look at this map of Iowa's 2013 offers, you'll notice that almost all of Iowa's offers have gone to players in either Big Ten country or Texas. Yes, Iowa is likely to lose out on a vast majority of players they recruit from California, Florida, and the South, but, as the old saying goes, you can't win if you don't play.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Wow. Thanks for the map. Very interesting. I don't follow the recruiting area consistently, so this was really news to me. Appreciate it.
 
Is there any way we could sell all of this talent in 2014 as to being a "return to glory" type of class in the state and the midwest in general? In the way that a Georgia did a couple years ago. Maybe a reach but getting all the big rated guys in the state to be friends and bond over going to Iowa?
 
How many big ten teams dig into recruiting the south (outside of the state of florida)? There is a matter of roi for such endeavors.

I don't think jucos are a bad thing but how many do you want to bring in each year?
 
Easton said:
How many big ten teams dig into recruiting the south (outside of the state of florida)? There is a matter of roi for such endeavors.

I don't think jucos are a bad thing but how many do you want to bring in each year?
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Just enough so that beating a directional school from Michigan shouldnt be too difficult of a task.
 
I see that we haven't moved past making irrelevant rants yet. I will wait for the proper mourning time. Do you need two or three months to gather your thoughts?
 
When Alabama and Oregon to name a few, were making regular stops to Iowa Western to evaluate kids, then I don't think it's to much of a reach for Iowa to go after a few, especially with the attrition we had. I don't want to build a program on JUCO's but when the need arises go get a few. Take it for what it's worth, but when Iowa does show up at some of the Community Colleges they don't leave a good impression, and Iowa Western has seen D1 coaches from all over the country and for Iowa to leave one of the worst impressions isn't a positive. I haven't reached the mourning stage and hopefully I don't get to that point because then I know we are done. I'm still in the anger phase because the staff needs to do a much better job then they have been.
 
It boggles my mind why Iowa would ignore Jucos when programs like K-State are reaping obvious benefits from it. Instead, apparently I guess it's a case of "that's not what we do here at Iowa." Say what? Why not get the best players, wherever or however you can get them? Who the flip cares if they are JUCO or High School recruits?

It's not like recruiting JUCO players is "dirty" or something, right?
 
AHawk1 said:
When Alabama and Oregon to name a few, were making regular stops to Iowa Western to evaluate kids, then I don't think it's to much of a reach for Iowa to go after a few, especially with the attrition we had. I don't want to build a program on JUCO's but when the need arises go get a few. Take it for what it's worth, but when Iowa does show up at some of the Community Colleges they don't leave a good impression, and Iowa Western has seen D1 coaches from all over the country and for Iowa to leave one of the worst impressions isn't a positive. I haven't reached the mourning stage and hopefully I don't get to that point because then I know we are done. I'm still in the anger phase because the staff needs to do a much better job then they have been.
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Care to elaborate on that part in bold?
 
I find the bad impression comment odd since this has never been reported anywhere. The opposite is usually reported. Consistently.
 
* The right leader and staff can make up many shortfalls on the recruiting trails.....people make a difference when recruiting. How much importance does the leader place on recruiting vs. other traits that staff might bring when he makes hiring decisions?

* In general, when the OSU's, ND's, MI's, and a few others make their way through their Midwest backyards for the elite the rest are left with 2nd tier players. In my opinion 2nd tier players in CA, TX, FL (as example) are better than 2nd tier players in the Midwest that we are currently focused on.

* MAC talent = MAC results

* I'll give some credit to Ferentz for making some changes in his personnel and recruiting structure in the off season. I believe he recognizes we need more focus in that area. However, that in itself, doesn't guarantee better talent coming soon......takes time and the right recruiting personnel.

Yes there are limitations at Iowa but why wouldn't a head coach recognize this and build his staff with more sales talent to help offset these limitations? This doesn't mean we would have been bringing in the elite all the time but I do believe we would have been doing better in many head to head battles.

We'll see how we finish this year with our recruiting class and how many of the fallback candidates (with primarily MAC offers) that we end up bringing aboard vs. landing a couple prize candidates with numbers of Top 30 programs chasing them.

They say you do best at the things you enjoy. I think Ferentz enjoys the day to day job of developing the players he gets. He has shown he's pretty good at that. I don't think he has enjoyed the recruiting part of the game for a long time and I believe that shows as well.
 
thejumper5 said:
A few observations on Iowa recruiting, especially about how the coaching staff has seemingly chosen to limit Iowa's recruiting in a variety of ways.

1. Iowa virtually ignores the juco world. Iowa Western CC is the premiere JuCo program in America; they finished an undefeated national championship season yesterday. They have 14 players who have FBS offers. Only one, RB Aaron Wimberly, has an Iowa offer, but he didn't receive his offer until after he had already committed to Iowa State. QB Jake Waters is down to Penn State and Kansas State; he's been called by some analysts the best juco QB in America. Waters grew up in Iowa, but he does not have an Iowa offer. If Bill O'Brien, who coached Tom Brady and helped turn Matt McGloin into the best passer in the Big Ten, thinks Waters is a scholarship level QB for Penn State, then I am 100% Waters is a scholarship level QB for Iowa. Yes, taking Waters would mean that Iowa has 5 QBs next year, two of whom would be 4th year juniors, but I don't think that is enough reason to ignore a guy who is as good at him.

2. Iowa virtually ignores the deep south, Florida, and California, three of the five areas of the country (the other areas are Texas and northern cities) that produce the most D1 talent. If you take a look at this map of Iowa's 2013 offers, you'll notice that almost all of Iowa's offers have gone to players in either Big Ten country or Texas. Yes, Iowa is likely to lose out on a vast majority of players they recruit from California, Florida, and the South, but, as the old saying goes, you can't win if you don't play.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
just goes to show how ignorant a poster can be.
Iowa brought in 6 JUCO's in January 3 of which were from IWCC
 
its also time to realize who Iowa goes up against in these talent laden teams, in Florida. they have every body in the SE going after these kids, it going to be hard to convice these kids to travel 1500 miles minimum to play FB and go to school, short of paying these kids how is KF and his staff supposed to get them.
you complain about the recruiting but nobody has come up with a legal way of convincing these kids to play here.
 
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