This is The Year We Should Land Blue Chip LB Recruits

IowaLawWasRight

IowaLawWasRight

Well-Known Member
It has been a really long time since I can remember the Hawks landing a blue chip LB recruit (maybe Bone Crusher 15 years ago?). Given that we are graduating every drop of experience we have at LB...3 guys who have 208 tackles thus far this year, there is a gaping hole to fill at the position. If our recruiters are worth their salaries, they aught to be pounding on the door of every 4 and 5 star high school LB in the midwest and every top tier JUCO all American LB and selling them on opportunity for immediate playing time as well as selling them on how we use our LBs. Our LBs rack up a ton of tackles and play in the NFL. The situation honestly sells itself.

It sounds like FINALLY we are starting to take a harder look into the JUCO ranks to fill holes. The sad thing is, it does not sound like we are going after the top prospects. More Nick Easley types who are given walk on opportunities. Come on Seth Wallace, if you can't reel in mega LB talent this year, you probably never will be able to.

http://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sp...nebacker-help-2018-junior-colleges/866684001/
 
I am concerned about the linebacker situation for next year. I thought Mends, Jones and Hockaday would see some time this year, but they've rarely played on defense, usually in clean up time. I would suspect that these guys, and Kevin Ward, will be the LB crew next year, but very few meaningful snaps, outside of Ward's 1 start, among them going into next year.

I agree that getting top rated LBs to come to Iowa should be enticing to them. Iowa's LBs make a lot of tackles, and there's a history of good Iowa LBs making it in the NFL, so it's not like they'd get to Iowa and be forgotten.
 
IowaLawWasRight said:
It has been a really long time since I can remember the Hawks landing a blue chip LB recruit (maybe Bone Crusher 15 years ago?). Given that we are graduating every drop of experience we have at LB...3 guys who have 208 tackles thus far this year, there is a gaping hole to fill at the position. If our recruiters are worth their salaries, they aught to be pounding on the door of every 4 and 5 star high school LB in the midwest and every top tier JUCO all American LB and selling them on opportunity for immediate playing time as well as selling them on how we use our LBs. Our LBs rack up a ton of tackles and play in the NFL. The situation honestly sells itself.

It sounds like FINALLY we are starting to take a harder look into the JUCO ranks to fill holes. The sad thing is, it does not sound like we are going after the top prospects. More Nick Easley types who are given walk on opportunities. Come on Seth Wallace, if you can't reel in mega LB talent this year, you probably never will be able to.

http://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sp...nebacker-help-2018-junior-colleges/866684001/
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I think it speaks volumes that they are hitting the JUCO trail for linebackers. Tells me that they aren't real confident in the guys they have already, as KF isn't known to go the JUCO route.
 
Yup, the time to go after LB recruits was LAST year! So the new recruits could be freshmen on this year's team.
 
homes said:
I am concerned about the linebacker situation for next year. I thought Mends, Jones and Hockaday would see some time this year, but they've rarely played on defense, usually in clean up time. I would suspect that these guys, and Kevin Ward, will be the LB crew next year, but very few meaningful snaps, outside of Ward's 1 start, among them going into next year.

I agree that getting top rated LBs to come to Iowa should be enticing to them. Iowa's LBs make a lot of tackles, and there's a history of good Iowa LBs making it in the NFL, so it's not like they'd get to Iowa and be forgotten.
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I think Welch is likely and maybe a couple of position changes Colbert looks like a linebacker How about a QB Penn State used to have great linebackers that were HS QBs Dont we have one from DM that isnt doing much now?
 
IowaLawWasRight said:
It has been a really long time since I can remember the Hawks landing a blue chip LB recruit (maybe Bone Crusher 15 years ago?). Given that we are graduating every drop of experience we have at LB...3 guys who have 208 tackles thus far this year, there is a gaping hole to fill at the position. If our recruiters are worth their salaries, they aught to be pounding on the door of every 4 and 5 star high school LB in the midwest and every top tier JUCO all American LB and selling them on opportunity for immediate playing time as well as selling them on how we use our LBs. Our LBs rack up a ton of tackles and play in the NFL. The situation honestly sells itself.

It sounds like FINALLY we are starting to take a harder look into the JUCO ranks to fill holes. The sad thing is, it does not sound like we are going after the top prospects. More Nick Easley types who are given walk on opportunities. Come on Seth Wallace, if you can't reel in mega LB talent this year, you probably never will be able to.

http://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sp...nebacker-help-2018-junior-colleges/866684001/
Click to expand...

Freshman starting LB?? Even if they had the size, their head would be swimming out there for half the season trying to cover run and receivers versus high school. A lot asked of an Iowa LB.
 
mrolympia said:
the entire bone crusher saga was a complete flop.
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I only hope that I am no longer living in Illinois when he gets released from prison and sent to Illinois to serve his 10 year stint here. I do have to give Ferentz credit for shipping that guy out immediately after he got to campus so that lowlife Joe Tiller (RIP) had a chance to bring him in. For a guy who has been at a school as long as Ferentz, and now I'm not saying it's spotless, but he has kept the program relatively clean.
 
westender said:
Really not much different than when Hitchens, Kirksey and Morris all graduated the same year.
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"Really not that much different" how and in what respect??? Bower got beat bad the first year he started. The team suffered at Lbkr in 2014.

There is no reason not to get one very good Lbkr recruit each year .

But why would you come here if you never get any snaps, period until the # 1 is gone.

As someone said, this year we should have a couple 4* redshirt frosh or sophs on the team to take over at Lbkr next year.
 
uihawk82 said:
"Really not that much different" how and in what respect??? Bower got beat bad the first year he started. The team suffered at Lbkr in 2014.

There is no reason not to get one very good Lbkr recruit each year .

But why would you come here if you never get any snaps, period until the # 1 is gone.

As someone said, this year we should have a couple 4* redshirt frosh or sophs on the team to take over at Lbkr next year.
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It definitely hurts our recruiting when a player doesn't get any snaps until the starter finally graduates. That's on the coaching staff. There is no reason why the younger guys can't get meaningful game experience other than mop up duty. If they're that bad that they can't see the field at all, then they probably shouldn't have been recruited in the first place.
 
We should just go after blue chips all the time IMO. If this staff was worth it's salt we'd have blue chips at every position. Iowa is the mecca of college football. It's won double digit games 7 times in school history so it's obviously doing something right and since a 2 star guy who was going to Lutheran, a former walk on and a guy who's other best offer was to 3 MAC schools are graduating, this staff needs to pull in some 5 stars to replace em. Actually, they should have done it already. We're DOOMED
 
Let me get this straight, for years I've seen people bitch on this forum about KF not bringing in any JUCOs', now that he is.... they are complaining about him not recruiting well?
 
Hawk90 said:
Let me get this straight, for years I've seen people bitch on this forum about KF not bringing in any JUCOs', now that he is.... they are complaining about him not recruiting well?
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He could donate a million dollars to the children's hospital and people would want him fired. Oh wait.
 
I think in some respect Iowa needs to get away from the "Traditional" linebacker they usually target. I have stated it before but Bower is more of an old school big ten linebacker and what we ask him to do often has him as a mismatch. Nieman and Jewel have been much better in the pass situations that the Big Ten is exploiting more and more.

Look at a guy like Snyder, in my opinion he would be a good fit at OLB. Do we have more of those type of guys to back fill, I don't know? Iowa's defense is unique in that unless a guy is hurt or really gassed they play all the time. It has been that way for a long time. It is hard to say if one of the guys that is currently a back-up can step in and do the job. Iowa's defensive scheme and coaching rarely has guys out of position, where they get beat is when they are outmatched athletically.

As for the JUCO route I think this is brought up about every year and the fact is that Iowa does recruit JUCO players but not heavily because they are a developmental program. Most teams and coaches do not want to heavily recruit JUCO players all the time. Iowa targets guys that can help immediately, some they get and some they don't just like everybody else.
 
Hawk90 said:
Let me get this straight, for years I've seen people bitch on this forum about KF not bringing in any JUCOs', now that he is.... they are complaining about him not recruiting well?
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I bet he gave out crappy candy and popcorn balls at Halloween! And maybe even the small boxes of raisins! damn it all.
 
okeefe4prez said:
I only hope that I am no longer living in Illinois when he gets released from prison and sent to Illinois to serve his 10 year stint here. I do have to give Ferentz credit for shipping that guy out immediately after he got to campus so that lowlife Joe Tiller (RIP) had a chance to bring him in. For a guy who has been at a school as long as Ferentz, and now I'm not saying it's spotless, but he has kept the program relatively clean.
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He ain't gonna let a guy get busted 7 times for driving while suspended and still let him be on the team.
 
Caddy said:
It definitely hurts our recruiting when a player doesn't get any snaps until the starter finally graduates. That's on the coaching staff. There is no reason why the younger guys can't get meaningful game experience other than mop up duty. If they're that bad that they can't see the field at all, then they probably shouldn't have been recruited in the first place.
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What player in the LB corp has been held back that we know for a fact was better than the player in front of him? I'd argue that it's a sad state of affairs that we don't have another LB on the roster that is an upgrade over Bo Bower, but Jewell is a 3 year starter for good reason. Niemann has 3 years of starting experience for good reason. But I can't think of a past player that was hiding in plain sight on the bench for multiple years at the LB position that should have been playing over the starter. I suppose there is a good chance that one will reveal himself next year at Bower's position, but I don't think lack of snaps at LB is hurting our recruiting when it comes to the position.
 
Uhhh, if you really believe that 2nd stringers do not deserve to play a single down all year because the starter is better than him, I'm glad you're not a coach. Epeneza doesn't start...does that mean he should never see the field like Mends never sees the field? Does that mean Epeneza would not benefit from playing and giving the starter a rest? Maybe, just maybe, there is some benefit to playing the second teamers who play behind seniors? Uhh, duhhhh.
 
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