I logged onto Twitter at about 9 p.m. last night and the social network was an absolute Cy-Hawk cesspool.
Last night on The Des Moines Register’s and 1460 KXnO’s “Hawk Central” program, Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz had some choice words for recruiting rivals Iowa State, Minnesota and Nebraska.
Ferentz was asked about recruiting in general, and here was his answer:
“What has sped things up (in recruiting) in our state, especially, is the guys in Ames and then the new guys in Minneapolis seem to have no problem really throwing early things out,” Ferentz said in reference to scholarship offers. “And what I’ve learned – certainly about the guys in Ames, and I think we’ll find this about the guys in Minneapolis — what does an offer really mean? I can tell you this much: If the University of Iowa offers you a scholarship and you commit to us, we intend to sign you.”
There was more.
“I think you have to look no further than in-state, to see there were a lot of offers in the 2018 class that went out very early out of Ames. And I’m not sure all those guys were able to commit to them if they wanted to, because some of those guys have since gone other places.”
Lots to chew on here, so I’ll come at this from four different angles.
The level-headed, as objective as I can be approach: Ferentz clearly doesn’t appreciate the not-very new trend in recruiting, where schools offer a bunch of kids. Look at this graph that 247’s Alex Halstead provided on Twitter last night as an example.
Some have asked, so here are last year’s totals. Half of the Big Ten offered more than 250 kids in last year’s recruiting cycle. pic.twitter.com/mhzl43aSda
— Alex Halsted (@AlexHalsted) May 4, 2017
This approach to recruiting kind of reminds me of the Eno Benjamin story from last year. Ferentz is an old school and fiery guy who speaks his mind. There isn’t much more to it and I am sure that he believes what he said about Iowa’s word being strong.
Iowa State’s perspective: Iowa State football has won three bowl games in history. Three. When you are a program that has had as little of success as Iowa State has – not to mention winning only eight games in the last three years – you absolutely have to offer kids early. To not do so would be very, very stupid.
Homer perspective: Why is Ferentz worried about this? Iowa beat Iowa State 42-3 last year. P.J. Fleck hasn’t coached a single game in the Big Ten. Ferentz comes off as feeling threatened by his regional rivals on the recruiting trail. I can understand why, considering Nebraska and Minnesota are currently ranked 10th and 11th in the 247 national recruiting rankings. Iowa State just hauled in its two best classes in program history. Also according to 247, Iowa has 93 offers of their own out right now. Iowa can’t possibly intend on signing all of those kids.
Final thoughts: For the most part, Iowa State fans love it when Jamie Pollard is bold, brash and speaks his mind. I know I do, so I can’t really fault Iowa when Brian Ferentz does the same thing. Regardless of what you think of the comments, it made for an interesting and fun night in early May.
