Position portal targets for Iowa football
College football in the month of December and January is a balancing act. For the Iowa football program it has been focused on discussing with a relatively small group of players about their future and coming back for one more season, a couple of players who were considering leaving for the NFL, and maybe taking a tiny peek at the transfer portal.
For the most part, Iowa has decided to work on the first two areas during the month of December. The Hawkeye coaches were focused on that, getting through signing day for the Class of 2024, and preparing for their bowl game.
But, once the bowl game ended, the focus moves on. The decisions to stay or go from players with a Covid year or looking at the NFL are underway and probably more than halfway done. Now it appears that Kirk Ferentz, Director of Recruiting Tyler Barnes, and the Iowa staff are eyeing adding talent via the portal.
During his comments on a signing day zoom interview, Barnes said that he hasn’t even really looked at the portal and part of that was because he was focused on recruiting their own players and Iowa’s scholarship numbers were over the 85 limit and growing. Our scholarship distribution chart has Iowa at 88 scholarships players as of Thursday morning.
However, it appears that Iowa is now getting active with a sense of urgency in the transfer portal, particularly with the start of the spring semester looming in less than two weeks. A source close to the Iowa football program confirmed a report that Iowa will be hosting four star quarterback Ty Thompson. As we wrote earlier this week, Iowa needed to be active in the portal to seek a backup quarterback, but thought it might not happen until after spring ball.
The Hawkeyes had offered Thompson out of high school and he has family in the state of Iowa, but he opted to commit to Oregon. The 2021 recruit has two years of eligibility remaining. The Ducks brought in former Oklahoma QB Dillion Gabriel and former UCLA signal caller Dante Moore since the end of the season, so Thompson decided to take his talents elsewhere. In his Ducks career, Thompson has played in 13 games, passing for 456 yards and 6 touchdowns.
The Hawkeye coaches are not likely done looking in the portal for help.
One position I would expect them to be active in seeking help is cornerback. This will depend on what happens with All American Cooper DeJean, who has yet to decide if he’s heading to the NFL or coming back for his senior year. DeJean is expected to be a first round pick in the NFL Draft if he declares.
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Iowa has a starting spot open and a more seasoned corner to pair with Jermari Harris would be a positive edition to the roster to compete with Deshaun Lee and T.J. Hall this year.
Two other positions that I would expect Iowa to look to acquire talent via the transfer portal would be wide receiver and potentially offensive line.
The wide receiver need is fairly obvious. Iowa seems to have done well last year adding Kaleb Brown and Seth Anderson. But, the position is still thin and needs more ready to play depth and talent. I’d look for the Hawkeyes to potentially eventually add one more wide receiver.
Offensive line might be a surprise given that nearly everyone is returning. But, as a unit the group has had a number of health issues and it might be worthwhile adding more depth, like they did last year when they brought in Rusty Feth. Bottom line, they would potentially use one more player, particularly one who could play more than one position.
With Iowa now active in the portal, several players still making decisions, and Kirk Ferentz hiring an offensive coordinator probably in the next two weeks, it’s shaping up to be an interesting January for Iowa football.
