Touted Kansas City quarterback Nate Scheelhaase is going to announce his college choice live on local TV at 6 p.m. Wednesday evening. He’ll have six hats on a table in front of him, one of which will have an Iowa Hawkeyes logo on the front. The others: Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, Nebraska and Missouri. Click here for a story about Scheelhaase in the Kansas City Star.

Will he or won’t he? That’s obviously the big question Iowa fans are asking about the player Rivals ranks as the No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in America. The 6-foot-3, 185-pound Scheelhaase is worthy. He passed for 1,861 yards and 20 touchdowns and ran for 917 yards and 14 scores while leading Rockhurst High School to an undefeated record and a Missouri Class 6 state championship as a junior last season.

My guess is he won’t. There are just too many other intriguing offers on the table from programs that are already among college football’s elite (Oklahoma) or are on the rise (Missouri, Kansas, Illinois) for a top-tier prospect like Scheelhaase to pick a school that has struggled of late (Iowa, Nebraska).  

The one thing working in Iowa’s favor is that Scheelhaase’s father, Nate Creer, played for the Hawkeyes in the mid-80s. Played on some really good teams, in fact. Scheelhaase was born in the Quad-Cities and spent some of his youth in Iowa before moving to K.C. Plus, Iowa was the first school to offer Scheelhaase a scholarship, something he said was important to him when I talked to him for a story last month. (Click herefor the story on Scheelhaase and Connecticut dual-threat QB Jordan Reed)

“I’m looking for a program where I’ll be comfortable on campus, comfortable with the coaches, some place I can see myself playing in the future,” Scheelhaase said at the time. “Iowa was my first offer, so that means something to me. And my dad played there, so that’s something that is cool with it. I feel really comfortable there. I like the campus a lot. It’s a good school. I definitely do like Iowa. It’s a solid school.”

Since I talked to him, though, Scheelhaase has made visits to more than half-a-dozen other suitors, including Oklahoma. Here’s what he told the Star about his visit with the Sooners, who, apparently, are interested in him as a quarterback now after showing early interest in bringing him in as an “athlete.”

“Oklahoma was the last school that was recruiting me as an athlete,” he said. “When I went up this summer, it was for sure quarterback. It’s definitely a school I felt comfortable with since I was young, but you get a lot of those same feelings, especially with the local schools. We’ll see what happens.”

I put a call into Scheelhaase earlier today and sent him a text message yesterday but haven’t heard back. I did hear back from Scheelhaase’s buddy and fellow Iowa recruit, Mt. Pleasant (Iowa) receiver Jordan Cotton, and he said he expects to announce his decision next week. Will Cotton, whose father Marshall played at Iowa with Creer, be swayed by Scheelhaase’s announcement. The two have been lifelong friends, spent time working out together this summer in Kansas City and took visits to schools together, including Kansas.

We will see what happens, first with Scheelhaase live on Kansas City TV at 6 p.m. Wednesday, which to me seems more than a little excessive for a verbal commitment that could be broken as easily as my dinner plans for Saturday. Recruits flop on verbals all the time, and signing day isn’t until the first Wednesday in February, which will give Scheelhaase a lot of time to reconsider and, dare I say, other coaches ample opportunity to try to change his mind.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Hawkeyes Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.