No. 63 is just fine with Ferentz
On national football signing date, every coach loves the group of players he just signed. It’s part of the drill. You smile as you face the media and emphasize all the good aspects of the players you recruited, even if the positives are a little hard to find.
On Wednesday, you got the feeling that Kirk Ferentz wasn’t just dutifully espousing the merits of what is allegedly the nation’s 63rd best recruiting class. You got the feeling Ferentz really likes this group. It’s his kind of class – mostly guys rated as two-star recruits by Rivals.com and Scout.com with only a sprinkling of three- and four-star guys.
Ferentz had a top 20 class once, one loaded with four-star guys and even one rare can’t-miss, five-star prospect. The group of players he signed in 2005 checked in at No. 11 nationally but it’s pretty much been a washout. The five-star recruit, Dan Doering, never has been able to beat out guys with many fewer stars in front of their names. Of the 23 players the Hawkeyes signed that year, only eight are still around and only two of those eight will be coming back next fall as returning starters – Pat Angerer and Kyle Calloway. They were both three-star guys.
As Ferentz noted Wednesday, most of the best players on the team that went 9-4 last fall were mere two or three-star recruits.
“We saw potential in all those guys but it’s really what they did after they got here that made them players,’’ he said.
The one other thing he said Wednesday that makes a lot of sense is that you can’t judge a recruiting class until three or four years down the road. Chances are, when we get to that point the bunch he signed Wednesday will look a lot better than that ballyhooed 2005 group.
