Random thoughts in the wake of Wednesday’s national signing day:

— Once upon a time, when a high school football player made a verbal commitment to sign with a school, you could take it to the bank. The recruiting was over. The kid was going to that school.

Not any more.

“Decommits” — players who change their mind after committing to a school — are now very common and seemingly increasing with each passing year.

Iowa only had one player decommit this year — Matt Hoch of Harlan, Iowa, changed his mind in December and decided to join his brother at Missouri — but the Hawkeyes picked up three players who once were pledged to other schools: C.J. Fiedorowicz (Illinois), Kevonte Martin-Manley (Bowling Green) and Tanner Miller (Northern Iowa).

— After signing Marcus Coker and D’Andre Johnson on Wednesday, Iowa now has eight running backs on scholarship and all but one of them will be either a freshman or a sophomore next season. And the one who will be a senior (Paki O’Meara) may be the least of the eight.

Even if Brad Rogers and Jeff Brinson end up at some other position (or some other school), it’s still hard to figure out how the Hawkeyes can find enough playing time for Adam Robinson, Brandon Wegher and Jewell Hampton, especially if Coker is the second coming of Shonn Greene, as some believe.

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz isn’t concerned.

“You know, I hope it becomes a problem,” he said. “I’m trying to think of the last time it was … I can’t remember us having too many good players at any one position. I certainly can’t remember us having too many running backs. My memory is a little bit recent right now. I was just happy this past year to have two in one game.”

— Obviously, big things are expected of Fiedorowicz, Coker, A.J. Derby and Andrew Donnal, the four-star players in Iowa’s recruiting class.

But some of us won’t be shocked if Solon linebacker James Morris ends up being the best player out of this class. And you have to believe there are some other great “sleeper” prospects in this bunch. Carl Davis is a 300-pound defensive tackle who regularly dunks in his high school basket-ball games in Detroit. I can’t wait to see what that guy looks like.

— From my experience, recruits who also have played sports such as basketball and tennis generally have very good footwork that translates well to the football field.

If that’s the case, this is a really good group. I counted 14 players among the 21 in Iowa’s class who play or have played for their high school basketball teams. Fiedorowicz already is his school’s career scoring leader. Brandon Scherff and Austin Vier are among the top rebounders in the state of Iowa right now. B.J. Lowery and Martin-Manley are going to be four-year lettermen at the var-sity level. Tanner Miller and Jim Poggi are in their third varsity season. Derby, who is sitting out this basketball season, helped Iowa City win a Class 4A state title as a sophomore.

Scherff, who is listed at 310 pounds, also lettered in tennis as a freshman in high school.

ou won’t see any punters and kickers on the list of scholarship recruits that Iowa will sign next week, but with Ryan Donahue and Daniel Murray both being seniors next year, Kirk Ferentz and his staff are looking to the future.

Punter Jonny Mullings will come on board as a “grayshirt,’’ which means he won’t enroll in school until next January. And the Hawkeyes enticed place-kicker Mike Meyer to join them as a walk-on.

Both are pretty intriguing prospects.

Mullings is a 21-year-old former rugby player who grew up in England and now lives in Austra-lia. In between, he spent a year as a foreign exchange student in Ottumwa, where he wasn’t even eligible to play in varsity games but once launched an 85-yard punt in a JV game. He’s a big guy – 6-foot-4, 215 pounds – whose rugby style punts could really be effective in some of the windswept stadiums of the Big Ten.

Meyer, a senior at Dubuque Wahlert, also brings a tremendously strong leg. He kicked off 30 times last season and 28 of them went for touchbacks. He also was eight for nine on field goals with six of those coming from beyond 40 yards and one of them coming from 56 yards. He could actually have an immediate impact because neither Murray nor sophomore Trent Mossbrucker, who figures to eventually replace him as the Hawkeyes’ place-kicker, has an extremely strong leg. (Murray had just five touchbacks on 66 kickoffs last season and averaged 60.8 yards per kickoff.) It’s possible that Meyer could be used on kickoffs and long field goals next fall with Murray handling extra points and short-range field goals.

With the national signing date now just two weeks away, Iowa recruiting class is holding steady with 19 recruits. There probably will not be any more additions to the class. Coach Kirk Ferentz and his staff are just hoping there won’t be any more subtractions.

One player who was committed to signing with Iowa for 5½ months, Matt Hoch of Harlan, Iowa, changed his mind in late December and is now committed to Missouri, where his older brother is a starting offensive lineman. Hoch admitted he knew he was going to switch even before he made an official visit to Missouri the weekend before Christmas. He said he really wanted to play tight end and the Hawkeyes planned to use him in the defensive line.

On the same day Hoch switched to Missouri, the Hawks got another commitment from wide receiver/kick returner Kevonte Martin-Manley of Brother Rice High School in suburban Detroit. Martin-Manley, from the same high school that produced former Iowa basketball star B.J. Armstrong, had been thought to be headed for Bowling Green. He supposedly is an exceptional punt returner.

The current Iowa class is rated No. 37 in the country and No. 5 in the Big Ten by Rivals.com. Penn State is No. 9 nationally with Michigan 19th, Ohio State 22nd and Michigan State 29th.

The Hawkeyes have landed in Florida. Unfortunately, I have a few more days before I join them there.
I’ve only had two people offer today to go along and carry my bags for me. Most days, it’s five or six. It must be warming up outside.

Kirk Ferentz told reporters upon landing in Florida on Sunday night that he planned to loosen the reins and let the players have some fun in these first few days. But knowing Ferentz, the players aren’t going to have much opportunity to find any real mischief. We’re betting they are under a pretty tight curfew by New Year’s Eve.

Lady Gaga, an international recording artist given to outlandish dress and unpredictable onstage behavior, is scheduled to perform at the team’s hotel — the Fontainebleau — on New Year’s Eve. A few players last week told us they thought wide receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos was the player most likely to jump up onstage with the flamboyant Gaga although others mentioned injured wideout Paul Chaney and freshman Josh Brown (both accomplished rappers) as possibilities.

Chances are, none of them will even get a glimpse of Gaga and not just because of whatever curfew they might be under. The lowest priced tickets for her concert are $425. The good seats, up near the stage, are $25,000.

This normally is a very busy time for college recruiters. They use the time between the end of the regular season and the bowl game (for those that are in bowl games) to host recruits on campus and to try to nail down firm commitments from players they have been courting for months.

It’s a rare year for the Hawkeyes. Kirk Ferentz and his staff don’t have much to do. They have a solid recruiting class of 19 committed players in place. All they want to do now is make sure they hold onto what they already have.

And Ferentz admitted that because of the kind of season the Hawks have had, they don’t expect to have much trouble doing that.

At least one of Iowa’s recruits – quarterback A.J. Derby of Iowa City – is planning to graduate from high school in mid-year and enroll at Iowa for the second semester so he can go through spring practice. It’s a blow for the City High basketball team, but it should help Derby find playing time earlier in his college career.

Scout.com rates the Hawkeyes’ recruiting class No. 33 in the country and No. 5 in the Big Ten, which is probably slightly higher than they usually are rated. Recruiting rankings aren’t something Ferentz cares much about anyway.

The rest of the Big Ten, according to Scout.com: Penn State is 4th, Michigan 16th, Ohio State 21st, Michigan State 26th, Wisconsin 39th, Purdue 42nd, Indiana 47th, Minnesota 50th, Northwestern 58th and Illinois 68th. The Illini normally would be up in the middle of the Big Ten somewhere, but they only have six commitments at the moment.

Part of what makes Kirk Ferentz successful as a college football coach is that he’s a control freak. He wants to be in command of every aspect of his program, to make sure that everything is done his way. It’s a good thing in a lot of ways.

It’s not always a good thing for members of the media, who have become accustomed to having Ferentz tell them what they can and can not do. Some of them even obey.

On Wednesday, Ferentz asked reporters not to ask any of his players questions about whether or not they are planning to turn pro after their junior seasons. (Three of his current stars are thinking about it.) He also said he’d appreciate it if we didn’t ask about rumors connecting Ferentz to Notre Dame and other job openings. He long ago told us not to ask players about injuries.

There even was talk a few weeks ago that he had admonished the parents of players not to speak to the media.

What harm would any of this do? Probably none. Ferentz’s players are so well-coached in how to sidestep the media they wouldn’t say anything outlandish or controversial anyway. But he’d prefer we didn’t even try.

And when would we ask? Only four players – those most adept at dealing with reporters – will be made available Sunday when the Hawkeyes announce what bowl game they’re going to. When they hold a pre-bowl interview session about 10 or 12 days after that, we again will get only “selected’’ players.

Ferentz joked Wednesday that we won’t be allowed to speak with sometimes controversial wide receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos until after the bowl game.

At least I think he was kidding.

There were only a few surprises on the All-Big Ten teams that were announced Monday night. One of the surprises was that Iowa was as well-represented as it was.

I figured the Hawkeyes might get as many as five first-team selections, but they had a league-high seven first-team players on the team chosen by the BigTen coaches, only four on the media team.
The five I thought were deserving: Linebacker Pat Angerer, strong safety Tyler Sash, defensive end Adrian Clayborn, offensive tackle Bryan Bulaga and cornerback Amari Spievey. All of those players made the coaches team and all but Spievey were honored by the media.

The coaches also put Dace Richardson and Tony Moeaki on the first team even though Richardson missed the last 4 ½ games of the conference season and Moeaki was more or less missing in action over that same span.

Other thoughts:

– The offensive line, which never really got its act together, had four players selected. In addition to Bulaga and Richardson, Rafael Eubanks and Kyle Calloway made the second team.

– Although 19 Iowa players received some sort of mention, there was at least one more that merited at least honorable mention. Receiver Marvin McNutt scored six touchdowns in a span of four Big Ten games, including some of the clutch plays of the season.

– Iowa’s defense received the recognition it deserved. The only two starters who didn’t get some sort of mention were Jeremiha Hunter and Shaun Prater.

– Although everyone knew Wisconsin’s John Clay and Penn State’s Evan Royster would be the first team running backs, I thought Adam Robinson had a chance to make the second team. He ended up being honorable mention on both teams with Purdue’s Ralph Bolden and Ohio State’s Brandon Saine making the second team.

– There was widespread disagreement on the first team wide receivers. The coaches picked Minnesota’s Eric Decker and Michigan State’s Blair White. The media went with Indiana’s Tandon Doss and Purdue’s Keith Smith. I would have voted for White and Smith.

– It was interesting that Penn State defensive tackle Jared Odrick was the coaches’ defensive player of the year, but he wasn’t even first team on the media squad. There’s no way he had a better season than Wisconsin’s O’Brien Schofield, Michigan State’s Greg Jones (the media pick) and Angerer.

– You can’t help but wonder how the coach of the year voting might have gone if the voting hadn’t been done with a week to go in the season. Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz won the award, but Pat Fitzgerald’s Northwestern club finished very strong, beating Wisconsin in the final game to finish 8-4. Fitz might have gotten a few more votes if the voting was done later.

The All-Big Ten teams selected by the coaches and the media will be announced Monday night and it will be interesting to see how the Hawkeyes are rewarded for the season they’ve had.

They have plenty of guys who have a chance to make All-Big Ten, but the only two sure things on the first team probably are linebacker Pat Angerer and safety Tyler Sash. I’ll be stunned if those two aren’t there. Angerer may even have a shot at being the league’s defensive player of the year.

Cornerback Amari Spievey is a great player but could get overlooked because his statistics don’t necessarily reflect the type of player he is.

Adrian Clayborn has the stats, but the Big Ten is loaded with quality defensive linemen this season. Wisconsin’s O’Brien Schofield is a great player. So are Penn State’s Jared Odrick and Ohio State’s Thaddeus Gibson. And you could make a case for Michigan’s Brandon Graham, Indiana’s Jammie Kirlew and Purdue’s Ryan Kerrigan each being the best player on their teams.

There probably are a dozen other Hawkeyes with a chance of getting some sort of All-Big Ten mention.

Then, of course, there is the Coach of the Year award. I think Kirk Ferentz probably gets it although there might be some sentiment for Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald. I don’t really see another viable candidate unless Ohio State’s Jim Tressel gets some votes for winning a fifth straight league title.

Normally this just happens after the season is over and with NFL teams. Now Kirk Ferentz is being linked to a college head coaching job while the season is still in progress.

It’s almost certainly hogwash. I would be amazed if there’s any concrete foundation beneath the rumor that Ferentz is a candidate to become the next head coach at Notre Dame.

More than likely this is some media guy peeling names off the top of his head without any real basis in fact.

It’s possible there’s interest on Notre Dame’s part. But Ferentz has a pretty good thing going at Iowa. He’s one of the 10 highest paid coaches in the country. He’s probably in the top five in the country in terms of job security. So, why uproot your family from a place they’re happy and comfortable to go somewhere they’ve never lived, where you’re not likely to make more money and where you’ll be fired in four years if you’re not at least 10 games over .500?

It makes no sense. Ferentz didn’t come right out and slam the door shut on the rumor Tuesday – he never does; it’s bad business – but he kind of laughed it off and said he’s very happy right where’s at. It’s the closest he gets to a complete denial.

There also are reports that Oklahoma coach Bobby Stoops has expressed interest in Notre Dame and the names of Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly and Florida coach Urban Meyer have popped up. This shows the arrogance of the Notre Dame mentality. Meyer leaving Florida to go to South Bend would be like Ferentz leaving Iowa to go to Drake. It isn’t going to happen.

This is one of those “Hey did you realize?’’ questions that Kirk Ferentz hates to get in mid-news conference. Fortunately, no one asked it Tuesday.

But hey coach, did you realize your career record against Indiana is worse than your won-loss mark against Penn State? And Wisconsin. And Michigan State. And Minnesota. And Illinois. And Purdue.

Indiana is a perennial doormat in the Big Ten. It has finished in the first division just once in the past 14 years, never has been higher than fourth over that span and has been ninth or worse nine times.
But the Hoosiers are 4-4 against Ferentz and that’s with three different Indiana coaches getting the best of him.

And you can tell Ferentz is worried about Saturday’s game, not only because he lost a couple of starters (Adam Robinson and Dace Richardson) to injuries last Saturday.

He knows his team needs to do a little more than just show up for this one. Indiana has a decent quarterback (Ben Chappell), a dynamite receiver (Tandon Ross), maybe the best return man in the Big Ten (Ray Fisher) and very good defensive ends.

“Those two guys wore us out two years ago in our stadium,’’ Ferentz said. “We couldn’t block them all day long.  It’s still kind of vivid in my mind right now.’’

Most of us wouldn’t pick the Hoosiers to win this game, but if you’re a betting person, that Las Vegas spread of 17½ points is pretty inviting. This Iowa team is equally capable of playing up or down to the level of competition. It’s hard to imagine the Hawkeyes beating anyone by 17½ points.