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Under threat of termination, one B1G head coach told staff not to use summer scandal to negatively recruit against Iowa
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An investigation of Iowa’s football team regarding racial bias wouldn’t be used by other programs to negatively recruit against the program. So says Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz when talking on Wednesday about his recruiting class.
Iowa, No. 18 in the nation in the latest AP Top 25 Poll, has put together another solid recruiting class, quite an accomplishment given the investigation this summer into the program’s conduct among allegations of “racial disparities.”
Kirk Ferentz wouldn't name the (Big Ten) head coach who said this, but one coach told his staff that if anyone uses Iowa's investigation over the summer to negatively recruit against Iowa that they would be fired.
— David Eickholt (@DavidEickholt) December 16, 2020
It was against this backdrop that Iowa pieced together the No. 22 class in the nation, with Ferentz saying on Wednesday that one head coach in the Big Ten told him that his staff was instructed not to use the scandal as a negative recruitment tool. This threat was made, Ferentz said his Big Ten counterpart told him, under penalty of being fired.
It is an interesting admission from Ferentz, to say the least. In the cuthroat world of college football recruiting, there rarely are lines that aren’t crossed to land a coveted player or keep a blue chip recruit from going to a rival.
The report found that Ferentz and his staff were tough and discipline-oriented but that their program did not cross the proverbial line in terms of mistreatment.
Iowa’s recruiting class features six players rated as four-star recruits by 247Sports.com. It is the sixth-best class in the Big Ten.
Two of the recruits were among the top 250 players in the nation.