Impact for Iowa after adding Reece Vander Zee
The Iowa Football team remains red hot on the recruiting trail. On Tuesday, they landed two more commitments. We have already written about the impact of the commitment of Gavin Hoffman, but also just as important was Iowa landing Reece Vander Zee.
The 6-foot-5 and 190 pound wide receiver from Central Lyon High School in Rock Rapids, IA picked the Hawkeyes over the Cyclones.
It was an impactful decision on a couple of different fronts for the Iowa program.
First, the state of Iowa doesn’t produce a whole lot of impactful wide receiver prospects. While there were some rumors that surfaced in the last month or two that suggested the Hawkeyes might be losing ground with Vander Zee and potentially looking at him as a tight end, none of that was really accurate.
While the Cyclones did make a strong push, the reality is that Vander Zee was always leaning towards Iowa. This also continues the remarkable success of Iowa special teams coordinator LeVar Woods in northwest Iowa. If he targets a prospect in that area of Iowa, chances are, he’s going to land them.
It probably also helped that his close friend and former teammate, Zach Lutmer, arrived in Iowa City this summer to be part of the Hawkeye football program. Also, his current teammate, Graham Eben, announced that he would be a preferred walk-on for Iowa next season.
Bottom line, Iowa dominated in-state recruiting once again in this recruiting cycle. They have now landed every target they offered before filling up all those positions. The only players with Iowa offers that they didn’t land were offensive lineman Grant Brix and running back/athlete Titus Cram. The Hawkeyes are now full at offensive line and running back.
The other impact is wide receiver is a huge position of need for Iowa. He is the first verbal commitment at wide receiver for Iowa in this class with another one expected on July 1st from KJ Parker, who also visited Iowa City this past weekend. With Vander Zee on board, Iowa is up to eight scholarship wide receivers starting next season.
