Hawkeye Report Podcast 802

We are pleased to have Iowa football Chief of Staff and General Manager Tyler Barnes join us today on the Hawkeye Report Podcast. 

As usual, we have a wide ranging conversation with Barnes about Iowa football recruiting and the team in general. We open the show talking about how important the Iowa Swarm was to the success of Hawkeye football the last four years and how it stepped in and filled a massive void in the new era of college athletics when it was desperately needed. 

We then dive into the state of recruiting now in the NIL era and how it is basically a wild west show. How does he go about trying to verify financial offers to prospects? How much is tampering a part of college football today and how does he address it? 

After that we discuss the current 2027 recruiting class. While we can't discuss specific names because of NCAA rules, Barnes shares with us how many more players they will seek to sign and what positions might be a need.  He also talks about the upcoming 5 for 5 rule, which allows players to play five full years at the college level. How is that impacting recruiting. 

We look back at Iowa's transfer haul this past winter and the philosophy that they went with to aquire players and how they went about doing that and targeting players who could be at Iowa for two or more years. We also talk about how they found Tony Diaz and Tyler Brown, who were two top targets for the Hawkeyes in the portal. 

Also, we look back at how Barnes and Tim Lester went about deciding on not going after a quarterback in the portal this past winter and the evaluation process that took place. 

Finally, we talk about Tom Moore, at 87 years of age, joining the Iowa staff this spring and what he has brought to the table as a coach and a person.