Stanzi to Iowa recruits: Ignore negative sales pitches
Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz acknowledged last week the likelihood that schools will use the Rhabdomyolysis outbreak against his team on the recruiting trail.
To that, former Hawkeye quarterback Ricky Stanzi says:
“I would tell recruits not to let that be a factor,” Stanzi said last week. “If you go by that . . . and if it caused you to change your mind from Iowa to someplace else . . .it could ruin your life.”
He says that because last January was the first time a cluster of 13 Iowa players ever had been hospitalized within days of a strenuous workout.
“It was such a freak case,” Stanzi said. “It was a situation where guys weren’t in shape. I’ve gone through it. Guys just weren’t in shape.”
Here is how Ferentz responded when asked last week about potential negative recruiting:
“I would imagine that’s probably the case,” he said during a press conference. “Yeah sure. It’s something we’re going to talk about openly. We’ll communicate what happened — what we know.”
Category: Iowa Hawkeyes Football
I think this whole episode could also be used as a positive selling point. If I were a highschool recruit I might say “Man, they really work hard at Iowa and I want to take that challenge on.” If I know the kind of athletes they have at Iowa, I bet there were 90 or so Hawks lined up for that workout the next day, probably upset that these 13 guys succumbed to their injuries. What it says to other programs is, Iowa likes to push their athletes to the limit, sometimes there are negative consequences to that but I guarantee you one thing, the Hawks that survived it are tougher today because of it. To me this whole event was completely blown out of proportion by the media, so sorry to report there were no conspiracies here and finally can we just move on to spring ball already. Here are a few sales pitches I think may be swirling around the BIG 10 this year.
#5. Come to Penn State, We have this awesome crowd dress up thing called a “White Out” which we dress up in all white, play Iowa in every sport and lose.
#4. Come to Michigan, We have far superior 5 Star recruits based on Tom Lemming’s ratings and get spanked by Iowa every year.
#3. Come to Ohio State, We get lots of cool bowl gifts that you can later trade for tattoo’s if you so desire.
#2. Come to Michigan State, We have Gerard Butler with 300 Spartans on the field but still can’t beat 11 Hawkeyes.
#1. Come to Ohio State, Our coach has a really cool sweater vest that up until this year had super powers that could deflect all NCAA allegations of cheating. If you come now, there is a chance we could be eligible to play in a bowl game by your 5th year.
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Peterson would know about negative recruiting.
During this incident, he was calling the Iowa football recruits to make sure that they had heard about it and asking them if they were thinking about decommitting.
That’s not surprising since his lips have always been firmly planted on ISU rear-ends.
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[...] Coach Ferrentz stands out to me as a great coach because his players are coached to get the most out of their potential. How often has he turned a no name recruit and gotten them to the NFL? These players are well disciplined and always know the game plan and maintain their assignments every game. There has not been a player that has ever left that program complaining that they did not get the proper coaching to get them to the next level. Ricki Stanzi said it best when he said that not going to Iowa could change your life. [...]
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