Little caring is creepy update. Continuing last season's trend of knocking out recruiting earlier rather than later, Iowa picked up yet another commitment on Thursday, verbally securing the services of MI WR/TE Jake Duzey (now do you see what we did there with the headline? DO YOU?).
Duzey's a big kid, listed at either 6'4" or 6'5" and anywhere from 210-215 pounds*. He played mostly wideout in HS, if his film is any indication, but even with his completely fake 4.49 40 time, Duzey projects as a tight end. Per PSD,there is video, and let's all watch, shall we?
His speed is pretty good, even if his competition seems to be lacking, but he certainly hasn't got the lateral quickness yet to get open against Big 10 caliber cornerbacks.
His style of "run the route, one move, and go" translates awfully well to tight end, though, especially the way Iowa uses the position. In fact, "run the route, one move, and go" sounds awfully familiar...
You should probably stop this after the first highlight; most of the plays involving Clark just show him catching the ball in the open field, which doesn't help any point we've made in this column. Plus there's Limp Bizkit. Just sayin'.
Now, that's not to anoint Duzey as the next Dallas Clark straight off the bat; Clark's play was the result of years of aberrantly hard work in the S&C program, a level of dedication that at least 90% of collegiate players (even at Iowa!) never achieve. But. The approach to route running, at the very least, seems to be similar; we see very few wasted steps in Duzey's routes, which is a big factor in the receptions he ends up breaking for big gains.
At any rate, Duzey had a weird offer sheet; only three other BCS teams offered schollies, according to Rivals, but they were MSU, Purdue, and Oregon. We imagine more BCS offers would come as soon as schools could see how Duzey can move with more weight on. But at the very least, right now, Duzey's efficacy in a passing offense seems to be well-regarded by more teams than only Iowa. So that's cool.
Oh, and if he stays at TE for his career at Iowa and works hard enough to get on the field, on how many of his catches will Dolph and Podolak fall back onto the "Duzey/doozy" pun? 60%? 70%? Jake, do everybody a favor, take a cue from Amari Spievey, and insist that your last name be pronounced "doo-ZAY." Trust us.
*Don't you ever wish that gap were bigger? And not even Seantrel Henderson "300-360" big, but like, "listed anywhere from 130 pounds to 850." No, you don't wish that? Just us? Fine.