Another day, another verbal commitment to Iowa's 2013 football recruiting class? Yep. (EDIT: Maybe!) One day after adding defensive back prospect Malik Rucker, Iowa nabbed a verbal commitment from a player on the other side of the ball, wide receiver Mycial Allen. Allen is a consensus 3* prospect (among sites that have ranked him; ESPN hasn't gotten around to to ranking him yet) out of Michigan, although his offer list more closely resembles the classic Iowa "diamond in the rough" recruit: he had offers from a good chunk of the MAC (including Northern Illinois, Ball State, Central Michigan, and Miami (OH)), but Iowa was his only BCS-level offer.
Scout and 247Sports list Allen as a WR prospect, while Rivals and ESPN tout him as a safety; for now the smart money seems to be in him coming on the offensive side of the ball. He's listed at 5-11, 183 lbs, which is a little shorter than many of the receiver prospects Iowa has signed in recent years. I haven't seen a (fake) 40 time for him anywhere, but I have to assume that he's pretty fleet of foot -- Greg Davis hasn't been shy about wanting to add more speed to Iowa's receiving corps, so it would be a pretty big surprise if the receivers being signed under his watch weren't speedy. (Also, a receiver who's on the short side and slow? Probably not.) (Also also, he doesn't look too slow in those highlight clips.)
Allen didn't put up jaw-dropping numbers last year -- 31 catches, 575 yards, 6 TDs as a receiver; 38 tackles, 3 interceptions as a free safety -- but it's impossible to say how meaningful those stats are without knowing more about the offense his team ran (it looks like a pretty typical spread in the highlights, so chances are the yards and catches are spread around among several receivers) and the skill of the players around him. 18.5 ypc is not too shabby, though. Assuming WR is his destination (at least initially), Allen becomes the second receiver in Iowa's 2013 class, after Rock Island prospect Derrick Willies. Iowa added four receiver prospects in last year's class, so they may not be looking to add too many more wide receivers in this year's class; on the other hand, there's no doubt that Davis wants to reshape Iowa's receiving corps, so I'm sure Iowa won't be shy about adding more receivers if they meet Davis' qualifications (read: speed). In the meantime, welcome aboard, Mr. Allen.
A few thoughts on that highlight clip:
1) His high school colors are black and gold, which... THUMBS WAY THE HELL UP. One of their uniforms looks practically identical to Iowa's home uniform, minus the tigerhawk.
2) The first play on his highlight reel is a jailbreak screen, which brings back all kinds of fond memories of 2002. Seriously, there are more jailbreak screens in that highlight clip than Iowa's ran in the last 6-7 years combined.
3) After watching those highlights, it's not hard to see why Greg Davis would like him -- several of the routes he ran (and busted for big gains) looked identical to the kinds of routes I saw Texas receivers use extensively under Davis. (Jordan Shipley made a living running wide receiver screens that were similar to what Allen was running in that clip.)