Dallas Craddieth

Pos: DB

Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri

Ht: 6’1”

Wt: 180

Stars: 4

Other Offers: Duke, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa State, Kentucky, Louisville, Memphis, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ole Miss, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Northwestern, Purdue, Syracuse, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, Yale

Historically, national signing day has been full of surprises. This is the first year with the new early signing period and with it we’ve seen a flurry of activity over the last several weeks. Despite all the moving parts, things seemed to be on firm footing heading into today.

The current commits were all expected to sign and all but one of the top targets were expected to wait until February to make a decision. That all changed this morning as 4-star St. Louis safety Dallas Craddieth announced his decision to commit to the Iowa Hawkeyes.

The surprise is certainly a welcome one for Hawkeye fans. Craddieth is a big time prospect, being ranked as a 4-star by Rivals and holding offers from a slew of power five programs.

Even better? He wasted no time signing his national letter of intent.

So what are the Hawkeyes getting with Craddieth? Quite simply they are getting a fantastic athlete. He’s a good sized player for a defensive back, standing at 6’1”. His size is complemented by his speed and agility.

His film shows off a number of his talents. Most notably, Craddieth can bring the boom. That’s something Iowa fans have grown to know and love about the Hawkeye safeties from the likes of Bob Sanders to Tyler Sash to Miles Taylor. But beyond being a hard-hitter, Craddieth also shows good instincts both in pass coverage and knowing when to break off for run support. He shows good break on the ball and solid hands for a defensive back.

A surprise commit, Craddieth becomes the fourth defensive back commit in the class of 2018, joining Indianapolis-natives DJ Johnson and Julius Brents, as well as Pennsylvania native Terry Roberts. Like Craddieth, Brents projects as a safety while Roberts and Johnson look to stick at the corner position.

Craddieth becomes the first commit from the state of Missouri in the class. He hails from Hazelwood Central, a school that Iowa fans know well for producing former Hawkeye great Marvin McNutt. Assistant coach Lavar Woods has put in a lot of work to re-establish the pipeline from St. Louis to Iowa City and it looks to have paid off with the late addition of Dallas Craddieth.

Here’s a look at the full list of commitments in the class of 2018.

As a reminder, everything you need to know about the early signing period and Iowa’s class of 2018 can be found on our EARLY SIGNING PERIOD HEADQUARTERS.