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The Iowa Hawkeyes are officially rolling on the recruiting trail. The Hawkeye staff hosted their annual big official visit weekend this past weekend with 14 prospects taking officials and a handful of others joining them. In the wake of that weekend, Iowa has already landed their first commitment of the bunch as South Carolina kicker Drew Stevens pledged to the Hawkeyes on Monday.
That was the same day the Iowa staff decided to pull the trigger on an offer to Oklahoma quarterback Carson May, who ironically was not one of the many visitors over the weekend. Instead, May had been on campus a week prior to show off his skills in person. The staff liked what they saw and after seeing one more QB in person for a camp last Sunday, they planted their flag on May.
Today, the Jones, Oklahoma native returned the favor and planted his flag on the Hawkeye state.
Committed...University of Iowa. #Swarm22 pic.twitter.com/mkQP33DgYd
— Carson May (@CarsonMay_3) June 29, 2021
May is a big-bodied pro-style QB in the mold of a Nate Stanley. At 6’5” and 220 pounds as a junior, May has the prototypical Iowa quarterback frame. And as we saw with Stanley, May has some escapability as he ran for 650 yards and 14 touchdowns as a junior.
While he worked almost exclusively out of the shotgun as a prep at Jones, May shows the ability to step up in the pocket and avoid pressure. His throwing motion is a bit different from recent Iowa QBs, but he has good arm strength and on film, you can see him make a wide variety of throws. He appears to read the defense well and is capable of fitting the ball into tight spaces or throwing the deep ball with plenty of air for his receivers to move open.
Those capabilities helped May throw for an impressive 3,020 yards and 26 touchdowns on just 5 interceptions as a junior while completing more than 60% of his passes. While that didn’t translate into a ton of power five offers given the wild year with COVID-19 limiting in person evaluations and restricting camps, it was more than enough for the Iowa staff once they had an opportunity to compare him to other prospects in person.
May told HawkeyeReport he fell in love with the program the moment he got to Iowa City and the offer from Iowa was an emotional moment.
When I went to Iowa, I just fell in love with the place. The facilities and all the coaches made it feel like home.
Coach O’Keefe hit me up and told me I had the offer and I just cried and gave my mom and dad the biggest hug, it was a real emotional thing for me and I am really happy right now.
In addition to the offer from Iowa, May had offers from Old Dominion and Western Michigan. He was also drawing interest from Memphis, Houston, Kansas State and Oklahoma State having camped at each in recent weeks.
With May on board, the Hawkeyes now have six scholarship commitments in the class of 2022. He becomes Iowa’s first commitment from the state of Oklahoma since the Hawkeyes took a 2012 flyer on a signing day offer to then unranked 6’4”, 200 pound Norman, Oklahoma wide receiver George Kittle. Here’s hoping history repeats itself.
Welcome aboard Carson May!