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After two weeks of "Yay...?" recruiting news, Iowa football finally landed a big fish Thursday: Indianapolis running back Toks Akinribade committed to the Hawkeyes. Akinribade was long thought to be at the top of Iowa's recruiting board for 2016, and with good reason. The three-star halfback held 13 FBS offers, including Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Boston College and Purdue. His commitment alone doubles the number of Power 5 conference offers held by Iowa's 2016 recruiting class. Rivals ranks him as the 34th-best "athlete" in this year's class, and 247 has him among the nation's top 50 halfbacks.
That offer sheet indicates one thing: He's a big, tough running back (Jim Harbaugh and Steve Addazio don't do scatbacks). Akinribade is already 6'0 and 205 pounds, and runs like someone even bigger than that. That power comes with production: According to 247 Sports, Akinribade ran for 1,579 yards and 15 touchdowns as a junior at Brownsburg (In.) High School. With a season left to play, he's topped 3,500 career yards and scored 37 times.
He also already appears to have the Iowa mindset in place (even if it comes across as a backhanded compliment):
"Just their tradition and how everybody is family to them — they care for one another," Akinribade said. "Their weight lifting program is real good and they don't just take the best athletes, they take the average and turn them into the best athletes."
(Emphasis added for lolz.)
Iowa sent Jim Reid to Indiana this year to get two guys: Akindibade and defensive lineman Jovan Swann. Reid's got one in the boat and looks to be in decent shape with the other. And if, as we speculated, the Hawkeyes just got their in-state recruiting out of the way early this year and are now focused on players outside the state of Iowa, this might not be as bad a recruiting year as we had feared.