Like anything other than a patriotic Ricky Stanzi photoshop would be appropriate for the 4th of July.

John Raymon was the second installment of the 3-part commitathon that took place yesterday. Raymon is the first defensive player of the 2011 Iowa commits and the seventh overall. He is not currently rated by either Scout or Rivals.

According to coach and recruiting coordinator Eric Johnson (@HawkeyeCoachEJ on Twitter) the Hawkeyes landed 3 new commits today (stories on the other 2 to come later). Shortly after Johnson's first tweet both recruiting sites, Scout and Rivals($), reported that the first commit of the day was Ray Hamilton, a tight end out of Ohio. He is the second tight end to commit for 2011 and the 6th offensive player (here is the full list of Iowa's 2011 commits). Hamilton is rated 3-stars by both Scout and Rivals. He wanted to be sure to go to a school that "definitely knows how to use the tight end" and he was fully aware of Iowa's reputation for putting tight ends in the NFL.

Hamilton in High School

Hamilton attends Strongsville High School in Strongsville, Ohio-a suburb of Cleveland. (Side note: Being an Ohio native he did like OSU, but the Buckeyes didn't offer. When asked about playing OSU in the future he said, "It’s going to be fun, that’s all I have to say...love it or leave it.") The Mustangs were not very good in 2009 winning just 3 games. But they were without Hamilton's services for half of the year as he player only just 6 games before suffering a minor knee injury. In 2008, though, the Mustangs were a lot better finishing 11-2 as the Northeast Ohio Conference Champions.

Stats:

• 2009 - 22 catches, 300 yards, 5 TDs
• 2008 - 20 catches, 318 yards, 5 TDs

A very interesting article came out today listing each BCS school's football expenses for the 2008-2009 season. Ohio State topped the list spending $32.3 million. Auburn was a close second at $28.8 million. Then, to my surprise, Iowa is listed 3rd with $26.9 million in expenses. The amount is not outrageous considering the program brought in $38.9 million in revenue during that same year. But to be the 3rd highest spending program in the nation...well that's a lot of money.

Links For Iowa has been on a long hiatus and I'm still not sure that it's going to be a regular feature. But today I have some links to share, so that's that. If it goes well, who knows, maybe I'll keep it up. Last summer it was pretty much a staple because there's not much else to write about. Anyway, here we go...

Player's Highlighted

Evaluating the Mechanics of Big Ten Quarterbacks: Ricky Stanzi
The Rivalry Esq provides an excellent breakdown of Ricky Stanzi's mechanics, which is something I am completely unqualified to do but enjoy reading. SPOILER ALERT: he gets a B+ overall, but it's really his ability to survey the field that's bringing him down. I can't really argue with that considering the amount of interceptions.