IOWA CITY — When James Resar begins Iowa football’s summer workout regimen this month, the incoming freshman quarterback will technically be far from his home of Jacksonville, Fla. More than 900 miles, as the crow flies.
In reality, though, Iowa will feel much closer to home than that.
“All my family is in Wisconsin,” Resar said in a phone call this week with The Gazette. “I was raised there. … Actually, my mom and siblings right now are visiting there.”
Resar and his immediate family, as Iowa football recruiting director Tyler Barnes described them in December, are technically Floridians, but “Midwesterners at heart.”
While Iowa’s quarterback position (and offense as a whole) has faced a tumultuous last few years, the Hawkeyes’ place in Resar’s heart has been one of the few constants.
Iowa has a different offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from when Resar committed in September 2022. It has a different scheme. Every quarterback on the roster when Resar committed has since transferred elsewhere.
However, Resar “never wavered from Day 1 committing to us,” Barnes said.
“They've been up here I think all total now five times in the recruiting process, which that's not an easy trip from Jacksonville,” Barnes said back in December, before Resar visited again in the spring.
Resar’s continued commitment was despite continued recruiting interest from other colleges well after he announced his decision to go to Iowa. North Carolina, Tulane, Western Kentucky and Florida A&M all offered after he announced his decision to go to Iowa.
When news broke that offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz would not be retained beyond the 2023 season, Barnes “got with Coach (Kirk) Ferentz and said, ‘We need to touch base with every offensive commit and explain the situation.’”
That process unsurprisingly started with Resar.
“I really liked Brian, but I trusted Coach (Kirk) Ferentz,” Resar told The Gazette. “He gave me a call right after (Brian) got fired and told me that he was going to hire the best person for the team, and I trusted him.”
That trust seemed to pay off, as Resar has seen enough to believe new offensive coordinator Tim Lester was a “really good choice.”
“I visited him for spring practice in April, I think,” Resar said. “And we talked a lot of ball. And he’s been checking in on me ever since the visit.”
Lester’s offensive scheme is “all the Packers’ stuff,” Resar said.
“There’s a lot of answers in every play to what the defense can do,” Resar said.
As usual for incoming freshman quarterbacks at Iowa, immediate playing time is unlikely for Resar. Cade McNamara and Brendan Sullivan — both have starting experience in the Big Ten — are atop Iowa’s QB pecking order. After that top tier, Resar will be competing with redshirt freshman Marco Lainez and possibly walk-on Jackson Stratton for opportunities.
Resar described his game as “knows what to do with the ball, very accurate and can improvise when things don’t go as planned.”
When Resar does improvise, he has elite speed. He ran a 10.67-second 100-meter dash in high school. For those who are not track and field aficionados, that is roughly equivalent to running 21 miles per hour from one end zone to the other.
“James has a role as a passer, but you can't deny the athletic ability that he has, and that's something that intrigued us,” Barnes said. “Something maybe a little bit different than we have in the room currently and in the past few years.”
Iowa’s incoming 2024 class
Resar is part of a 2024 recruiting class that ranks ninth in the 18-team Big Ten and 32nd nationally, as measured by 247Sports. That’s consistent with where the Hawkeyes’ recruiting classes have historically ranked — varying from 24th to 41st nationally from 2017-23.
Six of Iowa’s 21 incoming scholarship players have four-star ratings from 247Sports — tight end Gavin Hoffman, linebacker Derek Weisskopf, defensive end Joseph Anderson, linebacker Cam Buffington, offensive lineman Cody Fox and the aforementioned Resar.
Judge recruiting star ratings at your own risk, though. Iowa’s last three first-round selections in the NFL Draft — Lukas Van Ness, Jack Campbell and Tyler Linderbaum — all had mere three-star 247Sports Composite ratings.
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Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com
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