Sry, finals week kinda wrecked this blog.
Anyway, the past week brought some good news and some bad news from Northwestern. On the plus side, Northwestern landed WR Andrew Scanlan, a 6-foot-2 wide receiver from Royersford, Pennsylvania. Scanlan was Northwestern's 19th commit and second wide receiver alongside previous recruit Mike McHugh and was receiving interest from MAC schools like Akron and NIU - another under-the-radar-y guy. All things told, this is shaping up to be a pretty good class, and there's room to go yet with 25 seniors leaving and a number of big name guys on the table.
However, there was a bit of a bummer, as four-star defensive lineman Faith Ekakitie from Lake Forest Academy chose Iowa over Northwestern. It's not like you'd expect: Ekakitie wrote in his blog that he was nearly committed to Northwestern, but his GPA was .2 points too low for admission, something he called "heart-breaking". Instead, he chose Iowa.
I always like to point out that Northwestern's academic prestige and focus on producing smart student-athletes is awesome for Northwestern in terms of recruiting. Northwestern bills itself as the best place for smart student athletes to come get a degree. I know admissions has to do their job, but this seems like a major missed opportunity. Ekakitie was the No. 3 recruit in the state of Illinois and would have been Northwestern's second four-star lineman in this class alongside DT Greg Kuhar. From the little you can learn about a 17-year-old from their blog, Ekakitie seems like a bright kid interested in getting a great education - specifically kinesiology. To be honest, he seems like exactly the type of player having a program focused on attracting smart athletes - even if they are slightly below the caliber of the average NU student - is meant to attract: a very talented guy with an interest in getting a good degree. Instead, he's at Iowa. I try exclusively to keep myself from caring what colleges 17-year-old football players decide to go to, but what this says about Northwestern football - even if it does mean that a very talented player was on the verge of choosing NU over other schools - is kind of frustrating.