Iowa football boasts one of ESPN's favorite transfer portal classes

While high school recruiting remains hugely important for development and building out strong rosters, something the Iowa Hawkeyes continue to do very well, there is another path that teams must explore in today's world of college football should they want to compete at the highest level. Teams have to explore talent in the transfer portal to replenish gaps filled by players departing for the draft or those exhausting eligibility. Iowa , a team known for developing talen t by playing the long game, is getting more and more active in the transfer portal.

This year's haul in the transfer portal by Kirk Ferentz and his staff has the chance to be Iowa's best yet, and is ranked among ESPN's favorite transfer portal classes for the 2026 college football season. Iowa Favorite transfers: RB Lendon Phillips Jr . , South Dakota (2,116 yards from scrimmage, 20 total TDs); DE Kahmari Brown , Elon (66 tackles, 16 TFLs, 12 sacks); S Anthony Hawkins , Villanova (59 tackles, two INTs, 11 PBUs) Iowa got hit hard by attrition, returning only six players who started a majority of last season's games.

But after finding relative success with quarterback Mark Gronowski (South Dakota State) last season, Kirk Ferentz evidently decided he had found a potential inefficiency regarding FCS transfers and leaned into it. I'm not sure if it will work, but I love the idea. In addition to the three players mentioned above, Ferentz also brought in receivers Tony Diaz (Texas-Rio Grande Valley) and Evan James (Furman); DTs Brice Stevenson (Holy Cross) and Emmanuel Olagbaju (North Dakota); and safety Xavier Styles (Robert Morris), and perhaps the most intriguing part is, although all were productive in the FCS, none is a senior.

There's still some developmental potential here. - Bill Connelly, ESPN The addition of LJ Phillips Jr. can't be ignored.