Iowa Lands Kicker/Punter Ryan Donahue

One of the nation’s top kicking prospects recently gave Iowa his verbal commitment. Ryan Donahue, a 6-foot-3, 180-pounder, from Chicago (St. Rita), is said to be the best kicker in the Land of Lincoln since Nick Setta in the late 90’s. Donahue talks about his decision to commit early and why he picked Iowa.

“I kind of had it in my head that I wanted to commit to Iowa on my unofficial visit last week.” Ryan Donahue said.

“When I arrived in Iowa City on Friday morning I met with Coach (Lester) Erb and we talked for like fifteen minutes or so. After that I went into Coach (Kirk) Ferentz’s office and we had about a half-hour conversation.

“Basically Friday was all about getting familiar with the campus and facilities. I took a complete campus tour and then I took a tour of all the football facilities.

“After lunch I sat back down again with Coach Ferentz and told him that I wanted to commit to Iowa. Iowa has everything that I’m looking for in a school. The academics are very good and I really liked the layout of the campus.

“Iowa’s football program is becoming one of the best in the country. Coach Ferentz brought in a great recruiting class last year and hopefully he’s going to bring another good one in this year.

“The atmosphere that surrounds Iowa football is amazing. The Iowa fans are some of the craziest in college football. They know how to get behind their team and I just wanted to be a part of that.”

We asked Donahue what his plans are for his first season in Iowa City.

“The term red-shirt was brought up but Coach Ferentz told me that I didn’t have to worry about that until after camp next summer. My plan is to be the starting punter at Iowa as a true freshman.”

Donahue handled both the kicking and punting duties the past two seasons for St. Rita. As a junior, he averaged 41-yards per punt and had an average hang-time on his punts of 4.2 seconds.

Donahue also had a long field goal of 55-yards in 2004 and plans on going after Nick Setta’s state record 59-yard field goal in ’05. Ryan was named all-conference and all-area as a junior.