West Des Moines Dowling senior wide receiver Amara Darboh chose the Michigan Wolverines as his future destination yesterday over Iowa, Florida, Wisconsin, and Notre Dame, among others. The lanky Darboh, a four-star recruit, was sold after watching the Wolverines beat Ohio State in “The Game” two Saturdays ago.
Although he missed part of the 2011 football season with a torn labrum, Darboh still caught 48 balls for 765 yards and 11 touchdowns.
“I like the way the program is moving,” Darboh told Randy Peterson at Hawk Central. ”I feel I can go there and make an impact.”
He adds to an already heralded Michigan recruiting class for first-year Head Coach Brady Hoke. Some services rank it as the best in the country, which isn’t good news for Iowa’s future Legends Division prospects. For the past three seasons, Iowa has been able to count on Michigan, one of college football’s best all-time programs, playing mediocre-to-poorly, and that appears to be shifting to a figment of the past.
Losing an in-state athlete of this caliber to another program is always painful for the Hawkeyes — it conjures up memories of Cedar Rapids Washington’s Adrian Arrington committing to Michigan in the mid-2000s — and that is especially true when the loss would have served a position of playmaking need. With the graduation of Marvin McNutt, Iowa’s all-time leader in receiving touchdowns and yards, and what Ferentz called the “surprising” transfer of freshman Marcus Grant, Iowa is in need of a stud number one wide receiver to come up through the ranks. Keenan Davis was that recruit for Iowa when he committed as a four-star senior out of C.R. Washington, and his time to assert his place as the Hawkeyes’ unquestioned number one pass catcher is 2012. Who will follow him in that role?
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