Pat Harty
1/21/24
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Kadyn Proctor is coming home.
In fact, he is back in his home state, and he attended the men’s basketball game between Iowa and Purdue on Saturday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The former five-star recruit and 2023 Southeast Polk graduate announced Saturday on X, which was formerly known as Twitter, that he will transfer to Iowa after having played his freshman season for Nick Saban at Alabama, where he started all 14 games at left tackle and made multiple freshman All-America teams.
Proctor will be reunited with his close friend and former high school teammate, Xavier Nwankpa, who plays strong safety for the Hawkeyes.
Proctor will also join the program to which he was committed for multiple months before switching to Alabama shortly before signing day.
Nick Saban’s decision to retire as the Alabama head coach has caused multiple current Alabama players and recruits to enter the transfer portal.
Former Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer already has been hired to replace Saban as the Alabama head coach, but DeBoer, so far, hasn’t been able to stabilize the roster.
Proctor will join an Iowa program that won the Big Ten West Division, and 10 games, this past season, but that also had arguably the worst offense at the FBS level.
The Iowa offense performed so poorly that Brain Ferentz was fired as the offensive coordinator with four games left in the regular season.
His father, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz, is still in the process of hiring a replacement.
Proctor apparently is confident that Kirk Ferentz will make the right hire.
Proctor will enroll at Iowa for the spring semester and will participate in spring practice. He has three seasons of eligibility.
Iowa returns at least five offensive linemen that have started multiple games over the past two or three seasons.
So, experience isn’t the problem.
The problem is that none of the current offensive linemen have distinguished themselves as standout performers, and that helps to explain why the unit has been mediocre at best over the past two seasons.
It seems likely that the 6-foot-7, 360-pound Proctor would slip right into the starting left tackle position, even with senior-to-be Mason Richman having started at that position in each of the past three seasons.
Richman could always switch to another position to make room for Proctor.
There are reports that Proctor struggled with homesickness during his brief time at Alabama.
So, maybe that combined with Saban retiring after having led Alabama to six national titles was enough to convince Proctor that he wanted to come home and be a Hawkeye.
Because whatever the case, he’s coming home to be a Hawkeye.