Nico Ragaini's ‘fantastic’ Iowa career is product of some unconventional ingredients

IOWA CITY — Nico Ragaini and his sister Isabella have a weekly tradition this year.

Each week, they make — well, more like Isabella, who also attends the University of Iowa, makes — a “big Italian dinner.”

“Some friends tag along,” Nico’s father, Gianni Ragaini, said.

A couple weeks ago, she served a pesto sauce. Another time, it was penne alla vodka. Last week, she cooked a new sauce that is Nico’s “favorite of all time.”

Nico Ragaini, the sixth-year Iowa wide receiver, does not remember the exact name of it, but it is like a “regular meat sauce with like sausage” and another type of meat in it.

“I think it might be like beef,” Ragaini said. “But it falls right off the bone. It’s good.”

Away from the kitchen and on the football field, Ragaini has enjoyed a zestful career as a rare five-year contributor at wide receiver.

After playing in three games in 2018 while preserving his redshirt year, Ragaini has played in 57 of 59 possible games in the following five seasons. In all but one of those five seasons, Ragaini had more receptions than any other Iowa wide receiver.

“Since he's been here, he's been fantastic,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said. “He's done a good job. We probably should have recruited him out of high school in retrospect, but it's all worked out.”

As Ferentz alluded to, the ingredients for Ragaini’s football success at Iowa have been unconventional.

When he graduated from Notre Dame High School in West Haven, Conn., Ragaini still was waiting for the right opportunity to play at the next level. Ragaini was “dying for an offer.”

“I really wasn’t patient,” Ragaini said. “I was like crying every night.”

UConn, the not-so-superb college football program in his own state, did not even offer him a scholarship. Boston College eventually offered him a grayshirt opportunity.

“I felt like they were kind of doing me dirty,” Ragaini said of Boston College’s grayshirt offer. “It kind of pissed me off a little bit.”

So Ragaini went to prep school at Avon Old Farms for what functioned like an extra semester of high school. Ken O’Keefe, Iowa’s quarterbacks coach at the time, was aware of Ragaini, but had not yet offered him a scholarship.

"That’s where he really wanted to go,“ Gianni said. ”Sometimes I thought he should’ve taken the BC offer because it was there, but he knew what he wanted, and he waited it out.“

The semester at Avon Old Farms left the door open for him to continue to attend college camps, not use any college eligibility and be somewhere on more FBS coaches’ radars.

“The college coaches hit all these prep schools up,” Gianni said. “I would say, ‘Nic, who came today?’ And it was Vanderbilt, UCLA and Penn State. ‘Who came the next day?’ And it was another three powerhouses. So the prep schools sort of have a pipeline to these Power Five schools.”

That extra time to impress football coaches was necessary partially because of his success in a different sport — lacrosse. Before Ragaini was a Power Five-caliber football recruit, he appeared to have a promising lacrosse career as a midfielder.

“I didn’t really have stick skills,” Ragaini said. “I was just like the fastest and biggest guy on the field. So I would just get the ball and sprint down the field as fast as I could, and pass it to someone else. They would shoot and score.”

College lacrosse powers quickly took notice of Ragaini’s ability.

Loyola University Maryland, the reigning national champions at the time, offered Ragaini a lacrosse scholarship before he even played a high school game. Gianni was “skeptical” considering Ragaini’s club lacrosse video “stunk.”

“I was like, ‘Why would you be offering?’” Gianni said. “He goes, ‘As a coaching staff, we saw his youth football videos, and that’s the type of kid we’re looking for.’”

He initially committed to Albany — a respectable lacrosse program that had NCAA tournament appearances every year from 2013-18. He later flipped his commitment to Cornell.

College lacrosse remained a “backup plan,” though, for Ragaini.

“Football has always been my true love,” Ragaini said.

But the time spent on lacrosse took away from the time he could spend vying for college football coaches’ attention.

"I remember him going to his Boston College camp the day after he scored five goals in his semifinal lacrosse game,“ his since-retired high school coach, Tom Marcucci, said. ”He was exhausted.“

The football path obviously has worked well for Ragaini, although there may be a few days here and there where lacrosse has some appeal.

“When I wake up after practice one day and I’m like rolling out of bed, and I can’t move, I’m like, ‘Yeah, lacrosse would have been nice right now,’” Ragaini said. “Taking no hits.”

Former Iowa wide receiver Max Cooper, who is from Waukesha, Wis., “said he was the best lacrosse guy on the football team.” Ragaini obviously disagrees.

“Midwest lacrosse is a joke, and we would have destroyed him,” Ragaini said.

Ragaini’s lacrosse stick did not make the trip with him to Iowa, so they never put Cooper’s claim to the test.

“I didn’t want to embarrass him,” Ragaini said.

Ragaini’s lacrosse background has helped “probably a little bit” as a wide receiver, especially when he is in the slot.

“In lacrosse, when you try to run by someone, it’s called a dodge,” Ragaini said. “So when you’re dodging, sometimes you want to change speeds — like start slow one way and explode and come out the other, almost like when you’re making moves on people in the middle of the (football) field.”

Ragaini now ranks seventh in career receptions in Iowa history, passing Ronnie Harmon last weekend. It puts him in elite company as he now trails only Kevonte Martin-Manley, Derrell Johnson-Koulianos, Marvin McNutt, Kevin Kasper, Sam LaPorta and Kahlil Hill.

While Martin-Manley’s record is likely out of reach, Ragaini only needs another five catches to surpass LaPorta and Hill for fifth on the all-time leaderboard.

“I’m coming for Sammy,” Ragaini said of LaPorta, his former teammate.

Of course, Ragaini also has had more opportunities for catches because of the extra COVID-19 year of eligibility than others on the leaderboard. But it is impressive company to be in, nonetheless.

That extra year also has meant many of Ragaini’s friends on the team have graduated. The only other player from Ragaini’s 2018 recruiting class on the Hawkeyes’ roster is defensive lineman Joe Evans. (Noah Shannon and Spencer Petras also are in the building, but not as active players on the roster.)

“I feel like I got a young soul,” Ragaini said. “All the other receivers, I don’t think they think I’m old. … I feel like I fit in with them. I feel like we’re all the same age, which may not be a good thing. Maybe I should grow up a little bit because some of these guys are like 18.”

Ragaini is playing like he’s not that old, too.

“Seems like he's gotten a little turbo boost the last couple weeks,” Ferentz said last week. “Looks like the 22-year-old Nico instead of the 28-year-old.”

Despite going to college more than 1,000 miles away from his hometown of East Haven, Conn., many of his family and friends have witnessed that sixth-year “turbo boost” — and so many other moments in his Hawkeye career.

Ragaini’s devout following of fans — Ferentz called it an “entourage” — vary in size from week to week. A “solid 20 to 30” go to every Iowa game, Gianni said.

“It’s not the same people all the time,” Gianni said. “There’s a core of us that go to just about every game.”

The largest group was when 89 Ragaini supporters made the couple-hour drive to Piscataway, N.J.

When Iowa played in the Music City Bowl, almost the entire plane on the nonstop flight from New Haven to Nashville was full of Ragaini’s loyal fans.

"The whole plane was Ragaini fans,“ Marcucci said. ”The whole plane.“

The Ragaini family’s frequent trips to Iowa City takes some serious logistical planning.

Ragaini’s family usually will drive north to Hartford, Conn., after Nico’s mother Josanna is done with her work day as a kindergarten teacher.

They will then fly from Hartford to Chicago and drive the three-plus hours to Iowa City. They often arrive after midnight before preparing to throw a “pretty good tailgate” in the morning.

That sometimes entails 6 a.m. trips to Walmart for supplies. One of Nico’s aunts is in charge of making the shots.

“This last game (against Illinois), she made 400 premade shots, and she puts them in these little jello shot containers,” Gianni said. “A lot of the other players’ parents who have their own tailgates — they know to stop by for one as they’re walking by.”

When Gianni is back in East Haven, he will hear from people wondering “why they don’t throw the ball to (Nico) 20 times.”

“Everybody in East Haven says he’s open on every play,” Gianni said. “We’ve been blessed with how many people have tagged along on his journey. … It sort of made it our whole town’s journey.”

Ragaini’s rabid fan support extends beyond the boundaries of 27,682-person East Haven.

“Everybody in Connecticut that I talk to, every coach would say, ‘Hey, Nico, how many catches did he get?’” Marcucci said. “Everybody that I know follows him. My brother-in-law. My son loves him. Everybody.”

It is not hard to see why so many people in East Haven and beyond have gravitated to Ragaini.

"He was extremely popular with everybody in the school,“ Marcucci said. ”He would sit with kids in the chess club. … It didn’t make any difference to him. He was that kind of a guy.“

Marcucci said Ragaini was a “quiet guy” and “very humble” although he has been less quiet in recent years.

“These last two years at Iowa, he’s trying to be more vocal from what I see,” Gianni said.

To his father and the Big Ten’s chagrin, that included a candid moment earlier this year during media interviews when he described a Big Ten officiating crew’s lack of pass interference call — one that led to a Cade McNamara interception — as a “horses--- f------ call.”

“He comes from a little town, East Haven, which is a hardscrabble kind of place,” Marcucci said with a laugh. “East Haven came out.”

Gianni, while believing it was “clear as day” Nico was correct, was not as amused. If Nico had been suspended, that would have meant fewer opportunities for the sixth-year senior to play in a Hawkeye uniform.

“I wanted to punch him right in his face when he did that,” Gianni said.

Fortunately, the Big Ten only issued a “public reprimand.”

Looking ahead, Ragaini has another three games in a Hawkeye uniform. Then, Ragaini will try to cook up some success at the next level. Wherever he goes, his family will follow.

“The shots will be traveling,” Gianni said, “hopefully in a car trunk, though. … We’re not making them at 6 a.m. in the morning.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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