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Iowa defensive back TJ Hall has track record of overcoming fierce competition
Hall, son of one of Don Patterson’s former players at Western Illinois, has ‘hate to lose’ mentality
IOWA CITY — T.J. Hall’s introduction to Iowa football three years ago almost didn’t happen.
“I was scared I wasn’t going to make it,” Hall said.
He was supposed to visit Iowa for its 2021 game against Penn State after playing in his high school game on that Friday night. But the defensive back from Fresno, Calif., encountered flight delays that encroached on the 3 p.m. kickoff time.
“We just made it to make the Wave,” Hall said. “My mom really wanted to see the Wave, so we got to do the Wave. And then throughout the game, it was a great game. … And then the clock hit zero. Everybody rushed the field, and me and my fam were just like, ‘Whoa, like this is crazy.’”
Fast-forward three years, and Hall has a key on-field role for whenever a recruit next experiences a “great game” at Kinnick Stadium as the one of the Hawkeyes’ starting cornerbacks.
In Saturday’s 40-0 win over Illinois State — Hall’s first career start — he recovered a fumble in the first half that set up the Hawkeyes’ first field goal of the game. His receivers also did not have any receptions on five targets, according to Pro Football Focus.
“This spring he looked good and has had a nice camp,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said. “It's good to see him in the fray like he is. He's doing a good job. He’s got a lot of football in front of him.”
Motivated by a humbling experience
Hall won the starting cornerback job in fall camp despite having formidable competition. John Nestor appeared in 10 games as a true freshman, and Deshaun Lee is coming off a 2023 season in which he started six games.
It perhaps helped that Hall is no stranger to fierce competition, whether it be on his own sideline or the opposing one.
He was one of eight true freshmen to see game action in 2022, appearing in all 13 games. His role in the Nebraska game was especially pronounced after starter Cooper DeJean exited the game early in the first quarter with an injury.
“It was definitely a crazy experience,” Hall said. “I wish it didn’t go the way it did, but everything happened for a reason. And I feel like it was just another steppingstone that I had to go through.”
The Huskers wasted little time attacking the true freshman as then-Nebraska wide receiver Trey Palmer beat Hall easily for an 87-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter.
Asked specifically about the Nebraska game, Hall was quick to say “I remember getting beat bad.”
A couple days later, he met with defensive coordinator Phil Parker and linebackers coach/assistant defensive coordinator Seth Wallace and “took full responsibility.”
“I felt like it was my fault,” Hall said. “I let the seniors down. They told me like, ‘No, like it’s a team effort.’”
Hall sometimes uses the humbling experience from two years ago as motivation.
“Whenever I’m slacking or don’t want to get out of bed, like, ‘Come on, T.J., you can’t let that happen again,” Hall said.
He also has had this year’s rematch against Nebraska — he missed last year’s game because of a foot injury — “circled since my freshman year.”
Going further back to his freshman and sophomore years at San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno, Calif., Hall had the tall task of lining up against older receivers every day in practice who were on their way to playing major college football.
Jalen McMillan had an illustrious career at Washington and then was a third-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Texas Tech wide receiver Josh Kelly, who is on the 2024 Biletnikoff Award preseason watch list, also was on that team.
“He knew that if he’s competing against the Jalens and the Joshes of the world, he wasn’t going to see anybody better than those guys,” said Anthony Goston, Hall’s high school coach. “Being able to compete against those guys, he took it as ‘this is going to make me a better football player.’”
It was a difficult enough matchup for a young Hall that he picked up a new nickname that stuck throughout his high school career.
“He was so young and gangly going up against all of our big-time guys that one of my coaches gave him the nickname of Baby Legs,” Goston said. “Because he seemed like he was just all legs. … Even when he was the senior and he had outgrown that gangliness and all the older guys were gone, he was still Baby Legs.”
Hall’s effort against an older future NFL Draft pick, despite the mismatch, was part of Hall’s omnipresent “desire to be the best.”
“No one was ever going to outwork him,” Goston said. “He was the hardest worker on the team, and even though he was younger than most of the older veterans, he wanted to compete and battle with them every rep, every practice to make himself better.”
Hall attributed his “hate to lose” mentality to his family.
“My dad rooted that in me,” Hall said. “He always hated to lose, and he never let me win in anything. Even when I was a little kid, when we would play the game, go against me, he would never let me win. So when it was my turn, I was like, ‘Man, I’m not letting anybody win either.’”
His father, who played college football in the 2000s under Don Patterson at Western Illinois, supplemented Hall’s football workload in high school.
“He had a great home base to really work on his craft,” Goston said. “When you can have a dad that’s going to give you that extra work to hone your skills, obviously that’s beneficial to you. … TJ had great family support on top of obviously his coaches.”
TJ Hall’s roundabout recruitment
Hall’s father was responsible for connecting Hall to the Hawkeyes because of his connection with Patterson, who previously was an offensive coordinator at Iowa during the Hayden Fry era.
“He asked his former coach how’d I look?” Hall said. “How did my tape look? … And (Patterson) got it to Coach Parker and Tyler Barnes.”
Hall had a roundabout recruitment. He initially committed to Arizona in July 2021, passing up on offers from mostly non-power-conference teams.
Less than a month after his commitment, Washington — a school with a bona fide track record of producing NFL-caliber defensive backs — offered Hall and he eventually committed.
The verbal commitment to Washington did not preclude Hall from taking his October official visit to Iowa for the Hawkeyes’ field-storming win.
“That kind of blew my mind,” Hall said. “I really started paying attention to Iowa and realized the kind of secondary they had, the type of coach Phil Parker is and I had no choice but to come here.”
He signed with Iowa about two months later. Fortunately for Hall and the Hawkeyes, the flight delay did not get any worse.
“Me and my family always talk about that — like what if the flights did get delayed (more) and we didn’t make it?” Hall said. “Would we have been here?”
Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com
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