116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Iowa true freshman Reece Vander Zee shows potential to be ‘special player’
Rock Rapids native learned quickly on his way to starting season opener as true freshman
IOWA CITY — Reece Vander Zee is not much of a talker in the Iowa locker room.
“I feel like I’ve only heard him talk like, I don’t know, four or five times,” tight end Luke Lachey said of the true freshman wide receiver. “I might have talked to him the most I ever have today.”
Vander Zee does not need to do much talking when his performance in Saturday’s season opener spoke — or more like screamed — volumes.
The true freshman wide receiver had five receptions for 66 yards and two touchdowns in the 40-0 win.
He was the first true freshman to have a touchdown reception in the season opener since Dominique Douglas accomplished the feat in 2006. (That was a couple weeks before Vander Zee’s first birthday.)
The second touchdown was especially impressive. Cade McNamara heaved a pass as pressure was mounting and Vander Zee beat three nearby defenders to catch the pass for a touchdown.
It was an impressive enough play that acting head coach Seth Wallace grouped Vander Zee with past Hawkeye greats as “that’s the way they are.”
“Desmond King, Cooper DeJean,” Wallace said. “You talk about guys that you’ve seen around here before that they make plays and sometimes you’re just sitting there wondering like, ‘How the hell did that happen?’”
Saturday’s feat is even more impressive when considering it was Vander Zee’s first game at the wide receiver position since 2022. The Rock Rapids native played quarterback for his entire senior season of high school for Class 2A state runner-up Central Lyon/George-Little Rock.
Also as a June enrollee, he did not have the benefit of spring practices. Even when he did finally have a chance to practice as a Hawkeye wide receiver, he was “kind of limited” as he was “working my way back from an injury.”
“We got a lot of reps in practice, and it was rough for the first week or so, but I got back into it,” Vander Zee said. “Just trusted my technique, and at the end of the day, you just got to go be an athlete and have fun with it.”
After the injury recovery, he noticed “it kind of clicked” as a Hawkeye wide receiver.
McNamara saw Vander Zee “gaining a lot of momentum toward the end of camp.”
McNamara, in his sixth season, was particularly impressed on Saturday with “how unfazed he is by everything.”
“I kind of have never really been a guy to get nervous,” the 18-year-old Vander Zee said. “I just kind of trust my preparation and go out there and have fun.”
The secret is obviously out now, but linebacker Jay Higgins believes he and his teammates “did a pretty good job of keeping it under wraps” during summer media interviews.
“We knew he was going to be a special player,” Higgins told reporters. “I was not ready to do that my freshman year, so I’m really excited the see the player he’ll actually become.”
Vander Zee likely won’t be one to loudly hype himself up, but with more performances like Saturday, everyone else will happily do it for him.
“He’s just super quiet, but he always shows up on the field making plays,” Lachey said.
Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com
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