Jacob Gill has ‘clicked right away’ with Iowa football after ‘leap of faith’ in transfer portal

IOWA CITY — Jacob Gill’s competitiveness was on full display during Cardinal Gibbons football’s team retreats.

The Raleigh, N.C., high school team would be divided into smaller teams playing an assortment of games — whiffle ball, kickball and Gaga ball, to name a few.

“I think his team lost a kickball game, and he was almost beside himself,” said Steven Wright, Gill’s high school coach at Cardinal Gibbons. “Jacob, we’re just having fun. But he wanted to win — didn’t matter what it was.”

That insatiable competitiveness and drive have served Gill well as the Northwestern transfer has emerged as Iowa’s apparent top wide receiver in his first season with the Hawkeyes.

“Everything about him is really impressive,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said. “He's just a very mature, serious, focused guy, and that's a room that was lacking of experience and lacking production.”

Gill leads the Hawkeyes with 12 receptions for 137 yards, and it’s not even close. The three next-best wideouts in receiving yards — Reece Vander Zee, Kaden Wetjen and Jarriett Buie — have a combined 128 receiving yards. He even has more yardage than Iowa’s top two tight ends (Luke Lachey and Addison Ostrenga) combined.

“I’ve prayed for opportunities like this,” Gill said. “With prayer comes preparation, and I prepared myself for this.”

His 12 receptions are on 15 targets, according to Pro Football Focus. He is tied for the most targets on the Hawkeyes with Lachey and Vander Zee.

Gill initially started fall camp on the second-team offense, but it did not take long for him to gel with first-team quarterback Cade McNamara and the Hawkeye offense.

“Once I got with the ones, we clicked right away,” Gill said. “I feel like it was a good connection there. He was just putting the ball where it needed to be.”

Much of the reason for Gill’s quickly-established trust with McNamara goes back to the same traits Wright saw on Gill’s high school team retreats. Gill’s “work ethic is what stands out to the guys,” McNamara said.

“Every single day in practice, he’s going 100 percent,” McNamara said. “And I think that’s where your trust as a quarterback comes in. … When we’re taking game-like reps every single day and I’m able to anticipate what he’s going to do, it makes it more comfortable for me to throw it to him.”

Run-blocking savant

Ask Iowa offensive lineman Logan Jones about Gill, and what stands out to him is “not even all these catches and whatnot,” but rather his blocking as a wide receiver.

“He’s just such a tough dude,” Jones said. “He’s going to put his body on the line for whoever has that ball. … He’s an animal. He’s just looking to hit somebody.”

When Kaleb Johnson ran for a 3-yard touchdown against Iowa State, Gill delivered a key block on Iowa State safety Jeremiah Cooper. He also had a respectable block on an Illinois State safety on Johnson’s 18-yard touchdown run in Week 1.

It’s nothing new for Gill. Wright said Gill was an “all-state-caliber wide receiver, but he took a lot of pride in stalk-blocking” in high school.

“That’s a little bit why we’d kid with him about playing DB,” Wright said, “because he is a physical kid.”

It’s no wonder that Gill, when he first started playing football as a child, was a linebacker before moving to wide receiver. (He estimated the position change happened when he was about 10 years old.)

“They used to call me Thunder because I used to hit people,” Gill said of his early time as a linebacker.

The emphatic run-blocking from Gill — or “Thunder” — seems to have a contagious impact on Iowa’s wide receiver room.

“It’s definitely helped the receiver room,” Jones said. “We got guys putting their body on the line just because they see one guy doing it and they want to do it.”

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Gill’s ‘leap of faith’ and burgeoning confidence

When Gill entered the transfer portal in the spring ahead of his final two years of eligibility, he was “taking a leap of faith and just asking God to guide me.” And with that leap of faith came a subsequent leap in production.

Gill’s only multi-reception game in three years at Northwestern was when he had two catches against Duke as a true freshman in 2021. He averaged 5.3 receptions per season at Northwestern; now, he is averaging four receptions per game at Iowa.

“I’m more mature now, more experienced being out there on the field, just playing more confident now,” Gill said.

Some of that confidence stems from Gill’s work ethic in practices.

“I’ve been going out there and work — excuse my language — busting my ass every chance I get since the summer, since I’ve gotten here,” Gill said. “Knowing that I’ve been doing that and setting myself up for this opportunity just gives myself a lot of confidence.”

It also doesn’t hurt when Gill’s third reception as a Hawkeye was a 31-yard touchdown.

“It felt amazing that I can go out there and that I know that I’m capable of that,” Gill said. “You always have this voice in your head telling you that you can’t. And then just getting past that voice was really huge for me.”

Now, Gill — the same athlete who did not even want to lose at kickball during high school team retreats — is confident in the winning that could be ahead for this 2024 Iowa offense.

“I think we put up like 400-plus total yards of offense (against Troy),” Gill said, “and we went back into the locker room knowing that we can be better. … I’m looking forward to seeing where we can go.”

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