Washington's Carr heads to UNI's secondary

Northern Iowa signed just one running back in a football recruiting class of 16 Wednesday.

Cedar Rapids Washington all-stater Alex Carr isn't that back.

The Gazette's Offensive Player of the Year after rushing for 1,925 yards last fall, the 5-foot-10, 170-pound Carr will be a defensive back at UNI.

“He's a great find,” UNI Coach Mark Farley said last night. “He has some skills that separate him as a secondary player.

“He plays hard, he cares and he wants to win. He brings those intangibles.”

Farley isn't so sure about what to do with Iowa City Regina's Braden Lehman, a 6-7, 245-pound “athlete.” He's a tight end/defensive end who Farley said could grow into an offensive tackle.

“As we told him, we'll let Mother Nature take her course,” he said.

Also a standout basketball player, Lehman will start his UNI career as a tight end, though.

“Marv Cook did a great job turning him into a tight end,” Farley said of the Regina coach who enjoyed an All-American career at Iowa and All-Pro career in the NFL as a tight end.

UNI's class has nine Iowa preps, two from Minnesota and Missouri and one from Wisconsin, Kansas and Oklahoma.

“We look all over,” Farley said. “But if we're going to win at UNI ... we must get the best we can out of Iowa.”

- By J.R. Ogden, The Gazette