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How Iowa baseball won the multi-sport recruiting war for pitcher Marcus Morgan
Right-hander is coming off his best start of season, hopes to have big second half for Hawkeyes, who host Rutgers this weekend
Jeff Johnson
Apr. 18, 2024 3:42 pm, Updated: Apr. 18, 2024 4:15 pm
IOWA CITY — Getting Brody Brecht to come to Iowa and play baseball wasn’t terribly difficult for Rick Heller.
The Hawkeyes baseball coach kind of pigtailed with the Iowa football program on that recruitment. Brecht wanted to play both sports in college, and Heller was more than happy to oblige, knowing the potential Brecht had with his pitching arm.
Obviously, the junior from Ankeny ultimately decided to step away from the gridiron and focus on baseball. He went into this college season considered a likely first-round Major League Baseball draft pick.
Then there was Marcus Morgan. That recruitment was quite a bit dicier.
He was a four-sport kid at Iowa City West: baseball, football, basketball and track and field, and he was good in all of them. Good enough to be able to do just about any of them in college, especially those first three.
“That recruitment was a little more of a challenge,” Heller said.
A quarterback who set West’s record for career passing with 5,260 yards, Morgan had offers from multiple schools. He was leaning toward South Dakota State.
But Heller kept pushing baseball and Iowa. Morgan’s father, Michael, was a basketball player for the Hawkeyes in the 1980s.
Stay home, Heller told him.
“I just kept trying to fight with him about ‘No. Come to Iowa. You’re an Iowa guy. I’ve told you since your sophomore year that if all goes well, you stay healthy, you could potentially be a first-round draft pick,’” Heller said. “I told him that when he was a sophomore. Told his family and everybody else.”
Heller won out. Morgan decided baseball was his path, and the 6-foot-3, 210-pound right-hander has been a member of Iowa’s starting pitching rotation the last two years.
“I was very close (to playing football),” Morgan said. “It was a really complicated situation for me. Confusing. But I really couldn’t be happier with my choice in coming here. Especially with just doing baseball. It all worked out how it was supposed to, and I’m really happy with it.”
“Marcus was super talented in all three sports,” Heller said. “Baseball was the one he spent the least amount of time on, so the curve was a little tougher for him when he got here. Even though he was an exceptional athlete and has crazy good stuff, it was a jump for him. He has handled it.”
There have been bumps along the way for Morgan. He began as part of the weekend rotation as a freshman in 2022 but control issues bamboozled him.
He seemed to put everything together last season, going 5-2 with a 3.72 earned run average, striking out 72 in 65 1/3 innings. That earned him second-team all-Big Ten honors.
Control woes have bit him again this season, as he goes into the weekend with a 7.11 ERA in 11 appearances, nine starts. But he’s coming off a highly encouraging six-inning outing last weekend at Ohio State in which he gave up just three hits, three walks and a run, striking out six.
“He gave us a great start,” Heller said. “It was exactly what we needed.”
The hope is that was the beginning of a turnaround for a guy who definitely has the stuff: a 90s fastball, cutter, slider. It’s in there, for sure, as they say.
It just needs to come out more regularly.
“Yeah, it was scary. I didn’t know if we’d get him to come here because I knew how much he wanted to play quarterback,” Heller said. “He probably could have played Division I basketball somewhere, too. With that being said, we’re all really happy that Marcus made this choice.”
Iowa takes a 19-15 overall record into its three-game series at Banks Field against Rutgers. The Hawkeyes are 6-6 in the Big Ten, coming off back-to-back series losses to Ohio State and Minnesota.
Rutgers is 23-13, 3-6. Scheduled game times are 6:05 Friday night, 2:05 Saturday afternoon and 1:05 Sunday afternoon.
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