‘Why Iowa?’

At breakfast later in the morning after catching up in the coaches’ office, a folksy song by Uncle Kracker plays over the speakers at IHOP.

“This is the type of music they play in Iowa, right?” Mitchell teased Tyler. “I asked them to put this on for y’all because this is Iowa music. This is what I expect to hear when I’m in Iowa. As soon as I land in the airport, they’ve got this playing on a track that just keeps playing.”

Laughter followed as the group poked at the pancakes and omelets at the table.

“He’s gonna come downtown and be like, ‘Man,’” Maurice said to Tyler.

“There’s a downtown?” Mitchell asked as the back and forth continued.

Tyler is used to the kidding and questions relating to his decision to go to Iowa. He never really anticipated playing in the Big Ten, either.

After his playoff run junior year, dreams of one day playing college football were starting to become a reality. Colleges started reaching out the day after the state title game.

The Goodsons spent most of the gap between the end of Tyler’s junior year of football and the start of his senior year going across the country on recruiting visits, at some points making trips five or six weekends in a row.

They recall these recruiting stories back at their two-story home in Suwanee. Tyler, Taylor, and their parents are spread out along the couch in the living room.

Although they live in Georgia, the Goodson home is very much a Hawkeye house. Highlights of Joe Wieskamp’s college career had just been playing on the mounted television. In the ottoman in the center of the room, there are multiple copies of this year’s Athlon Sports college football preview, which features Tyler on the cover. Tyler’s alternate gold and Holiday Bowl jerseys are kept in a nearby room. Maurice is working on getting them framed.

Taylor, sitting right next to his older brother on the couch, makes fun of the fact that Seton Hill, a Division II school, was the first program to offer Tyler. Maurice, sitting next to Felicia on the other end of the couch, initially confused it for Seton Hall.

Smaller schools like Appalachian State, Ball State, and Georgia State were some of the first Division I schools to make offers to Tyler, a three-star recruit by most recruiting outlets.

Eventually, schools from the Power 5 conferences joined the hunt for Tyler’s commitment. Well, at least four of them did. The SEC? Not so much. In the entirety of Tyler’s recruiting process, Kentucky was the only one of 14 schools in the SEC to offer him a scholarship.

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, the leader of Tyler’s home state’s marquee program, did have conversations with the Goodson family, though. Smart visited North Gwinnett Tyler’s junior year to speak with some defensive backs on the team. Those players suggested Smart also look into recruiting Tyler.

“‘I’m going to come back to see you this spring and I want you to gain like 10 pounds,’” Felicia recalled Smart saying to Tyler.

“Which is stupid,” Maurice said without missing a beat.

Tyler weighed 185-190 pounds in high school. But a common theme among SEC schools was wanting Tyler to bulk up to become a more downhill power back capable of surviving 30 or more carries each week. At Iowa, Tyler’s comfort zone is 15-20 touches per game.

“I’m a small back,” said Tyler, listed at 5-foot-10, 199 pounds on Iowa’s roster. “Everybody wanted me to be 6-foot-3, 6-4, 200-some pounds.”

“That would have taken him out of his natural gift, his element,” Maurice said. “We told [Tyler], ‘Don’t let nobody change you.’ You conform to their college system, of course, because that’s the system you’re in. But keep that same recipe the way you’ve been doing, just enhance it.”

Tyler describes himself as a versatile, do-it-all type of running back. That’s not the bruiser some SEC schools were looking for, but it’s exactly what Iowa wanted.

By that time, Derrick Foster had accepted the position as Iowa’s running backs coach, and picked up his recruiting of Tyler where he’d left it off at Samford.

According to Tyler and his parents, Kirk Ferentz and his staff’s pitch came down to two key elements — a chance to play early and to play a role similar to that of Akrum Wadley.

Wadley, with a similar build to Tyler, played running back at Iowa from 2014-17 and surpassed 1,000 yards rushing and 300 yards receiving in both his junior and senior seasons.

Instead of the traditional Iowa running back, built on running through tackles and punishing linebackers with a lowered shoulder, Wadley was shifty, making defensive players miss with his quickness and agility.

“We knew the skill set that he would bring to the table, that they saw and they were wanting now that Akrum was leaving,” Maurice said. “They said they wanted to change the whole running back game. They wanted to move away from the power type run. They brought Coach Foster in to put an emphasis on that, and Brian [Ferentz] was like, ‘Hey man, we need someone who can put their foot in the ground and take it to the house.’”

But Iowa’s offense would still be built around running the ball, which was appealing.

“We told him, you’ve some big boys [up front], two tight ends, a fullback, you’ve never had that,” Maurice said. “You have a higher chance of being successful there than going to the SEC.”

And if Tyler approached his freshman year correctly, he could have a chance to play that role right from the start.

Kirk Ferentz didn’t promise Tyler playing time, but told him if he worked hard enough, he could see the field right away.

“I think their pitch was that I had a chance to play early if I worked hard,” Tyler said. “And that’s what I wanted as well. That was basically their pitch the whole time — you can play early if you work hard.”

That wasn’t going to be difficult for Tyler, who by then was used to doing what it took to stand out on the field. He stopped drinking soda in sixth grade when his fourth-grade coach Brentson Buckner, now an assistant coach in the NFL, told him elite athletes don’t drink it.

One of Tyler’s mottos is that games are won in the summer, not the fall, indicating how devoted he is to bettering himself in the offseason. In addition to the strength and nutrition staff at Iowa, Tyler still has four personal trainers with different specialties — lifting, track, agility, and footwork. John Lewis, brother of former NFL running back Jamal Lewis, started working with Tyler in sixth grade, right after Felicia saw him working people out on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.”

Tyler took an official spring visit to Iowa City in April 2018. Ferentz, the Goodsons said, was hesitant for Tyler to visit in the spring, when there was no football game to serve as a backdrop.

But Tyler wanted to sign before his senior year started, so he made the trip anyway.

The first impressions weren’t great, though.

“When we landed in Cedar Rapids and we started on the way, I was like, ‘Bro, no. There’s no way we’re coming here,’” Tyler said, looking at his mother as he recalled the empty fields he saw after arriving at the airport.

Felicia, the only person accompanying him on the trip, told her son to at least give the Hawkeyes a chance.

“We got to Iowa City and it was like, ‘This place is actually dope,’” Tyler said.

Tyler liked the smaller, tightly knit, college town atmosphere Iowa City provided. Felicia connected with the vibes of Iowa City and appreciated the Bluebird Diner grits she ate on the visit. Finding grits can be difficult up north, so she was pleasantly surprised.

Felicia reveals an inside joke she has with Iowa defensive line coach Kelvin Bell. She told Bell that Iowa City is America’s best-kept secret — a cool little college town.

“And he was like, ‘Yeah, and don’t go telling anybody because it only takes me like five minutes to get to work,’” Felicia said. “‘Don’t bring your Atlanta traffic here.’”

Tyler’s final eight schools came down to Kentucky, Washington State, Michigan State, Iowa State, Iowa, Wake Forest, West Virginia, and Nebraska.

Nebraska didn’t want Tyler to visit in the spring, either. But unlike Iowa, the Huskers refused to see him then, taking them out of the race. Felicia didn’t care for West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen, which made the Mountaineers an unlikely destination.

Wake Forest, located in North Carolina near extended family, was appealing to Tyler. But not appealing enough.

In May 2018, Tyler told Iowa’s coaching staff he wanted to become a Hawkeye, but he didn’t publicly announce the decision yet. By July 3, he officially committed to Iowa.

“The main thing for me about Iowa and the recruiting process in general is just who was being real to me,” Tyler said. “Who would tell me what it was straight? When you go to all these places, they show you the glamour of the program — how many titles they’ve won, the facilities, but everyone has that. So it was just about who’s being real with me. Iowa was one of the main ones who was being real with me. It felt like home. It was an easy pick.”

Felicia described Tyler as loyal, which was good for Iowa. Because some power programs were seeking to snag Tyler away from the Hawkeyes.

“One of the things he told us was, ‘When I commit, I’m not decommitting,’” Felicia said.

Tyler said Clemson quietly offered him on National Signing Day. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, who had just lost out on another running back commit, also encouraged Tyler not to sign before visiting the Wolverines.

“Coach Harbaugh asked him to not sign on signing day,” Felicia said. “He said, ‘Can you just hold off on signing and let us get you on campus?’ And we’re like, ‘No.’”

“‘I’m gonna stick with my decision,’” Tyler recalled saying.

Upon his signing, Tyler was met with the question: Why Iowa? Friends asked him, as did teammates and some relatives.

And for every question, Tyler gave the same answer:

“It felt like home.”