In-depth with Alex Kleinow
It didn’t take long for Iowa City (Iowa) West offensive lineman Alex Kleinow to say yes to a second time around scholarship offer from Iowa State.
Kleinow committed to the Cyclones this past weekend just minutes after being offered an I-State scholarship for a second time. The 6-foot-6, 280-pounder had previously been offered by ISU when Paul Rhoads and staff were in Ames, but a coaching change and a junior year injury put Kleinow almost back to square one.
“Iowa State’s new staff still came to my school and still stayed in contact after they got here, but I didn’t know if I would get offered again,” Kleinow said. “They said they really liked me, but they just didn’t have enough to go on to evaluate me. I got injured before my first game but still played on it anyway, and then I made it back for the last two games of the year, but that was all.
“I had a torn meniscus in my knee and a fracture tibia, plus they found out I have thin cartilage, so I had to be on crutches for like two months,” he added. “We played three really good teams in the games I was in, and I wasn’t full speed. They weren’t going to offer me off of that.”
Kleinow has worked his way back to good health and demonstrated what he could do at an Iowa State camp for linemen last week.
“The head coach told me my stock went through the roof after they saw me in their big man camp,” said Kleinow. “I was happy to hear that and went home feeling pretty good. I came back for a visit on Friday and Saturday and that’s when it happened. I talked to Coach Manning a lot and he told me I had a new offer. They stepped out of the room for awhile and I thought about it and I called my parents, who went to a family reunion. After we talked, I committed. It was about noon on Saturday, about 15 minutes after they offered.”
Kleinow said that assistant coaches Tyson Veidt and Manning have been his primary points of contact in the recruiting process since Matt Campbell became ISU’s head coach. Kleinow said his relationship with those coaches, plus the time he got to spend with other O line commits at I-State over the weekend, convinced him to pull the trigger on a commitment.
And he did so knowing that some big time Big 10 schools were growing more interested in him all the time.
“Michigan State has really been liking me a lot,” Kleinow explained. “I performed well at a camp up there and they put me on a campus tour after that. They didn’t really know anything about me before that, so they weren’t going to offer, but they said they were going to get more information on me.
“It was kind of the same thing with Ohio State,” he said. “I went to camp there and the O line coach called over Urban Meyer and we talked. They didn’t know about me before that.”
Kleinow said he is a firm commitment to Iowa State, but isn’t going to completely shut down the recruiting process.
“I’m really set on Iowa State,” Kleinow said. “Other schools can offer if they want. But it is going to take a hell of a lot to get me away from Iowa State.”
Kleinow has also been offered by Group of 5 schools Buffalo and Colorado State plus a number of FCS programs.