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Northwestern Recruiting Update: WR Andrew Scanlan to NU, Cats Lose Out on DE Faith Ekaktie

Sry, finals week kinda wrecked this blog.

Anyway, the past week brought some good news and some bad news from Northwestern. On the plus side, Northwestern landed WR Andrew Scanlan, a 6-foot-2 wide receiver from Royersford, Pennsylvania. Scanlan was Northwestern's 19th commit and second wide receiver alongside previous recruit Mike McHugh and was receiving interest from MAC schools like Akron and NIU - another under-the-radar-y guy. All things told, this is shaping up to be a pretty good class, and there's room to go yet with 25 seniors leaving and a number of big name guys on the table.

However, there was a bit of a bummer, as four-star defensive lineman Faith Ekakitie from Lake Forest Academy chose Iowa over Northwestern. It's not like you'd expect: Ekakitie wrote in his blog that he was nearly committed to Northwestern, but his GPA was .2 points too low for admission, something he called "heart-breaking". Instead, he chose Iowa.

I always like to point out that Northwestern's academic prestige and focus on producing smart student-athletes is awesome for Northwestern in terms of recruiting. Northwestern bills itself as the best place for smart student athletes to come get a degree. I know admissions has to do their job, but this seems like a major missed opportunity. Ekakitie was the No. 3 recruit in the state of Illinois and would have been Northwestern's second four-star lineman in this class alongside DT Greg Kuhar. From the little you can learn about a 17-year-old from their blog, Ekakitie seems like a bright kid interested in getting a great education - specifically kinesiology. To be honest, he seems like exactly the type of player having a program focused on attracting smart athletes - even if they are slightly below the caliber of the average NU student - is meant to attract: a very talented guy with an interest in getting a good degree. Instead, he's at Iowa. I try exclusively to keep myself from caring what colleges 17-year-old football players decide to go to, but what this says about Northwestern football - even if it does mean that a very talented player was on the verge of choosing NU over other schools - is kind of frustrating.