We continue our coaches series this week with a fantastic new podcast interview with Tyler Barnes. These days Barnes is the General Manager and Chief of Staff for Iowa Football, which means he overseas not only the recruiting operation for the Hawkeyes, along with managing the NIL operation as far as making player payment decisions.

We open the pod talking about how a dead period doesn't actually mean dead period for someone in Barnes position. Then we dive into the new era of college football that begins on July 1st with schools paying players. He discusses how he came up with his payment formula based on NFL teams that were successful.

Then we dive into quite a few recruiting topics. Is a prospect asking about money out of the gate a red flag for Iowa football? What's negative recruiting look like today against the Hawkeyes? Will we see more high school players enroll early in January.

What does Barnes think about some of the NCAA proposals regarding recruiting, including being able to sign in August before your senior year? What about a single portal period in April? Then we talk about the 2026 recruiting cycle for Iowa. What has it been like? Are they thinking of changing their big recruiting weekend at the end of the month?