Iowa State Cyclones Lose Four-Star Commit from 2027 Recruiting Class

The Iowa State Cyclones suffered a massive blow to their 2027 recruiting class.

Jimmy Rogers speaks during his introductory press conference as Iowa State’s new head football coach on Dec. 8, 2025, at Iowa State University in Ames, IA. | Cody Scanlan/The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

As the Jimmy Rogers era begins for the Iowa State Cyclones, their 2027 recruiting class recently took a significant blow. 

With a new head coach coming in for the Cyclones after 10 great years under Matt Campbell, the program knew that they would be going through some changes. As their former head coach joins the Penn State Nittany Lions, both players and coaches will surely be following him. 

That is the nature of the beast in college football these days, and Iowa State would have been naive to think that they would be able to keep their roster mostly intact. While Rogers is going to be meeting with players to try to keep them, it will be interesting to see how successful he might be. 

This will be the first challenging task for him as the head coach, and over the next few days and weeks, Rogers will have his work cut out for him. Unfortunately, the team has already suffered one significant loss from their 2027 recruiting class with four-star offensive lineman Will Slagle electing to decommit from the program. 

Slagle is a Massive Loss

🚨BREAKING🚨 2027 4-star IOL Will Slagle has decommitted from Iowa Sate.

Read: https://t.co/EUt2kGyOrD pic.twitter.com/QCbmFCL1Q3

— Rivals (@Rivals) December 9, 2025

While the program has had a ton of success during the Campbell era, they have never been considered to be a recruiting powerhouse. Just recently, this past signing day was supposed to be one of the best for the program, ranking just about 50th nationally. 

That class will undoubtedly be taking a hit, but perhaps Rogers will be able to bring in some of his own talent to help soften the blow. While it will be interesting to see what happens with the 2026 class, the loss of Slagle for the 2027 class is a big blow. 

The talented offensive lineman is a four-star prospect and figured to be a big piece of the program going forward. He was one of the best prospects that the program has been able to recruit in quite some time. Furthermore, as the best player in the state of Iowa, it was looking like an impressive accomplishment for Campbell and the staff. 

With Slagle opening back up his recruiting, Penn State and Campbell will likely become an option for him now. Furthermore, offensive line coach Ryan Blanton could be heading to the Nittany Lions as well, which would likely help sway Slagle there as well. 

Even though it is a blow for the program right now, Rogers will still have a chance to get Slagle to come to the Cyclones. It won’t be easy after losing the commitment, but it is certainly possible to sway him back to Iowa State.