After a final recruiting flurry, Carmel's Foster lands at Iowa State

What is Sean Foster's stress reliever of choice?

Twitter, of all things.

Thanks to social media, the Carmel offensive lineman didn't have to spend too many hand-wringing moments fretting about his future suddenly being thrown into disarray.

Foster, a 6-foot-8, 292-pound senior and the son of a former offensive lineman at Iowa, had committed to play football at the University of Minnesota as a junior, way back in April of 2015.

When changes at Minnesota in mid-December abruptly swept out the entire offensive coaching staff, including his beloved, soon-to-be line coach Matt Limegrover, Foster was alarmed, so alarmed that he decided to de-commit from Minnesota.

Foster believed that he was still a valuable recruit, but with national signing day a little more than a month away, he worried that there may be no other scholarships left to be had.

Then, he tweeted out his decision about Minnesota. Goodbye worries, hello more offers.

"It's the power of social media," Foster said. "I tweeted out the thing about Minnesota at like 8 a.m., and by that night, I had five or six schools calling me, and I ended up with 34 offers."

On Wednesday, Foster turned one of those offers into an official scholarship commitment. On NCAA signing day, in a ceremony at Carmel, Foster signed a letter of intent to continue his football career at Iowa State.

"It was weird how quickly everyone found out about my situation," Foster said. "I have about 1,500 to 2,000 followers on Twitter and probably about 500 to 600 of them are college coaches. It was crazy how fast that news traveled.

"I was glad because the whole thing was a little nerve-wracking, because you don't know if anyone out there will still be interested in you. I just feel blessed and honored that interest was still there. I was very lucky."

Foster was also seriously considering Purdue, Indiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, TCU and Miami of Ohio. But he fell in love with Iowa State when he took a visit there in mid-January.

"There are a lot of things I'm excited about with Iowa State," Foster said. "It's a program that is building. The players are awesome and it's a new coaching staff.

"The player-to-coach interaction was really good. They let me know how important I was to their program and they made it clear that they really wanted me."

The new coaching staff at Iowa State used to be at Toledo and had tried to recruit Foster to Toledo.

"They offered me (a scholarship to Toledo) as a sophomore," Foster said. "It helped to have had that relationship with them."

Foster says he had also built up a great relationship with Limegrover, who had spent the most time recruiting him to Minnesota. Limegrover is now at Penn State.

"That staff at Minnesota had been together for (a combined) 100-plus years and when they fired all the offensive coaches, it was kind of a shock," Foster said. "My family and I just didn't know what to think about that. It put everything in the air and we weren't sure what would happen next.

"I didn't know if that was the place for me anymore."

Eight to 10 other high school seniors in Foster's situation also eventually de-committed from Minnesota.

The practice of early commitments has led to some controversy in college football. Players de-committing for greener pastures happens and, while disappointing for the odd-school-out, it is generally understandable. But programs and coaches who pull offers from committed players in the hopes of themselves upgrading to better players tend to get heat. The logic is that it is much easier for a school to replace a de-committed player at the 11th hour than it is for a player to suddenly find a new school on the fly.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has been in the crosshairs recently for pulling offers from some committed players, including one from the suburbs, tackle Erik Swenson of Downers Grove South.

Foster and Swenson weren't in identical situations, since Foster's scholarship wasn't pulled. But the upheaval of the coaching staff put Foster in a position that also made him feel like his position in the program was unsettled.

"I'm not big on regulations and the NCAA has enough to choke a cow, but I think they could set a date for offering scholarships, like April 1 of a kid's junior year, and you can't do so before that date. That's still early, if you ask me, but I think that would clean up a lot of stuff," Carmel coach Andy Bitto said. "I think you could also have an early signing date, like August 15. That would help, too.

"I've never had a kid de-commit before, but I think Sean did what he needed to do. He wasn't sure about the situation at Minnesota when all those coaches got fired. That was a tough thing, but it's going to work out for him. I think he'll do great at Iowa State. Those coaches are going to push him to be the best player he can be."

Foster thinks the fit is perfect for him.

"God has a path for everyone," Foster said. "In the end, I think I made the right decision for me and I think it'll end up helping my situation in the future."

Along with Foster, four other football players from Carmel signed letters of intent on national signing day Wednesday. They are: Noah Turner (North Carolina), Zavier Barnes (Saginaw Valley State), Brian Todoric (North Central) and Jack Wayland (Butler).