TABOR, Iowa — During a record-setting fall, Nate Meier made state history on the football field.

Wednesday, he made local history off it.

Meier became the first male from Fremont-Mills in more than 40 years to become an NCAA Division I scholarship athlete when he signed a national letter of intent with Iowa.

Meier and Creston's Collin Bevins, bound for Iowa State, were the only two western Iowa players to sign for full scholarships at D-I schools Wednesday. Four others from the Sioux City area — East's Alex Imming, Sergeant Bluff-Luton's Cole Croston, and Heelan's Michael Malloy and Jeremy Nelson — are headed to Iowa as preferred walk-ons.

Harlan Community's Seth Lansman landed at FCS South Dakota State, while three other WI athletes will play at the D-II level. Zach Osborn, also from Harlan, signed with Wayne State. Meier's teammate at Fremont-Mills, AJ Scarborough, is headed to Augustana. Colton Thompson of Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln is going to Missouri Western.

The 6-foot-2, 235-pound Meier will join the Hawkeyes as a running back, although a position change to fullback, linebacker or rush end has been mentioned and would be welcomed.

"He's a really high-energy guy," Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. "He's a guy that I think has a chance to play a couple different positions for us. I think he'd like to start at running back. We'll put him there and see what happens and kind of go from there."

Said Meier: "I just want to play."

F-M has a short history of D-I athletes. Barry Yates, a 1963 graduate, played basketball at Nebraska and Maryland before being drafted into the NBA. Barry Anderson went to Missouri on a baseball scholarship in 1969. After that, the school sent no one to Division I for four decades, until softball pitcher Mindy Lorimor signed with South Dakota State a year ago.

Meier, a dominant two-way starter for the Knights, will be F-M's first D-I football player. He is also only the second scholarship athlete from western Iowa — former Walnut standout Tyler Blum is the other — to join the Hawkeyes from an Eight-Man program.

This past fall, he was the star of the most dominant team in the short history of Eight-Man football in Iowa. F-M beat all 13 of its opponents by 30 points or more and throttled Murray 81-0 in the most lopsided championship contest ever in the state.

Meier ran for a title-game record 218 yards and five scores. That was after he set a state mark with 500 rushing yards and 10 total touchdowns in a regular-season game with East Mills.

He finished his senior year with 2,494 rushing yards and 57 touchdowns while also racking up 112 total tackles, including 34 for losses. Meier and seven classmates, three of whom signed with other schools Wednesday, were part of one the greatest turnarounds in state history.

Prior to their junior campaign, F-M had only two winning seasons in 27 years. The Knights went 25-1 with two UNI-Dome appearances and the school's first state title in any sport in the last two.

When the football season ended, Meier's only scholarship offer was from South Dakota. He picked up another from Northern Iowa in January before the Hawkeyes came calling.

Iowa offensive line coach Reese Morgan made the offer in person, Meier said, on a recent visit to F-M. Meier verbally committed after visiting the campus in Iowa City last weekend.

He said Iowa was "always in the picture." But he was heavily considering walking on at Nebraska, a place he visited three times last fall, until the past few days.

"They were pretty stressful, but it's stress-free after today," Meier said. "When I went to visit Iowa, I thought I could see myself there. Of course, now I am.

"Reese Morgan came down and said, 'We're not going to mess around with a walk-on, we want you really bad. We're going to offer you a scholarship.' It's pretty exciting."

F-M coach Jeremy Christiansen compared Meier's signing to Iowa's recruitment of former Logan-Magnolia standout Dominic Alvis, who got a late offer from the Hawkeyes in 2009.

"I think it was one of those things where they didn't want to give too much attention to a kid early then have someone else swoop in," he said. "It obviously worked out well for Nate."

F-M's Nick Williams and Dallas Franks signed with Morningside and Grand View, respectively.

At Creston, Bevins pledged his services to Iowa State during a morning signing ceremony.

The 6-5, 250-pounder is projected as a defensive end, but assistant coach Luke Wells said he could eventually move inside to a tackle spot.

Cyclone head coach Paul Rhoads calls Bevins "a diamond in the rough." Rhoads said Bevins attended multiple camps in Ames and always made a strong impression.

"I finally realized I'd seen enough," Rhoads said. "He was a football player. He belonged in our program. I was excited to offer him a scholarship and he soon accepted that scholarship.

"I think he's got a lot of growth potential in him. I compare him to Jordan Carstens, who came into our program roughly the same size, but as a walk-on ended up in the National Football League. And I think Collin can be the same type of player."

Bevins, Iowa's sixth-rated prospect by Rivals.com, has played five sports at Creston. In wrestling, he's rated first in the state in Class 2-A at 285 pounds.

World-Herald staff writer Kevin White contributed to this story.