Weekend of News

So usually the holiday weekend brings nothing much in the way of Hawkeye news, but this year was anything but. Jewell Hampton, who projected to be Iowa' opening game starter at tailback is reported to have injured his knee on Friday. The official diagnosis is not in yet, but rumors are rampant that it is a ligament tear and that he is done for the year. While this is bad news, I don't think we will have 2004 redux when Sam Brownlee led the team in rushing, for a couple reasons.
1. IF and I say if this is a season ender for Jewell, the good news is that he still has his red shirt year, so you don't have to worry about asking the NCAA for a medical red shirt, which can sometimes be tricky.
2. The injury occurs early enough that Iowa can plan around it, imagine if this had happened in late August? And if it is the dreaded ACL, then Jewell should have plenty of time for surgery and rehab and be 100% for fall ball 2010, or sooner if his rehab goes well.
3. Jeff Brinson isn't bad at all. Going in to last season it was said that both Jewell and Jeff were pretty equal in the abilities to help Iowa as freshman, I can't remember what gave Jewell the edge, but had Shonn Greene not exploded onto the scene we might have seen two true freshman running backs for Iowa last year play. Jeff is a player that coming out of high school spurred a last ditch all hands on deck recruiting effort from in-state power Florida State, to remain committed to play for the Hawks. Make no doubt about it, he has the talent to play in the big ten and be successful.
4. Brandon Wegher is already on campus and should be ready to contribute right away. Did the coaches want to have to use him as much as they probably will have to? No, but he has the skills to be effective with the ball in his hands and if he can pick up the blocking responsibilities, then he could see significant minutes this year.
5. What were we saying last year at this time? "Who is going to run the ball for us this year?" We knew that Shonn Greene was coming back, but nobody thought that he would have the kind of season that he did.

I am not saying that we are going to catch lightning in a bottle again, but I don't think we will go back to 2004 were we completely changed the playbook with our 5th string tailback either.

The other big news from the weekend was the Jacody Coleman had left the program to move closer to home in Texas. While he wasn't projected to start this year, he has started in the past and you hate to lose a guy that brought the kind of intensity that Jacody brought to the team. He will most likely be replaced by Bruce Davis from Ohio, who was that state's defensive MVP his senior year.

Line Backers

Turning our attention to the strength of the Hawkeyes, the defense, starting with the LB's. The Hawks return all three starters from last year, a trio that amassed 246 tackles, 16 for a loss, and 7 interceptions. They are paced by MLB Pat Angerer, the Bettendorf product essentially came out of no where to anchor the middle of the Iowa defense. Pat had very injury plagued three seasons at Iowa before bursting on the scene and earning 2nd team All Big Team last season. Pat has a knack for finding the ball and was second in the Big Ten with 5 INT's last season. He was one of 42 players to be named to the Lott watch list for 2009. Starting at the Leo linebacker position will be A.J. Edds for the third straight year, while his 2008 numbers were down from 2007, I don't think there is an Iowa fan alive that wouldn't tell you that he was equally as productive. AJ will be one of the two seniors that are projected as starters for the 2009 squad. Jeremiah Hunter has the inside edge on repeating as the starting will linebacker next season. Jeremiah came to Iowa as a heralded recruit out of PA and until last season hadn't seen the field much. With Jeff Tarpanian going down with an injury in the preseason he stepped in and performed brilliantly. The thing that really stands out about the linebacker corps is that the rarely seem to be out of position. While they won't win any beauty contests, they play fundamentally sound and in Norm Parker's defense, that is all that is needed. Backing up those three will be Jeff Tarpanian at the will, who will push Hunter for playing time, however if Tarpanian can't stay healthy it will be a one horse race. Tyler Nielsen will back up Edds at the leo and the one downfall of having a three year starter ahead of him is that he has had very little playing time so far in Iowa City. Nielsen has played a lot of special teams and will probably do the same for this season. At middle linebacker is the only backup spot that is up for grabs, Jacody Coleman is supposedly red shirting and won't be available unless Angerer gets injured. Look for Bruce Davis to be the #2, he is a sophomore out of Glenville high school in Ohio. He was another diamond in the rough player that the Hawks snuck out of Ohio. Overall the LB corps the Hawks will put on the field in 2009 will be one the top two in the Big Ten and top ten in the nation. This is a position where Iowa has some depth and could weather an injury or two if they have to.