Year of the shoulder

Off-season recap:

-No public spring game as Kinnick is being converted to field turf. I am fine with this because the field conditions have been shitty for several games recently. (Iowa St. last year especially comes to mind.)

-Not good. It's a bad bad day when your best dlinemen gets arrested for punching a cabbie but Kirk seems to think there might be 2 sides to the story so he's in good standing*

-How easy is it to get a DUI in IC? Prater was in the mix to start at CB but cost himself a chance at that.

-Linebacker A.J. Edds(shoulder), tight end Tony Moeaki and safeties Brett Greenwood (shoulder) and Tyler Sash (shoulder) -- will be held out of contact during spring drills. The oft-injured Moeaki is battling a foot injury that could be a stress fracture. Reserve guard Andy Kuempel and reserve defensive lineman Cody Hundertmark also will be held out of contact.

-Safeties Lance Tillison and Diaunte Morrow transferred as they would never pass the 2 white boys from Iowa. It is what it is and could work out pretty well for Jack Swanson and David Cato who are starting this spring with Sash and Greenwood on the fritz.

-"I haven't heard other than he is going to school right now. He is trying to get his degree work finished up." - Kirk Ferentz in reference to Jake Christensen. Would've been nice if he could've stuck around to be a back-up this year.

Spring Two Deeps





Offense:





SE - Sandeman, Johnson-Koulianos, Chaney
LT - Bulaga, Zusevics
LG - Vandervelde, Eubanks/Haganman
C - Koeppel, Ferentz
RG - Kuempel/Doering, Gettis
RT - Calloway, Reiff
TE - Moeaki, Reisner, Herman
QB - Stanzi, Vandenberg, Wienke
WR - Stross, McNutt
RB - Hampton, O'Meara, Brinson
FB - Morse, Leppert

-DJK is not starting after missing 2 mandatory workouts. I hope Sandeman and Chaney can step-up in the slot. Marvin McNeezy is pictured above and has gotten rave reviews since the conversion from an option QB.

-Highly touted and unlucky to this point, Dace Rischardson is on his way to a miraculous recovery, here is my prediction for the OL:
LT: Bulaga,Zeus
LG: Vande,Richardson
C: Ferentz, Koeppel
RG: Doering/Kuempel, Eubanks
RL Calloway,Reiff (pronounced REEF)

-We lost Shonn Greene but I'm not concerned about the running game. That is as long as Paki O'Meara isn't involved. Get Brandon Wegher on the field for 5 touches (2-3 rush) a game and have Hampton and Brinson carrying 10 times a game each.

-The good news is we don't have to worry about a starting QB until 2011. The bad news is if Stanzi goes down this year a redshirt freshmen will take the snaps. I realize they won't be competing for a starting spot until 2011 but it is interesting to note that the Iowan Vandeberg is ahead of former Michigan commit (pre-rich rod) Wienke.


Key to the offense

The class of 2005: Trey Stross, Dan Doering, Kyle Calloway, Tony Moeaki, Andy Kuempel, Dace Richardson, and Rafael Eubanks will determine how much success we have on offense in 2009. Members of the #11 class in the country will look to justify the hype.


Defense:





DE - Clayborn, Geary
DT - Klug, Bigach
DT - Daniels, Hundertmark
DE - Ballard, Binns
OLB - Edds, Nielsen/Johnson
MLB - Angerer, Coleman
WLB - Hunter, Tarpinian
CB - Bernstine, Prater, Castillo
CB - Spievey, Lowe
SS - Sash, Cato
FS - Greenwood, Swanson

-Pictured above is the only class of 2005 player on defense, the man in the middle. He is flanked by another Sr. AJ Edds and Jeremiah Hunter. With Jacody Coleman, Tyler Nielson, Troy Johnson, and Jeff Tarpinian in the mix, I believe LB is by far the deepest position on this team.

-I am very pleased to see Claybourn and Ballard staying outside. I think Brodde Binns will help to form a tenacious trio out there.

-Jordan Bernstine has been "my boy" since he committed to Iowa in December of 2006, during his debut at Sodlier Field where he hit the NIU Huskie before he caught the ball on the opening kickoff, and when he pushed a Golden Gopher into his own teammate after an Iowa punt allowing Iowa to recover and continue the Massacre at the Metrodome. He, Amari Spievey, Greenwood, and Sash will have 2 years starting together and I expect to see a lot of picks back there. Don't forget about Shaun Prater as a nickleback once his suspension is up conveniently for B10 season.


Key to the defense

Klug/Geary, Daniels/Hundertmark and Biagch will be asked to step-up inside. My sense is that K&K will be sorely missed.



Special Teams:





PK - Murray, Mossbrucker
P - Donahue, Guthrie
LS - Schulze, Murphy
H - Donahue
PR - Sandeman
KR - Hampton, Johnson-Koulianos

-Mossbrucker should probably RS because Murray will most likely start the next 2 years allowing him to start the 2 years after that.

Yards per punt return: 10.07 1 td
Yards per kick return: 20.46 0 tds
-Those are the 2008 numbers that I think can be improved on in 2009. Wegher better be returning both and Paul Chaney is a track star and should be on the kick return.

-Donahue is a badass.

Help Wanted:

The current state of Iowa basketball leaves many Hawkeye fans longing for the Lute Olson or Tom Davis eras. The program has been on a down word spiral since a 1st round NCAA tournament loss to Northwestern State in 2006. The Hawks haven’t made a sweet sixteen appearance since 1999 where they lost to the eventual national champion UCON Huskies. Tom Davis was told to hit the road after that season. This basically implied that sweet 16 appearances weren’t good enough. Not good enough to make up for the loss of instate talent like Kirk Heinrich, Nick Collison, and Raef Lafrentz.


2000 ushered in the Steve Alford era, or as many of us remember it the Al-fraud era. This excessive hair gel wearing, ex Indiana legend brought with him the promise of great Indiana recruiting, and a sweet 16 appearance in his prior season. I will have to admit I fell for it. I watched him speak at a basketball camp in Iowa City in 2001. He told a group of High School kids, “You should never miss a jump shot left or right only long or short.” He then proceeded to make 10 straight 3 pointers. That was the most impressive thing Alford did at Iowa, aside from a few Big Ten tournament runs. He had the talent ; Reggie Evans, Luke Recker , Jeff Horner, Greg Brunner , Tyler Smith and Pierre Pierce. A lot of his good recruiting classes never paid dividends, or parking meters in the case of Sean Sonderliter. We don’t need to even talk about, let’s just say “P Squared”, also known as the man who had the entire Illini student section chanting, no means no. With that Alford was gone, just another guy from Indiana who thinks he should get free cars for a being a basketball coach.



We decided to get practical. We needed to get back to blue collar Iowa basketball. This involves developing players. So we found a man from the cradle of hoops. Todd Lickliter was coming off a sweet 16 run with a great Butler team. He coached in legendary Hinkle Field House. I mean Hoosiers was filmed in that building. If a man who has coached in that building can’t develop talent then who can?


The Lickliter era just finished season two and it’s not looking good. Attendance is down at Carver Hawkeye and the departure of Jake Kelley, and Jeff Petersen will leave us scrambling to find guards for Lickliter’s guard oriented offense. His overall record is 28-36 and 11-27 in Big Ten play. These aren’t pretty numbers, and next season doesn’t look bright. He doesn’t have the talent to get it done next year. We are in serious need of a Junior College transfer at point guard and a post presence. I think that Gatens, Fuller and Tucker could all develop into quality Big Ten players. Bawinkle will no longer be a role player but will most likely be forced into the starting lineup. Jarryd Cole will be our only post player with any experience. The University needs to put more money into recruiting. We can’t win without talent and depth. We currently have neither. Lickliter is a better coach than Alford, but we haven’t seen better results. Alford took over a team coming off of a sweet 16 season. Lickliter took over a program in shambles. The recruiting efforts must improve, but we need to give Lickliter at least three more years to try and establish some recruiting relationships. The program has a long way to go. We just extended a scholarship offer to Marcus Jordan. This could be the catalyst we need to get positive attention back in Carver. I mean come on, who wouldn’t want to be in line for a giant pretzel at Carver and run into Michael Jordan?

Hawkeye Hater

Week 6 starters. When the heat is on look for these guys to Bring it

Offense Starting line up week 6. I think Hampton and Brinson will be a one, two punch. I think that Brandon Weigher would make a great safety. I also look for Jordan Cotton to play a roll on offense. I think he could be our next "jail break screen guy" Yes, "Jail break screen guy" is a new position invented by Ken O'keefe.

OT- Kyle Callaway
OT- Bryan Bulaga
G - Julian Vandevelde
G - Dan Doering
C - James Ferentz
TE- Tony Moeaki
QB- Ricky Stanzi
FB- Wade leppert
RB- Jewel Hampton
WR- DJK
WR- Keenan Davis


Starting Line up Week 6 Defense
I really think that Jeff Taripinian will get some PT as long as he can stay healthy. I think Coleman should come in on Goal line situations and other obvious run-situation. Brett Greenwood hasn't proven to me that he can tackle against the top competition in the big ten, but I love his upside. I would like to see David Cato challenge for this position. We need Prater to come back and fight Bernstein for the corner spot. This will allow Norm to play a little nickle. I think Norm liked it haha.

I like to see Adrian and Binns on the same side. I think that Adrian will draw a double team from a lot of Big Ten teams and this will allow the speedy Binns to be alone on an island.

DE- Broderick Binns
DT- Adrian C.
DT- Karl Klug
DE- Christian Ballard

LB- Jeremiah Hunter
LB- Pat Angerer
LB- A.J. Edds

C- Amari Spivey
C- Jordan Bernstein

S- Tyler Sash
S- Brett Greenwood