What? We didn't lose, right?
Consider this your thread for making observations from the "spring game," whether you attended it live (in which case you probably got badly sunburned and/or earned the ire of the Kinnick Stadium gestapo security guards) or watched the "coverage" on BTN Tonight. If you require more substantive analysis, Morehouse and Hamilton have you covered. And if, god forbid, you actually want to see stats from a scrimmage, well, don't ever say Mas Casa never did anything for you.
Five Things We Think We Know
- DJK bein' DJK. It was business as usual for our favorite acronym monikered receiver, which means it was perfectly schizophrenic. Good news: he beat Shaun Prater to make a nice catch on a deep ball thrown by Stanzi. Bad news: he did something to earn Soup's ire and spent part of the practice doing push-ups on the sideline.
- You can run, but you cannot Hyde. Jordan Bernstine's struggle to crack the starting line-up continues as, by all accounts, sophomore Micah Hyde has locked down one of the starting spots. Morehouse and Dochterman offered glowing praise for his efforts in the post-scrimmage live chat at the Gazoo.
- Depth chartin'. As expected, your first-team offensive line was, from left to right, Riley Reiff, Julian Vandervelde, James Ferentz, Adam Gettis, and Marcus Zusevics. The scuttlebutt seemed to be that the tackles performed pretty well, but that the interior of the line is still a bit soft. The video of one-on-one drills that Morehouse uploaded bears that out, although seeing Gettis and Vandervelde get shoved around like ragdolls does little to ease our anxiety. Jeff Tarpinian and Tyler Nielsen filled in for Pat Angerer and A.J. Edds, respectively, and did well, although Troy Johnson came in for both the 3-4 and nickel packages.
- Angry Running Back Hating God is still a hater. Angry Running Back Hating God struck again during Saturday's scrimmage, knocking out Brad Rogers and forcing Iowa to give most of the carries to converted safety Jason White and fullback Jacob Reisen during the scrimmage. Fortunately, Angry Running Back Hating God was somewhat merciful; Rogers suffered only a sprained ankle.
- Kickin' ain't easy. The danger of trying to glean too much from the (mostly) annual open practice/scrimmage is that it's just that: one of fifteen practices over the course of three weeks. It's a snapshot that may or may not be reflective of the entire three weeks of practice. But sometimes one practice can be perfectly indicative of all the practices; such was the case with the kickers today. Daniel Murray went 2/6 during the kicking drills, but nailed a 42-yard field goal during the "live" scrimmage portion. Trent Mossbrucker went 4/4 during the kicking drills, but pulled a 44-yard attempt wide right during the scrimmage. Ferentz called the kicking performance during the spring "underwhelming," which makes us feel all warm and fuzzy about Iowa's chances in close games next year. Thank God there's still months to go and (hopefully) lots of improvement to be made.
We'll be back later with some wrap-up coverage on Spring Football and what, if anything, we learned.
* - Yes, we know it's just a glorified scrimmage and they don't even keep score. Stop hatin'.