Wednesday Scrambler: Will C.J. ever run?

In perusing some numbers while preparing to pen this post (sorry), something jumped off Iowa’s rushing leaders page. No, it wasn’t the fact Akrum Wadley and LeShun Daniels, Jr. are 8-9 in the Big Ten in yards per carry — it was C.J. Beathard’s rushing yards, or lack thereof.

He’s at a staggering -29 yards on the season (-1 if you exclude sacks; change that rule to a team loss, football gods), which could have been expected coming into the season given last year’s health issues. If you want to dig deeper on this, the DI did a story on it Tuesday.

With the inferior competition, Beathard’s legs haven’t had to play a factor, but let’s quickly answer two questions. The first: can we expect this all year?

Maybe, maybe not. As long as the offense’s performance doesn’t suffer, let’s hope he doesn’t have to and the Daniels-Wadley combo continues to keep defenses honest enough that Beathard can focus solely on turning into Tom Brady 2.0, sans the whole suspension thing. Chances are, he’ll have to/be forced to run at some point, whether it be an opponent’s game plan to make him do so or an injury (please don’t become a theme on the O-Line) thins the running game, etc.

The second question, which I suppose I’ve already answered in this stream-of-consciousness rambling: is it a bad thing if Beathard’s rushing numbers are pretty much nonexistent?

Not necessarily, as long as it doesn’t stop the Hawks from winning games. It might and probably could hinder that from happening, however. Frankly, as long as Iowa plays not-so-great teams, of which there are a handful on the schedule, this really shouldn’t be an issue.

I’ll be just as curious as the next guy to see what the case is moving ahead.

Well, now that that somewhat coherent first section is over, let’s talk about the most pressing issue on the Hawkeye social medias of Tuesday — the fact that Iowa fans are supposedly going to have a bunch of drunk people to compete with for the title of most drunk fan base at Kinnick when North Dakota State rolls into town Saturday.

From the Register:

Usually, at least in my experience, the drunken title fight is reserved for Iowa and Wisconsin.

However, should the niceness of North Dakota fans happen to be the case, the scene on Melrose before the game could make one of the happiest places on the planet happier.

Anyone that can find me a more jubilant place than one with a bunch of drunk Iowans and North Dakotians(?) before a football game will be the winner of a prize from yours truly.

On Jim Harbaugh’s boogers: Ted Cruz did it, so what’s the worst that could happen?

Consider this my formal apology for saying the Northwestern-Hawkeye game was going to decide the Big Ten West. This feels like the third or fourth year in a row I’ve done that, so maybe I’ll learn. Probably not.

The NFL color rush uniforms came out earlier this week, which reminded me of something. Are these unis going to happen this year?

Would that be awesome or would that be awesome?

Well, here we are, the Hawkeyes sitting at 2-0 and ready to get to the tough-ish part of the schedule. The worst team Iowa will play this year was Iowa State, and everyone here at The Pants did a fantastic job covering that whopping, so I’ll add my two cents.

It was an absolute-freakin’ blast being back in Iowa City for the game over weekend. I’d been back a few times over the summer to clean out my house, but this was my first time back “feeling like an alumni.” Even though it was only two months since I’d ventured to that side of the Mississippi, I’d forgotten how beautiful that town is, especially in mid September on a football Saturday. There was a gold hue to everything surrounding Kinnick, something like I’d never seen during my four years there. Couple that with the game and a whole lot of Busch Diets, and it made me sad I can’t be there every weekend to watch the Hawks.

The landscape and the town are gorgeous, as are all of you people. Hope to see you soon.