LUNCH LINKS WELCOMES NEW FACES

Well you might have heard, Iowa football has itself some new coaches! At offensive line and wide receiver, to be exact.

Kelton Copeland, who will be coaching receivers and Tim Polasek, who’s coaching the offensive line, addressed the media for the first time as Iowa employees Thursday evening. Overall, I would say they were well-received.

Even though Polasek has never coached offensive line before, he’s certainly been around football enough to understand the nuances of the big uglies. Furthermore, HE GOT GRIT:

This was the winter of 2006. Polasek was an assistant coach at Wisconsin-Stevens Point. You don’t make a living wage as a Division III assistant, so Polasek was out logging. Yes, logging. He got a call from Craig Bohl, who was head coach at North Dakota State. It was 12 degrees in the woods of central Wisconsin and Polasek answered his cell.

“‘Is this Tim Polasek the football coach?’” the voice on the other end said. “And I said, ‘It’s Tim Polasek the football coach and logger.’ At that time I was three days a week I was recruiting for a Division III school, UW-Stevens Point, and three days a week I was logging. I mean, cutting timber down and doing it all.”

Oh baby.

I think some people were surprised to see that neither Copeland nor Polasek had any direct ties to the Iowa program, but judging from the way they speak, I think the two of them could be cut from the Ferentz Cloth, which makes up for a lack of direct familiarity with Hawkeye program:

Copeland, who spent the past four years at Northern Illinois, spoke of one of his core values being honesty. His belief is: “If you're honest with me and loyal and we’re working toward the same goal, we'll always have a great relationship. If at any time that trust gets broken, then we'll have an issue.”

Regarding a question of how he’ll coach wide receivers — a position group that was quite maligned during Iowa’s 8-5 season in 2016 — he stayed on the character theme.

“My philosophy is simple: Be straight up, be honest, have a plan and let them know I'm going to do everything I can in my power to help you along the way,” Copeland, 36, said. “Not only to make you a good football player, but (to) help you become a good man.”

-With the addition of Ken O’Keefe as quarterbacks coach along with Polasek and Copeland, Iowa was still in need of a coach for running backs and special teams. During the presser Ferentz said that Brian would also be coaching running backs, while Copeland could possibly coach special teams.

-Ryan Boyle has moved back to quarterback from wide receiver. That gives Iowa Nathan Stanley, Tyler Wiegers, Boyle and Drew Cook at the position for spring camp. Peyton Mansell won’t arrive on campus until the fall.

-This story on Nelson Brands (Terry’s son) is awesome.

-Marvin McNutt steps in to his role as the head coach of the Cedar Rapids Titans. Who else thought he was going to be tabbed as Iowa’s new receivers coach?

-A Nebraska coach called Iowa’s 40-10 drubbing over the Huskers on Black Friday (expletive). Took a page out of Nathan Gerry’s book there.

-Hey degenerates, I hope you had a nice time this NFL season.

-Oh this Tweet:

-Looks like Jake Rudock is the guy right behind Matt Stafford. For now.

-I loathe the Cubs, but this is laugh out loud funny: