Overreaction Monday: The Doldrums of Hawkeyedom

Now that we are in the full swing of summer, it’s time to start turning molehills into mountains on the Iowa news cycle. JPinIC is still off on paternity leave, so you’re stuck with me. Sorry.

First, let’s start with Jarrod Uthoff. The Iowa native finished out the NBA season strong while earning a spot at the table with the Dallas Mavericks.

Uthoff earned two 10-day contracts with the Mavs to close out the season, and was eventually given a “multiyear deal” with the team, though nothing is guaranteed moving forward. It’s going to be a BIGLY summer for Uthoff in the summer league, but I think we all know he has what it takes to make it.

Also I’ll just leave this here and you can hand-on-chin-emoji yourselves.

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In football-related news, Iowa is trying out Noah Clayberg at safety now that Brandon Snyder is out for the year with a torn ACL. Clayberg, if you’re unfamiliar, was previously a grayshirt and a running back. Now he’s neither of those things.

The freshman out of Pella was named Gatorade player of the year in Iowa when he was a senior, when he led Pella to a 14-0 record as a quarterback. He also played linebacker and defensive back as a four-year letterman for the Dutch (Dutchmen?). As a senior, he rushed for 182 times for 1,810 yards and 30 touchdowns and passed for 1,695 yards and 21 touchdowns. He also recorded 35 tackles, an interception and a blocked punt. So yeah you could quantify him as an athlete.

We look forward to following Clayberg as he tries out the position. Here’s a great story from a year ago about his time as a grayshirt. Here’s to hoping he’s an Adrian Clayborn, Matt VandeBerg cyborg of some sort.

And SPIN ZONE: I love, love, LOVE another walk-on (of sorts) competing for a starting job at safety. It’s worked in the past and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it AMIRITE? Why waste a scholarship on a position you know you can just fill with some gym rat who’s already on the roster?

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Let’s pivot briefly to Iowa baseball, which took two out of three from Nebraska this weekend. The Hawkeyes are now 5-4 in the Big Ten. That series against Northwestern last week might come back to bite em as the season winds down.

We’ll have a full baseball post later on.

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This week marks the start of the Jane Meyer trial at the Polk County Courthouse. A quick TL;DR on the situation: Meyer was formally an associate athletics director at Iowa from 2001-14. She’s suing the school for wrongful termination.

Meyer is the longtime partner of former Iowa field hockey coach Tracy Griesbaum, who is also suing the school for wrongful termination. Griesbaum’s trial is slated to begin on June 5.

The timing of the whole thing is a little suspicious, seeing as how Iowa’s former assistant AD Gene Taylor was just pegged as the AD at Kansas State. Taylor, among Gary Barta, Sally Mason, Kirk Ferentz, Fran McCaffery, Tom Brands, Bob Bowlsby and Chris Doyle (and others) are named as witnesses in the trial.

I’m no lawyer, so I’m not entirely sure of the implications involved in this here trial, but we will certainly be following closely. As someone with no legal knowledge whatsoever, I will say this is a HORRIBLE look for the school and Barta, no matter how the ordeal shakes out. I am surprised no settlement was reached outside of court...

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Here’s some Gopher fans screwing up a punt return during Minnesota’s spring game. Iowa’s own spring game is happening this Friday, we’ll get you up to speed there leading up to it.

I’m going to take every opportunity I can to knock Minnesota football here. It’s never too early to #TowTheBoat.

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Our own Max Brekke did a Q&A with Bucky’s Fifth Quarter to preview the Iowa-Wisconsin matchup seven months from now. Ah, the offseason.

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The Ringer’s Robert Mays spent a column dedicated to the top tight ends in this year’s draft class. While Alabama’s O.J. Howard is probably the best of the bunch, Mays calls Iowa’s George Kittle one of his “favorite prospects” in this year’s draft, and said of his combine performance; “we have no reason to think this dude isn’t from the future.”

Our own Rob Donaldson waxed poetic about Kittle himself, so it’s no surprise one of the best NFL writers in the business agrees with some guy on a site called The Ringer. (See what I did there?)

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Now, I would like to take the final few words here to reflect on what’s been going on at The Pants since Max and I took over and brought on about a dozen new bloggers.

It’s been just around seven months since the previous regime handed us the keys to Black Heart Gold Pants. We just finished up our first football and basketball and wrestling seasons as a team, and I really could not be happier and more proud of what we accomplished. There were ups and downs, sure, and there are still going to be growing pains, but in general I think there were more positives than negatives.

You may have noticed that a handful of the writers we brought on in the first wave of hirings have left for their own reasons, leading us to hire about five new bloggers a month ago, each of whom we are really excited about. I can’t wait for the upcoming football season to see what this team of writers can do.

HOWEVAH, it doesn’t matter how good we are as bloggers if you all aren’t around as some of the most loyal readers on the face of the earth. We know the vast majority of you became fans years and years ago under the previous regime, and we are flattered you decided to stick around and follow us as we go in a slightly different direction. You, dear readers, are the secret sauce that makes this operation so rewarding and fun as a blogger. Don’t tell this to the other guys on staff, but secretly I’m just as excited to read your comments on an article as I am the article itself.

So, I would just like to leave you with these praises and offer the following: since we are still growing and learning, we would like your help. If there’s something we aren’t covering and you would like to see it on the site, let us know. If you think there’s anything at all we can do to improve your experience as a reader, we want to hear it. And if there’s something you see that you don’t like, well that’s what the comments are for. Basically, this is my roundabout way of asking you guys if you would rather see a bracket of Iowa City restaurants, or a 4,000 word manifesto where I rant about how C.J. Fiedorowicz was used so improperly that Kirk Ferentz and Greg Davis should have been slapped with malpractice.

So, our DMs are open and we read all the comments anyway, so don’t feel like your words will fall on deaf ears. It’s been a great start out of the gates, and we look forward to seeing what the future holds for us as we grow together.

Have a great week everyone, and go Hawks.