Some personal news: I gave up Twitter for Lent. It’s pretty wild to get no news updates and be disconnected from modern society, but it was necessary. Way too much scrolling.

What it’s meant, though, is an increase in going to different news and sports aggregation sites. Mainly ESPN. Way too much ESPN. But that’s where I came across a ranking of QB futures power rankings.

It’s behind a paywall, but here’s the gist:

The future power rankings return with an in-depth look at the quarterback position. Teams were evaluated based on whether they bring back quality starters, capable backups and, in some cases, heralded recruits. The rankings try to avoid projections, prioritizing what players have done at the college level and especially those with multiple years of eligibility left.

Naturally it would make sense to include the Iowa Hawkeyes, who possess somebody with two years left and high quality stats!

Big Ten schools on the list: Penn State (5), Ohio State (7), Michigan State (12), Wisconsin (17), Michigan (21)

It’s by noted Northwestern alum, Adam Rittenberg. If I’m projecting, he might actually have Clayton Thorson and his backups ahead of Iowa’s stable of QBs.

There are also five schools with no returning starter (including Ohio State) and five with part-time starters returning (including Michigan) included in the 25 from across the nation. Not including Iowa is a joke.

To be honest, there is not a single QB situation from another Big Ten school I would prefer to Iowa’s. Nate Stanley had the third most passing touchdowns (and total touchdowns) while maintaining the second-least interceptions in the conference among QBs with at least 14 attempts per game. Wisconsin probably gets into the playoff with Stanley instead of Alex Hornibrook. Jim Harbaugh would do wonders with him instead of his hodgepodge rotation in 2017.

Could Iowa be better positioned behind Stanley? Sure. There’s no guaranteed backup should Stanley go down and there will only be three scholarship guys on the roster next year. But, there are rarely guaranteed backups in college football as QBs are constantly looking for playing time. Stanley is as good as there is in the Big Ten and frankly, not including him goes against the tenants of the rankings.

Thanks for indulging me being mad online.

Down Goes...?

Yahoo! released another report detailing the FBI’s investigation into the NCAA basketball’s “pay for play” scandal with loads of juicy quotes. From a source:

When this all comes out, Hall of Fame coaches should be scared, lottery picks won’t be eligible to play and almost half of the 16 teams the NCAA showed on its initial NCAA tournament show this weekend should worry about their appearance being vacated.

The 16 teams were: Virginia, Villanova, Xavier, Purdue, Auburn, Kansas, Duke, Cincinnati, Clemson, Texas Tech, Michigan State, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio State, Arizona, and Oklahoma. If you’re keeping track, Arizona and Auburn already had someone on staff get arrested. Kansas is an adidas school and saw Billy Preston sign with a European professional team amidst drama about his eligibility. Hmmmm...

It could be a happy ending, though: “You might see Tennessee-Chattanooga as a No. 2 seed.”

Maybe that means Iowa is a one seed?

Draft Stuff

• Mel Kiper, also behind ESPN’s paywall, put Josh Jackson 15th and James Daniels 23rd in his latest Big Board. Josey Jewell is the fourth ILB (Kiper’s other three are in the first round) and Sean Welsh is the tenth guard. 2017 is going to be an interesting year in retrospect. Iowa’s rarely had this amount of top-end talent and those 8 wins might seem light as we go forward. Three of Iowa’s lowest-scoring outputs (Michigan State, Northwestern, and Purdue) really could have flipped the season to great.
• Josh Jackson spoke with NFL draftnik Jared Tokarz for about 8 minutes. His goal for the combine is to run a sub-4.4 40. That’d be something. As a former high jumper, I expect him to perform pretty well in some of the other combine activities.

Rookie Seasons

(shouts to JPinIC for the Twitters)

And that’s all I got. Go Hawks.