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Happy Friday, folks. Football is so close we can taste it. In fact, tonight will be the first night of fall practice for the 2018 iteration of the Hawkeyes!
Time to get after it! Practice 1 tonight | #Hawkeyes https://t.co/P6IW8QUgWU pic.twitter.com/wbtgJ1gtau
— Hawkeye Football (@HawkeyeFootball) August 3, 2018
As always, every season is its own unique story. And we’ve had some interesting tidbits of information come out about the 2018 season in the last few weeks of football-less summer, particularly in regards to roster attrition.
Chad Leistikow took a deep dive today into all of the 2017 scholarship players with 2018 eligibility who have departed the program. Now, of course there are varying reasons for these departures, like graduate transfers and medical concerns, but the sheer number of departures (19) seems high this year. Chad’s not alarmed, and you should read his post to find out why. But combining this with all of the recent off-field issues as well does at least give me pause. History tells us summers like these are a rarity for Kirk Ferentz and his program. I guess we’ll have to see what sort of situation this season brings for next year’s offseason.
Along the trend of new beginnings, for all you uniform nerds out there like me, you may have noticed that we had some rare Iowa football uniform needs this week. Mainly, that the jersey number font has changed:
New number font this year for Iowa. Old version on left, new on right. pic.twitter.com/WBERtifEXS
— Paul Lukas (@UniWatch) August 3, 2018
Big day, folks. Big day. Also note that they officially switched the collar from the ugly Flywire collar pictured on the left to the Vapor Untouchable template (Nike’s name for it, not mine) on the right that we saw on last year’s alternate uniforms. These are very small changes but overall I think the jersey looks a lot cleaner now. There is, however, one big uniform change we’ll see on the field in September:
Hawkeyes will look even more like the Steelers this season as it appears QB Nate Stanley is going with the Big Ben long sleeves (pic via @HawkeyeBRay) pic.twitter.com/VtZSsv0veZ
— Chris Hassel (@Hassel_Chris) August 3, 2018
I....don’t love this look! But hey, if this means Nate Stanley is somehow able to emulate the passing finess of Ben Roethlisberger, Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning, who are fellow long sleeve jersey-wearers, then I’m a-okay with it.
And now for some quick hitter news and reads for your Friday afternoon.
For the basketball folk:
@AquilaBasketTN has re-signed @DevMarble for the upcoming #7DAYSEuroCup campaign.
— EuroCup (@EuroCup) July 31, 2018
https://t.co/IttqeQbX8q pic.twitter.com/J0o7eWPXHg
Ex-Hawkeyes Devyn Marble (Italy) and Jarrod Uthoff (Russia) will play overseas:https://t.co/NzfzF9Mfn9
— On Iowa (@GazetteOnIowa) August 2, 2018
Mark Emmert wrote a fun piece on Luka Garza’s summer heading into his sophomore season for Hawk Central.
Iowa baseball welcomed Joe Migliaccio to the coaching staff as an assistant coach. The announcement was made yesterday:
Migliaccio (@JoeMigs7) Joins Iowa Baseball Coaching Staff | #Hawkeyes | https://t.co/7MvdyjjHXf pic.twitter.com/Vu4EU70q4O
— Iowa Baseball (@UIBaseball) August 2, 2018
Softball made a hire, too:
We would like to welcome legendary Iowa high school softball coach Rick Dillinger to the #Hawkeye coaching staff! Dillinger brings with him more than 4 decades of coaching experience. #FightForIowa
— Iowa Softball (@iowasoftball) August 2, 2018
https://t.co/3UsfMUYRao pic.twitter.com/H7URBYkOQ1
In 42 years of coaching softball, Dillinger has won...
— Iowa Softball (@iowasoftball) August 2, 2018
• 3 state championships
• 13 conference championships
•11 district championships
• And numerous Coach of the Year awards. #Hawkeyes https://t.co/oH566fepfI
And now for the NFL crowd (and no, I’m not just going to link to a bunch of pieces about the new tackle rule). Bryan Bulaga is back from his ACL tear and practicing with the Packers.
#Packers RT Bryan Bulaga, coming back from a torn ACL quicker than expected, passed his physical & will practice today. He impressed those in GB with how he’s returned
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 3, 2018
7️⃣5️⃣ @BBulaga back on the practice field. #PackersCamp pic.twitter.com/IIwb3Wi84L
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) August 3, 2018
I wish Bryan nothing but the best, and I hope he didn’t return from injury too soon.
It looks like Jaleel Johnson is poised for some big things in his sophomore season with the Vikings.
And finally, random links from around the web.
This is really frustrating: the Las Vegas Aces were stuck in the airport for 24 hours before a game because WNBA teams fly commercial
The Browns are the Most Interesting 0-16 Team in NFL History
The Ringer’s Irrational No. 1 TV Episodes of the Century
And finally, behold, a very bad take from one of our very own bloggers:
hot take: scotcharoos are digusting
— Jordan Hansen (@jordyhansen) August 2, 2018