Iowa Football: Hawkeyes Release Week 2 Depth Chart vs. Northwestern

We’re into week two of the Iowa football season and things have been better. While it could always be worse (would you rather NOT be an Iowa fan? wait don’t answer that), week one was a pretty clear disappointment as the Hawkeyes felt in control a good portion of the game but lost in the most predictable way possible.

As we turn the page to week two, the Hawkeye staff appears to also be turning the page on the depth chart with some notable differences from a week ago. Don’t get your hopes up too much however. Despite the consternation surrounding Iowa’s offense only putting up 20 points and Spencer Petras missing more than his fair share of throws, the offensive side of the depth chart is largely unchanged. The defense, however, is a bit of a different story.

Image via HawkeyeSports.com

Noted Changes

• Mark Kallenberger has officially moved inside and is now backing up Kyler Schott at RG rather than Coy Cronk at RT
• Matt Hankins is an OR at Cash along with Dane Belton
• DT Austin Schulte has fallen off the depth chart, replaced by Jack Heflin as the starter with Dalles Jacobus as his backup
• DEs Logan Lee and Joe Evans have flipped sides
• With Jack Campbell officially out, Nick Niemann is officially over to MLB and Jestin Jacobs is the new starter at WLB with LEO starter Barrington Wade his backup
• Sebastian Castro has been replaced as backup SS by Kaevon Merriweather
• Kaevon Merriweather has been replaced as backup FS by Quinn Schulte

Takeaways

There’s quite a bit of noise here. On the offensive side of things, doesn’t look like there’s much to take away. It’s interesting that Kallenberger moved inside, but that doesn’t tell us a whole lot.

On defense, it would seem Phil Parker is searching for some answers. We clearly saw some miscommunications in the back end and Parker looks like he’s trying to address that by toying with the Cash. We heard last week that perhaps Riley Moss would slide inside and now this week we get Matt Hankins, the guy believed to be the best cover corner, as an OR with Dane Belton.

In the back end, no change to the starters, but Kaevon Merriweather is sliding to SS and bumpting Sebastian Castro off the depth chart. Castro didn’t play any snaps last week so the move is a bit interesting in that regard. Perhaps Parker is just looking to get Merriweather on the field more (he also saw zero reps last week) and believes he can do that with Belton at Cash.

The linebacker stuff is pretty much just crossing Ts and dotting Is from a week ago. We knew those changes were there once we got news on Campbell and it sounds like this is what it is for a few weeks.

Along the defensive line, Austin Schulte is apparently going to be out for a few week (he played zero reps last week against Purdue) and thus Jack Heflin is the new starter at DT. He will be backed up by Dalles Jacobus.

Here’s hoping the defensive adjustments help Iowa’s secondary find Northwestern’s top receiver a bit more this week. With no major shifts on offense, hopefully they can at minimum keep themselves to fewer than 10 penalties and avoiding fumbling from the opponent’s 10 yard line multiple times.