Hawkeye Sports Daily Rewind: Robbins to Vanderbilt, Football Has News

It’s the offseason for Iowa’s major sports and while baseball is keeping the lights on, news flow these days is much more ebb and flow. In an effort to keep things fresh, we’re trying something new: a daily recap of the news in Hawkeye sports land. The BHGP staff typically shares things as they come up throughout each day and we debate the validity of a full scale article against the time constraints of the staff writers. That won’t change, but we will be trying to compile those news items we share back and forth into something for the BHGP community to discuss rather than to pop up sporadically on other posts.

So, here goes the first iteration. Feedback welcome in the comments.

It was mostly a bad new day for Hawkeye fans on Monday. For several days, there has been speculation that Davenport native and former Drake and Minnesota center Liam Robbins was down to Iowa and Vanderbilt with a decision looming. The Hawkeyes were not his team of choice as a kid and they didn’t make the cut when he transferred from Drake, but they did just have the national player of the year graduate from his position with close to 40 minutes per game available next season. By all accounts, Fran, several current players and even Luka Garza himself have been putting on the full court press for Robbins.

But on Monday the big man chose to again follow his uncle, Ed Conroy, to Vanderbilt where he is expected to be hired as an assistant after Richard Pitino was let go in Minneapolis.

It’s a major bummer as Vanderbilt flat out stunk this year and Iowa seemed like the perfect fit for Robbins. The Hawkeyes are still in the mix for North Dakota big Filip Rebraca and will continue to look for a center in the transfer portal.

This despite former class of 2022 commit Riley Mulvey announcing over the weekend that he was reclassifying to the class of 2021 to join Iowa this fall.

Our own Matt Reisener broke down Iowa’s options at center very well on Monday morning ICYMI.

Things weren’t much better for the football team. For starters, reserve tight end Josiah Miamen (I’ll note here he has been one I’m watching as a future breakout given his athleticism and pass catching as a prep) was apparently arrested Saturday night at Elray’s Live and Dive in Iowa City.

He was involved in an altercation with the staff after blocking the doorway (insert jokes about blocking well here). When the police arrived, he fled on foot but was arrested after a brief chase (insert jokes about him not making the two-deeps due to lack of speed here).

According to KCJJ, Miamen was charged with Disorderly Conduct, Trespass, Interference with Official Acts, Public Intoxication and Possession of a Fictitious ID which, in total, could land him up to 15 months in jail. That doesn’t seem likely given the track record of Iowa City and college kids doing stupid things, but it’s certainly not good news no matter how you frame it.

While Miamen was not listed on the most recent spring depth chart, Noah Fenske was. The backup center announced on Monday that he intends to transfer from Iowa, opening a hole behind all-world starter Tyler Linderbaum.

That will certainly be something to keep an eye on this weekend when the Hawkeyes host the first of their two open spring practices.

And that’s it for Monday, April 12th. Feel free to post other newsworthy items in the comments.

Go Hawks!