99 Days Until Hawkeye Football: Noah Shannon & Max Hoskins

Welcome to the beginning our preview of the 2023 Iowa Hawkeyes football season. First up is:

Noah Shannon - Senior (6th year)
6’0”, 289 lbs.
Aurora, Ill. (Oswego)
2023 Projection: Starting defensive tackle

The two ends of the spectrum for Name, Image, & Likeness are the guys bouncing from place to place chasing playing time and the highest bidder and guys like Noah Shannon. The super senior certainly had the opportunity to pursue an NFL career by leaving Iowa City after the 2022 season but would have faced uncertainty as an undersized defensive tackle trying to make a roster in any way possible. Yet the ability to make some money as a Hawkeye allowed for those monetary benefits to translate into college and lead the way in his third season as a starter.

He meandered in his early career as he trimmed down from his high school weight in the 300s & couldn’t emerge while Daviyon Nixon and Jack Heflin did to various degrees. To give a sense of how long he’s been at Iowa, Marc Morehouse wrote ahead of 2020, the season was his “biological alarm clock year.”

The bell rang in 2021 and in the two seasons since, he’s amassed 91 tackles and 4.5 sacks. He was third on the team in tackles for loss last year with 8.5. Those are some pretty good numbers from a position who doesn’t normally accumulate stats.

Perhaps most important are the times his name wasn’t called. The stout lineman was rarely out of position and allowed the linebackers behind him to clean up. It’s probably the most important role he’ll play in 2023 as Iowa breaks in two starters in Jay Higgins at MLB and, as of now, Karson Sharar. Virginia transfer Nick Jackson likely slots in somewhere, though.

An ideal season for Shannon would start with a copy/pasting of his 2022 stats. Add a couple tackles for loss and/or sacks and that’ll pop some eyes and likely elevate him above the honorable mentions he got as all-conference performer last year.

Max Hoskins - RS Freshman
6’1”, 175 lbs.
Salem, Ore. (Blanchet Catholic)
2023 projection: reserve punter

247Sports detailed the June 2022 commitment of Hoskins and noted how he caught special team coordinator LeVar Woods’ eyes with directional punting at the Lindenwood Mega Camp. Iowa was looking for someone to develop behind Tory Taylor and the Oregon product lined up with what they were looking for.

His trajectory has some parallels with Iowa football, writ large, as his team’s inability to score kept him from showcasing his talents as placekicker and incentivized him to take up punting in addition to playing both ways. In the linked piece, he describes himself as an “athlete who punts” which is music to my ears. While he lacks Tory Taylor’s size at the position, he believes he has a similar versatility regarding his ability to punt deep, roll out, directional, etc.

While it’s unlikely he sees the field next year, he’ll be in a position to backfill Taylor if he can tick those boxes.