Marshal Yanda Selected to the Pro Bowl

A little good football news to end 2012: Former Hawkeye Marshal Yanda was selected to NFL Pro Bowl yesterday. Yanda is listed as one of the AFC's starting offensive guards. This is Yanda's second Pro Bowl selection.

It's not clear if he will be healthy enough to play come January 27. Yanda suffered a severe ankle sprain 2 weeks ago and snapped a 44-game streak of consecutive starts for the Ravens missing the last 2 games. The latest injury report from the Ravens says he didn't practice on Wednesday. But he has a month to heal, so I expect he'll play in Hawaii.

I don't think I'm alone in that pretty much my only memory of Yanda at Iowa is the play that he absolutely destroyed a Cyclone with a vicious block. Here's the best video I could find of the play.

Also noteworthy though, is that Yanda was a JUCO player and only played a couple of fantastic years at Iowa after transferring from NIACC. Memo to Kirk Ferentz, who has all but dismissed the JUCO route lately (minus the recent get of Damond Powell): JUCO kids can work out and will help immediately solve some of the talent issues on this team.

Anyway, it was nice to see a Hawkeye get his second straight Pro Bowl selection and let's hope he's healthy again soon.