Marc Morehouse has several blog posts about Wegher and the Hawkeye open practice. First he has Stanzi on Wegher situation. He also has a video of Ferentz long form: On Wegher, Prater and other topics. There is more, McNutt sends prayers out to Wegher.
I'll have more links of coverage from Kid's Day below, now on to my take from today's action. I captured a few videos from my seat. They are far away but it may hold you over for three weeks.
yeah, so kinda suck, oh well.
Players not participating: Covert, Ferguson, Shumpert, Coker, and Prater went through drills but no scrimmage.
That's a pretty light list compared to open practices of the past, that's a good sign. These are gonna come pretty scatter brained here, mostly snippets from what I saw:
The starting Oline went Reiff/Vandervelde/Koeppel/Gettis/Zusevics. Starting TE's were Reisner and Herman. During 3 on 3 drills Clayborn man-handled Reisner and per my score sheet split 1-1 with Reiff.
Weinke got the first shot as #2 in the team 7 on 7 drills. I thought he looked pretty decent but Vandenberg should still be number 2. Vandy was wearing a red jersey today while Weinke was not. Not sure if there is an injury there or what that is about. Bottom line, we have a #1 QB with Stanzi and there is a drop off no matter who is number 2. My count had Derby with two INT's during 7 on 7's, one which would have been for six.
Saw a lot of Lance Tillison today. He was running as second team OLB and I'm going to guess will see a lot of time on special teams. Looked pretty good out there in coverage.
I spent a lot of time watching the Oline and Dline drills. I mentioned before that Clayborn against anyone is almost not fair. Reiff did handle him one of the two times, he rebounded nicely after Adrian delivered the initial pop.
True Freshmen Carl Davis and Mike Hardy may see the field this season. I had mentioned before that they both have the size. Davis is a big boy folks, but they both have a lot to learn. Hardy looked a tad slow at DE during a couple drills. Davis needs to learn to keep his feet moving. At this level you can't just push everyone around. They both need to get stronger so they get better separation with their arms. They will improve and we may see them soon, like EIU soon.
Beyond those two I saw Steve Bigach get pushed around. He seems to lack size, so does #61 Casey Kreiter. The freshmen better get up to speed because we lack depth there, at least beyond Daniel and Daniels.
During team drills both safeties along with Prater sat out the opening series. The replacements were Castillo, Bernstine at free safety, and Tanner Miller. Castillo got a lot of work in and looked pretty good in coverage. Bernstine was also the first defensive back in for a short stint as the nickle back when the first team safeties took the field.
There was a lot of rotation with the first team Dline today. Daniels, Daniel, Binns, Klug, Ballard, and Clayborn all worked in together at certain points. Clayborn recorded a couple of tackles for a loss early. He chased Paki down from the backside, it was pretty.
Both Hampton and ARob didn't get a lot of snaps initially. Paki O'Meara and De'Andre Johnson took quite a few reps. I was surprised by Johnson. He is built like a fire plug and runs well and low to the ground. Johnson got a round of applause when he broke off a 40 yard run.
Brad Rogers looks like he is officially the second or third team fullback. It appears to be a natural fit and he will have three years to be the starter.
I thought Stanzi looked sharp at times. Keenan Davis has put on some size and looked impressive physically. Donny Nordmann caught a long touchdown pass during 7 on 7's and might surprise people.
Freshman BJ Lowery saw quite a bit of action as a back-up corner back. He isn't the biggest guy out there but is surprisingly quick.
Iowa ran a lot of two tight end two wide sets. Later in the session they went three wide with Cheney Jr. in the slot. McNutt and DJK are an excellent set of WR's and Cheney and Sandeman are nice compliments in the slot.
CJ Fiedorowicz is huge. He did catch one pass in the scrimmage and was overthrown once.
AJ Derby really struggled. He doesn't yet appear to me to have the arm strength to throw the deep ball. He had WR's down the sidelines twice only to under-throw by five yards. He also had a difficult time with the blitz series. But, he's a true freshmen and that should be expected at this point.
During the blitz series Arob had a beautiful pick-up block on Sash. Stanzi found McNutt on a quick slant that went for six (no tackling though). I had Wienke 0 for 3 for his series and Vandy 2 for 5.
Some final, and more random stuff,
Dominic Alvis looked good at times playing DE. Still a year or two away.
Both Hampton and ARob showed some nice hands on passes out of the backfield.
Clayborg blocked a FG attempt, that got the crowd going.
The battle for center isn't finished. Ferentz eventually worked in with the 1's. It's going to be interesting to see how this works out.
The OLine looked good today. Not great, but not as bad as the OLine looked at open practice two years ago. There was running lanes from time to time and the QB wasn't instantly sacked during blitz pick-up drills.
That's all for me for now, if I have more I will add to this on HawkeyeLounge.com
Hawkeye links,
Here is a post practice Ferentz transcript from HawkeyeNation.
Morehouse has videos: OLB Tyler Nielsen, C Josh Koeppel, and DT Christian Ballard.
From the DSM Register: Ferentz talks about Wegher
Dochterman has videos: full scrimmage I, full scrimmage II, and 7-on-7 drills.
There will be much more, I'll update Hawkeye Lounge as stories and videos rollout.
