Big holes to fill on Hawkeye offensive line
Since being hired as Iowa head football coach in December 1998, Kirk Ferentz has guided his share of successful teams. Most have relied on stingy defenses and conservative, ground-focused offenses.
Still, the greatest common denominator among those teams has been simple: They’ve been anchored by some of college football’s sturdiest offensive lines.
But looking ahead to the 2010 season, the offensive line may be the team’s biggest question mark.
Many believe the Hawkeyes will go only as far as their men in the trenches take them. And at least one player — redshirt senior offensive lineman Julian Vandervelde — believes the same thing.
“I’ve certainly heard that, and that’s something that I kind of subscribe to myself,” he said on Tuesday in the Hayden Fry Football Complex. “Being on the offensive line, I do think that we have to be leaders of this team.”
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Iowa’s returning offensive linemen have a combined 36 career starts between them. Vandervelde and redshirt sophomore Riley Reiff account for 35 of those (redshirt junior Adam Gettis has one).
Those now departed from the roster, such as Bryan Bulaga, Rafael Eubanks, Dace Richardson, and Kyle Calloway, leave some large holes to fill — both figuratively (119 combined career starts) and literally (a combined 1,200-plus pounds).
Gettis, along with redshirt junior Markus Zusevics, and either redshirt senior Josh Koeppel or redshirt sophomore James Ferentz at center, are expected to be slotted in the line alongside Vandervelde and Reiff.
Senior fullback Brett Morse acknowledged the difficulty of replacing such keystones, but said he likes what he’s seen thus far.
“I’ve seen a group of guys who have been working hard all through spring ball and everything,” Morse said. “A lot of guys have experience in there. I know we lost a lot of the guys starting, but a lot of these guys have some starting experience, and they’ve definitely been proving themselves last year and this year during spring ball that they have the potential to play.”
Redshirt senior quarterback Ricky Stanzi has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Iowa’s offensive line over the last two seasons. But the Mentor, Ohio, native said the group’s newcomers have done a good job of learning ever since spring practice.
Stanzi said the team’s strongest unit — the defensive line, which some prognosticators rank as the nation’s best entering 2010 — is one of the biggest assets for the less-experienced offensive linemen.
“I think it’s huge to get some actual reps with the [defensive starters],” he said. “Go against guys like [Adrian] Clayborn and [Christian] Ballard, that can only help. After going through spring ball, I think [the offensive linemen] are a little bit more confident, and we’re extremely confident in what we think they can do for us.”
Similarly, Vandervelde has no doubts about his peers’ potential — but he knows it’s a work in progress.
“We have a lot of young guys who are very excited about playing,” he said. “We have a lot of older guys right now who are very experienced and very excited to teach the younger guys what they need to learn.
“As a unit, if we can bring everything together and have everyone do his part, I think we have a lot of potential.”
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