Please don’t take this as a serious football piece. It’s not.
At least I don’t think it was intended to be. CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli took a look at potential Big Ten football spring overreactions.
As Fornelli writes, “we’re all at our dumbest in May.” In other words, we try to make big conclusions from a spring season that’s essentially glorified practices. It’s silly. It’s dumb. But that’s college football, baby.
There’s all sorts of possible message board fodder that Fornelli explores. For example, The Dairy Raid at Wisconsin will be unstoppable. Nebraska quarterback Jeff Sims is who Husker fans thought Adrian Martinez was going to be.
Michigan‘s J.J. McCarthy is set to elevate his game to another level, while Ohio State has serious problems along its offensive line. There’s a lot to dissect here. And, really, more than anything, it’s just fun to think and talk about college football and what the 2023 season may bring.
What about for the Iowa Hawkeyes? What’s Fornelli’s biggest spring overreaction in Iowa City?
The Hawkeyes will never score a single point on offense: A lot was made of the contract stipulation for offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz and the 25 points per game the Hawkeyes need to score this year. There was also a lot made about changes to the offense and newcomers like QB Cade McNamara and TE Erick All from Michigan.
None of it was on display this spring — at least not publicly. McNamara was a limited participant in the only open practice of the spring, and many expected starters on the offensive line were out. As a result, Iowa’s offense was extremely vanilla, even for Iowa. – Fornelli, CBS Sports.
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Never scoring a single point on offense? That was a bit aggressive, Tom. But, hey, we sort of get it. Until Brian Ferentz and Iowa show they can be consistently competent offensively, there’s a stain of disbelief hanging over Iowa City.
As far as tangible offensive changes from the Hawkeyes’ open spring practice, yeah, that’s tough.
Then again, Iowa doesn’t treat its open spring practice like the big event that others around the country do. It’s not televised and the Hawkeyes are content to make sure someone as important to their 2023 plans as McNamara doesn’t push himself while he continues to rehab the knee injury that ended his 2022 season.
In typical Iowa fashion, it was the Hawkeye tight ends that arguably put on the biggest offensive show. Fellow Michigan transfer Erick All made plays, including reeling in a touchdown grab from the aforementioned McNamara.
Addison Ostrenga caught a touchdown pass, too. Then, there was Diante Vines’ touchdown grab from Wisconsin transfer quarterback Deacon Hill.
Sure, Vines’ wasn’t from McNamara, but we’ll take it. I know it’s scary, Tom, but sometimes in life you just have to believe in what you haven’t seen yet.
That’s even more the case now after Ohio State transfer wide receiver Kaleb Brown announced his decision to join the black and gold. As they should, Hawkeye fans celebrated the good news.
The short of it? You can’t rain on our parade right now, Fornelli.
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