Regrouping at O-line

His name is Markus Zusevics.

Here are a few of the particulars: He's 100 percent Latvian. His grandparents moved from the eastern European country to the United States during World War II. He's from Arlington Heights, Ill., a Chicago suburb, and he carries a little bit of that accent.

He arrived at Iowa as a 220-pound center with a noted passion for volleyball. Yes, volleyball.

Don't make too much of that, he said during Iowa's media day Friday. It wasn't like he was a junior Olympian or anything. It was just a thing.

“Played in high school,” the 6-foot-5, 290-pounder said. “It was kind of a family, cultural thing I got into. I enjoyed it, moved on to football and went on from there.”

Last thing, he's Iowa's starting right offensive tackle. Don't want to leave that out.

The offensive line is the main mystery for the Hawkeyes, who ranked No. 10 in the first USA Today coaches' poll released Friday.

Three new starters will line up with senior guard Julian Vandervelde and sophomore tackle Riley Reiff. Zusevics holds right tackle going into the meat of fall camp, which began Friday morning. Senior Josh Koeppel and sophomore James Ferentz will battle at center. Junior Adam Gettis is the right guard.

“We've obviously been anticipating this,” said Kirk Ferentz, who begins his 12th season as Iowa's head coach. “We've been working three years, maybe four, going into four with a couple of them. Zusevics and Gettis are both going into their fourth years, but that's what these guys have been preparing for.”

It's no secret. There's pressure on this group. Consider what Iowa has lost the last two seasons up front.

Tackle Bryan Bulaga left a year early and was the No. 23 pick in the NFL draft last April. Dace Richardson could have applied for a sixth year of eligibility but chose to try the pros. Iowa's O-line has had three other NFL draft picks in the last two years (Kyle Calloway, Seth Olsen and Rob Bruggeman).

Bulaga, Richardson and Calloway were in the 320 range. The newbies - Zusevics, Gettis and Koeppel or Ferentz - are not in the 320 range. Not in the 320 neighborhood.

Is that a big deal?

“I think that's definitely overplayed quite a bit,” Zusevics said. “I've never seen that there's a requirement for how heavy you have to be to play offensive line. It's just a different style of offensive line.”

It's either going to be a great thing or a pain in the buttpads for the O-line to get in the three-point and look up at the Hawkeyes' defensive line, one of the best in the Big Ten and maybe the country.

Senior end Adrian Clayborn is on every award watch list except the Ray Guy Award, which goes to the nation's top punter. Tackles Karl Klug and Christian Ballard return with 21 tackles for loss between them. Junior end Broderick Binns was No. 2 on the team with six sacks last season.

Gettis is painfully aware of the ups and downs of punching in against Iowa's D-line. He lives with backup D-tackle Mike Daniels. They let each other know who had a good and who had a bad practice.

“I play against my roommate,” he said. “When you win, you get to do the talking when you get home, mess with him a little bit. It's really fun, really fun.”

Offensive line coach Reese Morgan saw what he needed to see in the spring. His guys didn't tuck and run against the Clayborns and Ballards. That's not a resume-builder as far as career starts go, but it's something. It's probably worth more than a handful of career starts.

“Every day is going to be a battle,” Morgan said. “Are you going to dig in and do your very best? And are you going to get better? If we can block our guys in practice, we have a chance to have a pretty good line.”

And it's not like the O-line is starting with an empty helmet.

Vandervelde, a three-year starter, should be fully recovered from a torn pectoral that put a kink in his 2009 season. Reiff was thrown into the lineup as a red-shirt freshman last season when Bulaga missed three games with a thyroid condition. He went on to start 11 games.

“The main thing right now is we all stay healthy and we all spend time working together,” Reiff said. “Every day we get out on this practice field is going to help us.”

One way to look at butting up against Iowa's D-line is a wonderful measure for improvement during camp for Iowa's offensive line. Maybe the healthiest way.

“It can either be something that helps us or something that hurts us,” Vandervelde said. “If we take it upon ourselves to really come out and challenge this defensive line every day and use them as kind of a tool for us to grow and mature as an offensive line that can handle them.”

What doesn't kill them will make them stronger. If it doesn't kill them.