Former Hawkeyes Wegher, Derby, Sokol thriving

Iowa's football players come and go, some sooner than others. Here is an update of five former Hawkeyes currently playing on other teams.

Brandon Wegher had quite a nice

freshman season for Iowa in 2009, rushing for 641 yards and eight touchdowns, including 16 carries for 113 yards and a 32-yard TD run in the Orange Bowl win over Georgia Tech.

He left the program after that season. In fact, he didn't play college football for the next three years. He eventually wound up at Morningside College in his Sioux City hometown, and rushed for 1,205 yards last year.

This season, Wegher is doing even better. He has 57 carries for 578 yards (10.1 yards per rush) and an NAIA Division I-best 192.7 yards per game. He has eight touchdowns.

His team is ranked No. 1. It is averaging 70.3 points and 669.7 yards per game.

A.J. Derby left Iowa for Arkansas.

The senior tight end has 8 catches for 106 yards and two touchdowns for Bret Bielema's Razorbacks.

Derby had three catches for 58 yards and a TD in the Hogs' overtime loss at Texas A&M Saturday. His other score came against Auburn.

Barkley Hill never played

in a regular-season game for Iowa. Like Wegher, he is back in his hometown playing college football.

Hill, from Cedar Falls, had eight carries for 63 yards last Saturday in Northern Iowa's 50-7 pummeling of Tennessee Tech and has apparently moved into the No. 2 spot on UNI's depth chart behind terrific senior David Johnson.

Hill rushed for over 6,000 yards in three seasons at Cedar Falls High School.

Marcus Coker rushed for 1,384 yards

for Iowa in 2011. But he was suspended from the Hawkeyes in December of that year and wasn't allowed to participate in the Insight Bowl.

The next month, he was granted is release from the program. He transferred to Stony Brook. In 2012, he rushed for 1,018 yards and nine touchdowns for the Seawolves.

Coker played two games at Stony Brook last year. He had 193 rushing yards and two touchdowns in two games, but suffered a season-ending abdominal injury. He had surgery for that last February.

If that weren't enough, Coker had an automobile accident in April. He suffered a broken fibula.

He also violated a team rule in February, and was suspended for his team's 2014 opener. This season, he has returned in a No. 2 running back role. He has 52 carries for 142 yards and a TD.

Mika'il McCall is another

former Iowa running back playing elsewhere.

He carried nine times for 61 yards in Iowa's season-opener against Tennessee Tech, but broke an ankle and didn't return until Game 11, when he had two carries against Purdue.

He was suspended for Iowa's final two games because of an undisclosed violation. Then he left the Hawkeyes at around the same time Coker did.

McCall transferred to Southern Illinois. He played in 11 games in 2012, rushing 130 times for 489 yards and eight touchdowns.

He had seven carries for 24 yards in SIU's 2013 season-opener at Illinois. And that was it. Coach Dale Lennon dismissed McCall from the Salukis for reasons he hasn't publicly cited.

McCall was reinstated early this year and was made a fullback. But SIU didn't have much depth at running back, so that's where he now again plays. And quite well so far. He has 37 carries for 243 yards this season. That's 6.6 yards per rush for the No. 15 team in FCS.

McCall has nine rushes for 68 yards and a TD in the Salukis' 34-17 win over Missouri Valley Football Conference rival Western Illinois last Saturday.

Quarterback Cody Sokol

didn't get to throw a pass at Iowa. He transferred from the Hawkeyes to Louisiana Tech in March.

Sokol came to Iowa from an Arizona junior college. He was a college graduate when he got to Louisiana Tech, so he was eligible to play there this season.

Sokol earned the Bulldogs' starting job before the first game and has remained in that role. Through five games, he has thrown for 1,225 yards, 10 touchdowns and six interceptions.

He passed for 246 yards in Tech's 45-17 loss at Auburn last Saturday.

Sokol threw for five TDs in the Bulldogs' 42-21 win at North Texas on Sept. 11.

Here's a Nola.com story on Sokol from earlier this month.