3 and Out: Ott shakes off moped accident

1) Wrapping up the moped thing

- It wasn't the fact that Iowa defensive end Drew Ott was in a moped accident. He'd been through that before, sort of.

He lives on a farm in Trumbull, Neb. He's gone through a couple of four-wheel ATVs during his early years. And, oh yes, he crashed them.

'I'd felt that before,” Ott said about the Sept. 8 accident in which he was struck by a car while riding his moped in Iowa City. The accident sent him to the hospital, and, yes, it did freak him out a little. He's not Evel Knievel.

It just wasn't something new.

'I've crashed my four-wheelers driving into creeks too fast,” the junior said. 'I've been thrown off a couple of ATVs every once in a while. I've been over the handlebars quite a few times in my day. I had just never really hit my shins like that.”

Ott is 6-4, 270 pounds. Mopeds don't offer a lot of protection for most people, but a 6-4 dude is left with his legs exposed. The car struck him dead in the shins.

The kid who hit him was freaked out. Ott was kind of freaked out, too.

'I was in some pain, I wasn't too concerned with him,” Ott said. 'I was a little worried about myself at the time. His bumper hitting my shins. I drive with my legs out. I thought I shattered my shins at first. They settled down a little bit. There was a lot of pain.

'If you get kicked in the shins, it's kind of sensitive. If you get hit by a car in the shins, it's a little more sensitive.”

2) Life of a third-down back

- Senior running back Damon Bullock has been anointed the 'third down back.” Here's what that role means to him: 'Reliability, somebody everyone can count on. Someone who can move the chains.”

But . . .

'I don't necessarily want to be the third-down back,” he said with a laugh. Don't get him wrong. He has an appreciation for the role. When Iowa runs '11” personnel group (one running back, one tight end), Bullock is the featured back. Iowa has run that group 42, 73 and 37 percent of the time in its first three games. That's why you see a lot of Bullock.

Bullock doesn't want a label stuck on his helmet, even though that's already been pasted on by coaches for the most part.

'I don't think anybody wants to be know as just a third-down back,” said Bullock, who has averaged just 2.72 yards a carry so far this year (so, tracking right along with the rest of Iowa's running game). 'You have to keep working for it. You've got to show when you get that shot that you're capable of making those carries.”

3) And, really, that's the news this week

- It didn't go unnoticed that sophomore running back LeShun Daniels didn't record a carry in last week's loss to Iowa State. Head coach Kirk Ferentz mentioned during news conference this season that the staff briefly considered redshirting Daniels, but he had too good of a camp not to play. So far, he has 35 yards on 12 carries, including a 13-yard TD run on his first carry of the season.

And now, it appears he's been edited out of a rotation that has kept four running backs from seeing the playing time and finding the rhythm to help them be effective.

Ferentz kept the Daniels option open when asked Tuesday, but the 'seeing who can do what” period seems to have come to a conclusion.

'We're not ruling anything out,” Ferentz said. 'Again, we haven't found the right rhythm, right tempo. We'll just keep working at it.”

Look for a combo of junior Jordan Canzeri and senior Mark Weisman this week, with Canzeri, who leads the running backs with 4.4 yards on 15 carries, taking the lead.

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