Hinterland Hawkeyes will have a say in 2015

IOWA CITY — Reese Morgan has heard the pizza at the Tabor Casey's is the best in town. He's met the Giltner (Neb.) High School football coach, who at the time was a truck driver, in a Giltner, Neb., gravel parking lot to talk about a player. He's driven through Nebraska snowstorms to find players who live on farms a dozen or so miles outside of towns populations of 600 people.

Morgan has coached linemen at the University of Iowa since 2003. His first job under head coach Kirk Ferentz, though, was recruiting coordinator (2000-02). Now, it doesn't say that his recruiting area is 'the hinterlands' in Iowa's media guide. It actually says 'Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.'

But it might as well say 'the hinterlands.' And if you have any working knowledge of Iowa football, you absolutely know that you can't knock the hinterlands. You have Morgan to thank for former Iowa linebacker and current Minnesota Viking Chad Greenway of Mount Vernon, S.D., and former Iowa offensive tackle and current Detroit Lion Riley Reiff of Parkston, S.D.

The hinterlands have been particularly bountiful for the 2015 Hawkeyes and particularly for the defensive line, a position Morgan has coached for Iowa since 2012.

Of course, you already know defensive end Drew Ott, of Giltner High School and Trumbull, Neb. You also know defensive end Nate Meier, of Tabor and Fremont-Mills High School. This season you'll get to know more about Nathan Bazata, a sophomore defensive tackle from Howells, Neb., population 552.

'I go to see Drew on a Sunday and drive out there through a snowstorm,' Morgan said. 'We barely get to his house. He comes to the door and he's got boots on up to his knees and smells like he's been out working with the livestock, which he had been.'

(By the way, Morgan thanked a very understanding Mason City Ford dealer for the vehicles he's run up the miles on.)

If the Hawkeyes' defense does good things this season, a big part of the storyline will be the small-town beginnings of three of its four D-linemen. The subhead there will be the fact that all three played 8-man football in high school.

Meier was the eight-man player of the year in Iowa when he led Fremont-Mills to a state title in 2011, scoring 61 touchdowns. Ott was the Nebraska Gatorade player of the year his senior season. In 2009, Ott's Giltner team lost in the state finals to . . . Bazata's Howells-Dodge High School team.

Bazata's team beat Ott's team three times in the Nebraska 8-man playoffs. Yes, they are roommates at Iowa and this comes up.

Now. 8-man football demands athleticism. There are, after all, just eight players on the field. Bazata's Howells-Dodge team went with power, using the tight ends as tackles with the guards and center (O-lines are three players in 8-man). Long story short, yes, Bazata did tackle Ott at least once in their meetings.

'Sometimes, we'll get into a house argument or something like that,' Bazata said.

OK, these three are in the hinterlands, playing their hearts out in 8-man football and then Reese Morgan from Iowa shows up. He tells them he sees them as Big Ten football players.

What then?

'He just walked in my gym one day and introduced himself,' Ott said. 'That's how I was introduced to Iowa.'

'When he came and offered me, it was pretty cool,' Meier said. 'Other big schools came in after him, and it was kind of a great feeling. But never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be a Big Ten D-end.'

Bazata's reaction is honest. 'How did you find me?' Bazata said with a laugh. 'All the smaller schools around find word about you, but how did a big school like this find me? It's pretty cool when they do come and talk to you.'

Morgan is out in the hinters finding these guys. Remember, he has to make a case and build a pitch for them back in the coaches offices. Ferentz has said that Morgan's past successes have given him a high degree of credibility and he's all ears when Morgan states the case.

What does Morgan need to see?

'We evaluated tape, but some of these guys we've known since they've been freshmen in high school,' Morgan said. 'We've followed them, we've talked to other high school coaches, we've talked to other college coaches who've had them in camps. We talked to a lot of different people before we decided to go out and aggressively research these guys.'

All three played 8-man guard at some point in their careers. While Bazata is a big guy who did big guy things in 8-man football, Ott and Meier did it all, which, with just eight players on the field, is a demand of the 8-man game.

'You have to be a multi-athlete,' Meier said. 'Some of the guys here went to big schools and played one sport. Being a multiple-sport athlete and being all over the field in football, it was good. I played quarterback, running back, I caught the ball and I kicked off, I did it all and so did he (Ott). You can do it all and that can help you here.'

Morgan did say the mult-sport thing opens doors. Ott also won four letters in basketball and track. Meier played hoops and ran track. Bazata was a four-year wrestling letterman and earned three letters in track and field.

'I think I came in naive and not really knowing anything,' Ott said. 'I was basically untapped. I basically never really played defensive line in high school. I had to learn a stance and everything like that.

Morgan will play down the idea that this is stewardship. He found these three where no one else was looking for players. He also coaches these three and has them positioned to be productive for 2015.

It really is a stewardship. Maybe it didn't consciously start that way, but it turned out that way. Morgan will say football players are everywhere, and that is true, but he has a record of seeing things in players that others don't.

'There are football players everywhere,' Morgan said (told you, but keep reading). 'People like to think they can only be found in metropolitan areas or just from traditional programs or certain geographical parts of the country. There are guys everywhere. I mean Karl Klug up in Caledonia (the former Iowa D-lineman from Minnesota who's now on his second contract with the Tennessee Titans), no one was really recruiting him and it's a little bit of a remote area, just north of Waukon, that's a short drive.'

It's three hours and 10 minutes from Iowa City to Caledonia. That might be a short drive for Reese Morgan.

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com