Manny Rugamba's successful first start earns Iowa teammates' 'props'

IOWA CITY — National TV, under the lights, replacing a guy who had started 32 straight games in your first career start as a true freshman, and all of that against the No. 3 team in the country — which had won its games by an average of 48-10 to that point.

No pressure, right?

Well, cornerback Manny Rugamba answered the call in a big way.

'That's as big of a stage as you're going to find in college football,' linebacker Ben Niemann said. 'That's not an easy place to step into. But we have that 'next man in' mentality and he answered the bell. Props to him. He played well.'

That he did.

Rugamba took a little time to get his bearings at the beginning of the game, getting beat on a pair of routes early — one a called-back touchdown thrown to Amara Darboh — but then settled in. His work on the left side netted him four total tackles, a half a tackle for loss, three pass breakups — one in the end zone — and an all-important interception in the second half.

That's a statline that's expected from an established starter. For reference, Desmond King had six tackles, one tackle for loss and one pass breakup. Rugamba was thrown to more, but got the job done more often than he didn't when that happened.

His teammates noticed, too. The all-important '24-hour rule' was in effect Tuesday at the Hansen Performance Center, but a few of his fellow defensive players made an exception to give kudos to the freshman.

Per Iowa policy, true freshmen aren't allowed to do regular media interviews, so his teammates were the only ones who could talk him up.

'Not every young guy could probably do that. It was a big game — a lot of emotions, a lot of pressure — so he handled it all very well,' linebacker Josey Jewell said. 'It was a big step for him. He didn't play that much in games before — he might've played on a couple packages. But he came in, played all the reps on defense at corner and he took advantage of his time coming in.'

Sometimes with young athletes, not knowing what you don't know can be a good thing. That is to say, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Next man in was the catchphrase both after the game Saturday and again Tuesday, for good reason. Coach Kirk Ferentz said starting cornerback Greg Mabin's injury — a fracture to his lower left leg that will sideline him for the rest of the regular season, it was announced Tuesday — happened late enough that Rugamaba was moved into the lineup with not a lot of time to prepare as the starter.

The silver lining there was he also didn't have a lot of time to think about the implications of his first start. Obviously he knew Michigan was good, Ferentz said, but it's believable he might not have known exactly how good.

No matter what, Rugamaba gave a sign toward the future that there might, in fact, be life after King after all.

'I think he's got inner confidence about his ability. And he came up with some really big plays, especially in that fourth quarter, two really big plays,' Ferentz said. 'And everybody around him supports him. Everybody was positive. Nobody worried or panicked about it.

'Hopefully now he can take that experience and continue to build on it. Desmond kind of got in the game the same way four years ago. Good role model that way.'

FERENTZ ON FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

The Big Ten's announcement earlier this month that six games would be played on Friday nights per year for the next six years left many high school athletic associations — including Iowa's — frustrated about its impact.

The Hawkeyes were not among the first six games slated for that group, but do have an annual meeting with Nebraska for the day after Thanksgiving. Coach Kirk Ferentz was asked about Friday football games, and pointed out the distinction between those two because their game does not interfere with high school football games.

Ferentz said the Black Friday date was one he supported because of the national audience it affords his team and university. Other than maybe an ideal kickoff time of 1 p.m., he liked the Black Friday game as a whole.

He seemed to land on the idea that he didn't want college football to compete against high school football, but that in the right circumstances, it could be a major lift in terms of eyeballs on a program.

'I'm not anti-Friday football, necessarily, but you hate to compete with high schools, because both games are such great games, you want them both to get their due attention,' Ferentz said. 'The Black Friday thing, personally I like it, in that you've got the chance for a national audience, like the other night.

'So that opportunity to be one of the few teams playing on Fridays, although I imagine that number is growing, and will continue, based on the times we're in.'

ROUGHING THE CENTER?

Coach Kirk Ferentz was as perplexed as everyone else Saturday night when, early in the fourth quarter, Brandon Snyder was called for roughing the center on a Michigan punt. Very few, if anyone, knew that was a rule going in, and when asked if he'd ever seen that called, Ferentz laughed and said, 'never.'

He objected during the game — as would have any coach, likely — but upon further reflection just wants a chance to talk to someone at the league office about it so he and his staff can get clarification to prevent the penalty from happening again.

Ferentz said he understood rules and calls like that can put officials in a bad spot.

'Just tell us how to coach it, that's all, because there are two plays, if you look at it, one or two before that that look the same to me,' Ferentz said. 'There are some things in our rule book right now that are really hard on our officials to officiate. And I think anytime you create a situation of cloudiness you just open it up for, you know, some debatable calls. I'm not saying it's a bad call, I'm just saying it's really cloudy.

'I empathize for the officials, because we have outstanding officials and we had a great crew the other night. They work hard. But some of the things we're asking them to do is unrealistic.'

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com