The Anointed Leader

The Anointed Leader

On college football's biggest stage, Adrian Clayborn came up mega-super hero.

The 6-foot-3, 283-pound defensive end broke through and blocked Jeremy Boone's punt, scooped it up like Derek Jeter and ran 53 yards untouched into the Penn State end zone for an 11-10 Iowa lead in the fourth quarter last week at Beaver Stadium.

The scene was surreal. The crowd of nearly 110,000 stood stone silent. Iowa's sideline exploded.

This is why Clayborn is the “anointed leader.”

“He's our undisputed leader right now,” the freak athlete said. “We all rally around him. He's the general for the D-line. We look for him to pick us up. We look for him to get us up when we're down in the dumps. This guy, he's a great player and a good friend, too.”

Clayborn might've had a bad case of “camp legs.” He started the season slowly, something that wasn't missed by coaches.

“He was maybe a step slow the first week, week-and-a-half, whatever it may be,” Coach Kirk Ferentz said. “That happens in football, that happens to all of us. We're not always our sharpest. He's really responded and the last two weeks, I think we've seen the Adrian Clayborn that we're all used to seeing.”

“I'm just so excited to have him on our football team. He's a great role model, gives great effort and plays with good toughness out there. Guys feed off that. If you're going to pull off something like this tonight, your best guys have to lead the way.

“That's a classic example right there. What a huge play by an excellent football player.”