Injury-free LeShun Daniels came through for Hawkeyes, himself

TAMPA, Fla. — The No. 1 football body on this Iowa football team has to be running back LeShun Daniels. Wide shoulders, cannonballs for biceps, tree trunks for legs, it's probably not much of a debate.

LeShun Daniels Jr. was sort of made for this. His father, LeShun Daniels Sr., played offensive line at Ohio State in the mid-1990s. LeShun's younger brother, James, is a sophomore center for the Hawkeyes. LeShun is a little different model, but he's from a familial football assembly line.

You don't want to know his percentage of body fat. It would compel you to make New Year's resolutions that you won't keep and that only will torment you.

But like in the first 'Star Wars' movie, when the Death Star was felled because of a vulnerability in the thermal exhaust port (Google, it's legit), Daniels, just like every one of these guys, has had weak areas exposed. That, really, is what football is about on so many levels.

During his sophomore season in 2014, Daniels suffered a broken ankle. He didn't return for five weeks and had just one carry in the final six games of the season, finishing the year with 15 carries for 49 yards.

'I just basically lost that year,' Daniels said, with maybe just a trace of bitterness (you won't meet a more upbeat, quick-to-smile 21-year-old). 'It was almost like it was a wasted year for myself. That entire semester was extremely rough on me. I'm thankful I had an excellent support system around me with my family and friends and teammates, staff and coaches. They believed in me.'

Last year, the ankles got Daniels again.

After gaining 126 yards in the opener against Illinois State, Daniels was booking along with 56 yards through just more than two quarters at Iowa State. Then, in what looked like a fairly harmless play, he suffered a high-ankle sprain that gripped him for most of the rest of the season. He played little the next two weeks, sat out two games and kind of got it back together.

Daniels was the MVP of the Minnesota game, rushing for 195 yards and three TDs, but then the next week — you know what's coming — he aggravated the ankle sprain and rushed for just 87 yards the final four games.

'Last year, I was looking to have an extreme breakout year, like a great year,' Daniels said this week during the Hawkeyes' Outback Bowl preparation. 'Then, in the second game, before you even get to halftime, you have a high-ankle sprain that basically lingered throughout the year.'

Yes, it's a difficult reconciliation that Daniels does have the quintessential running back body and that it betrayed him and cost him the better part of two seasons.

'Myself, I think that I'm indestructible,' Daniels said. 'With those two injuries, sometimes teammates will joke around, 'Yeah, you have this great body and everything is perfect, but you have glass ankles.''

Daniels let out a laugh. If the last two seasons drove him to despair, he's never let it show publicly, handling setbacks beyond his control with a strong attitude.

You've already figured out that we're not telling this story without a redemptive ending.

The crowning point for Daniels was the Nebraska game. It was one of those quintessential big running back games, where the 225-pounder seemed to get stronger as the game progressed. In the end, he had 158 yards, two touchdowns and became the first Iowa running back since 2011 to crack the 1,000-yard mark (Marcus Coker had 1,384 in 2011). Going into Monday's Outback Bowl vs. Florida, Daniels has 1,013 yards this season.

But wait, it gets even cooler and even more Daniels family. In the second quarter, LeShun followed his brother James into the end zone for a 4-yard TD. Yes, they'd been on the field for LeShun TDs in the past, but James pulled on this one and was directly in front of LeShun.

'That was pretty cool,' LeShun said. 'It was him leading out and pulling and I'm falling in right behind him, making a nice cut into the end zone. I think that's my dad's Facebook profile picture. I think that was a pretty cool moment for all of us. Those are things you can't buy. That's your brother, it was just a really good moment for us.'

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