UNI free safety Suni Lane making early impact

CEDAR FALLS — There's so much for college freshmen to deal with their first fall on campus.

Finding their classes, getting to those classes on time, finding where the food is served and getting settled into the dormitory and navigating a new social life are only a few examples.

Amid all that typical freshman madness, Suni Lane has managed to become Northern Iowa's starter at free safety, a position group head coach Mark Farley all but said was up for grabs throughout the first three games of the season.

Lane's first start came in the third game, a 24-21 loss to Southern Utah, a game that saw the Panthers intercept Thunderbird quarterback Patrick Tyler three times and hold the dynamic signal-caller to 200 yards on a woeful 46-percent completion rate.

That performance seems to have marked the beginning of UNI's starting secondary with its freshmen duo in the mix — Korby Sander, a redshirt freshman, at 'boundary' safety, as Farley calls him, and Lane, the 6-foot-3 former wide receiver, at free safety.

The inkling the Panthers had something special with Lane began on media day in August. Asked to name a newcomer (true freshman or transfer) who stood out in fall camp, Farley brought up the Bettendorf product. Now, through two starts, Lane continues to draw praise from his head coach.

'Suni has been a nice surprise for us,' Farley said. 'When we recruited him we thought he might be a wide receiver for us, and put him at receiver initially when he got here. But after we saw him run and do some things athletically — and we needed some depth on defense — we moved him to free safety. That's where he really started to show up. He's got great intelligence and good speed.

'He's really adapted well for a young player coming into the system. He's moving so fluently as a secondary player. Each game he gets a little bit better.'

Not only did he overcome a position change on his way to a starting gig, he also grasped a dynamic playbook he was warned about by teammates. One teammate told him not many true freshmen play defense for the Panthers because of the playbook's complexities. Neither of those obstacles proved to be too much for the true freshman.

'I just took (the playbook) on as a challenge,' Lane said. 'I knew I wanted to play this year so I had to stay in the playbook and that's what I did.'

There still are obstacles to be cleared. Getting through the jitters of his first college game was one.

'I know during warmups (at Iowa State) I felt pretty confident,' Lane said. 'But I hadn't played for the whole game and it came around the third quarter and I'm just thinking to myself, 'I'm ready to go. I'm ready,' and the free safety got hurt or it looked like he got hurt. I heard (the coaches) started screaming my name. They're like, 'Suni you've got to go out there' and as soon as they said my name my heart dropped. I was so nervous.

'But he ended up getting up. He was OK and I was like 'Whoa I am not ready for that.''

Fast forward a little over a month since the loss to Iowa State and Lane is far from not feeling ready. After last week's 24-17 win over Southern Illinois, he received the Missouri Valley Football Conference's Newcomer of the Week award after grabbing a fumble in the fourth quarter that helped seal the UNI win.

'I just want to do whatever it takes to help this team succeed right now,' Lane said. 'I took on that (safety) role and I'm happy about it.'