Derby takes first steps as a Hawkeye

It's not a major spring storyline for the Iowa Hawkeyes, but freshman quarterback A.J. Derby, the Iowa City High all-stater, begins his career this spring.

"He'll jump in like the rest of the guys, how much work he gets at the front end of practice, we'll wait and see," Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. "He's handled the rigors of class and all that stuff. I don't think he got too homesick. That's one good thing. But otherwise, I think he's handled everything pretty much pretty well.

"This will be a whole new step. His head will start spinning pretty good here the next few days and that's fine. That's part of the process."

The 6-foot-4, 225-pounder graduated from City High a semester early so he could jump into practice, get a playbook in his hands and start digging into Iowa's offense.

With sophomore Wyatt Suess iffy (didn't dress yesterday), Derby probably moves into No. 4 repetitions, behind No. 1 Ricky Stanzi, James Vandenberg and John Wienke.

Ferentz doesn't necessarily like that, country-wide, more and more true freshman -- DE Louis Trinca-Pasat also enrolled early -- are graduating early and enrolling in college. But he also said Derby made sense, being from Iowa City.

"I've said before, I'm not a huge fan (of early enrollment)," Ferentz said. "I'm still trying to figure out, quite frankly, why NCAA legislation allows guys to come to college early.

"I don't think I quite get it. I think I do get it and know why coaches advocate for it, but I'm not in favor of it. And we don't push it with our guys, but we do have two guys, A.J. and Louis Trinca-Pasat, and they both handled it fine.

"If I were the commissioner of sports, I think I would change that rule. But you know, that's probably the end of that one, because we all know I'm not the commissioner of sports, nor do I want to be."

But Derby is fully engaged. It's been discussed here before, he's a QB, for as long as it makes sense to him and the team and -- of course -- Kirk Ferentz.

"He's in. He's in and going," Ferentz said. "Those guys have been in throwing and all that stuff and the older guys are great with the younger guys, so that part's good. Once you get into practice and it really kind of -- it's different. It's just really different. So I'll predict he's going to be lost here for a little bit. But that's fine, you go through that process at some point.

"We're not counting on him to save our team right now, but I think he's a really good football player and we're really happy he's here that's for sure."