Friday Reading Room -- Dallas Clark catches a TD pass while on his back

These are not typical tight end numbers: 89 catches, 997 yards, 10 touchdowns in 14 games.

Dallas Clark is not a typical NFL tight end.

The former Iowa Hawkeye has five TD catches in his last two games after collaring two more Thursday night in the Indianapolis Colts' 35-31 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Colts, 13-0 entering the game, already had homefield advantage locked up for the entire AFC playoffs. Their starters played, anyway. Clark caught seven Peyton Manning passes for 95 yards. He's great.

Clark's first touchdown catch Thursday almost defies description. Here's a video of it, though it could be yanked at any moment. The reason I say that is it went to from the NFL Network to YouTube awfully quickly.

Newsday's Adam Ronis ranked Clark the top tight end for this weekend's fantasy football players. Duh.

Clark and Reggie Wayne (92 catches) could become only the fourth pair of teammates to each have 100 catches in a season. It would be the first time a tight end was part of such a pair. In fact, Clark would be only the second tight end (Tony Gonzalez had 102 in 2004) to get 100 catches in a season.

That will take 11 more in two games that essentially are meaningless for the Colts unless they put a high premium on going unbeaten. I wouldn't bet against it.

Speaking of ex-Hawkeyes plying their trades as pro athletes in Indiana . . .

Who has turned up as Sean Sonderleiter's teammate on the NBA D-League Fort Wayne Mad Ants but none other than center Jared Reiner.

Reiner joined the Mad Ants on Thursday. He and Sonderleiter were teammates for 3 1/2 seasons at Iowa, arriving to Iowa City together in 2000 for four eventful seasons under coach Steve Alford.

Reiner led the Big Ten in rebounding as a junior. Much of his senior season was wiped out

by a foot injury. He has had two brief stints in the NBA, in 2004-2005 with Chicago, and two seasons later with Milwaukee. He played in 28 D-League games with Sioux Falls in '06-07.

Sonderleiter played for Fort Wayne last season after having competed professionally in Australia. Reiner has played in Spain and Germany. Most recently, he was in the Philadelphia 76ers' training camp this fall before being one of their last cuts.

It's one thing to be college teammates. But now Reiner and Sonderleiter are on the same minor-league pro team, playing the same position, and hoping to get enough playing time make enough of an impression to improve their status in the sport.

As Alanis Morrissette sang in "Ironic," life has a funny, funny way . . .

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.

According to Swampie of GatorCountry.com, former Iowa State head coach Dan McCarney is likely to be elevated to defensive coordinator by Urban Meyer at Florida.

But according to ESPN.com's Chris Low, Florida safeties coach Chuck Heater may get that promotion. Mississippi defensive coordinator Tyrone Nix declined a chance to take the same job at Florida. Heater has coached with Meyer since the two were together at Utah in 2004.

Oh yeah, that's right. Someone is actually calling himself "Swampie."

Former Gators DC Charlie Strong got the head coaching job at Louisville. McCarney, finishing his second season as assistant head coach/defensive line coach at Florida, was the DC at Wisconsin from 1990 through 1994 before his 12-season run at Iowa State.

McCarney was one of three finalists for this year's Defensive Line Coach of the Year Award given by FootballScoop.com. The winner was Central Florida's Jim Panagos.

The FootballScoop write-up on McCarney:

Dan McCarney's defensive line has helped the Gators finish 1st nationally in total defense, scoring defense, and passing defense. Defensive ends Jermaine Cunningham and Carlos Dunlap each have recorded 7 sacks on the season, helping the Gators finish 18th best nationally in most sacks (2.75 per game).  Despite several injuries during the year, McCarney's defensive line never saw an overall drop off.  One coach that nominated McCarney told us, “Don't mention my name, but one of my offensive lineman asked me during the game if the Gators were playing with twelve (players) on defense. “  Impressively, the Gators limited four opponents to less than 100 yards passing (Troy, TN, KY, and LSU).

Iowa's Darrell Wilson is a FootballScoop finalist for Linebackers Coach of the Year.

And finally,

here's an interesting article from Iowa men's basketball coach Todd Lickliter's weekly press conference Thursday, courtesy of Rob Howe of HawkeyeInsider.com.