The Sports Desk: Rebuilding year for Iowa D-line

Iowa D-line says goodbye to some of the best of the Kirk Ferentz era in Adrian Clayborn, Christian Ballard and Karl Klug. All three will likely end up in the NFL, with Clayborn going in the first round and Ballard probably in the second. Some team will score with Klug, a 275-pounder who runs much better than the 4.8 whatever he put up at Iowa pro day.

(Did you know that Klug timed in the 4.6s last spring?)

That was then and this is now for Iowa's D-line, perhaps the biggest mystery in Iowa camp this spring.

The listed starters for Saturday's scrimmage have 26 career starts between all four, with end Broderick Binns (18) and tackle Mike Daniels (8) owning all of those. Thirteen of Binns' starts came in 2009, when he had 9.5 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks. Binns logged only five starts in '10, essentially losing his job to Daniels, who was too good to keep off the field.

Daniels ended the season with 11 tackles for loss and four sacks. Binns finished with one tackle for loss and no sacks.

Lebron Daniel is the other end. He has one career sack. Redshirt freshman Carl Davis is No. 1 at the other tackle. He missed some spring after tweaking a knee at the UI dance marathon, defensive coordinator Norm Parker said earlier this week.

Cole Heissel, a 6-6, 270-pound walk-on, has moved from OL to DL and is a No. 2 tackle. Mike Hardy, a 6-5, 270-pound redshirt frosh, is the other No. 2 tackle. Someone is keeping a spot warm for junior Steve Bigach, a 6-3, 280-pound junior who's been out this spring with an upper-body injury. Sophomore Dominic Alvis, a 6-4, 250-pound sophomore, has had an interesting spring, moving inside and out, from end to tackle.

Parker said he'd like to develop a rotation of seven or eight. If . . .

"Well, you would like to have seven or eight, if you had seven or eight," Parker said this week. "I think we've got to find out, you know, exactly where we're at and what the difference is in their abilities and when have we -- I don't want to say diluted it -- but by playing too many guys, when have we gone down ability-wise. But I think we've got young guys that, I mean, they are eager and they work hard."

I asked Parker if the DL going out and the DL who are here might give him pause to re-think some philosophy. No, I don't think Iowa will go 3-4, but I do wonder where the pass rush is going to come from with this group. What's the thinking, too?

"It's a little bit of a double-edged sword," Parker said. "You think that with losing all those guys, some of the guys that we have now that probably aren't as big but might have a little bit more quickness or have good quickness, that you might like to do more things to really off-set that lack of size.

"But they're so young that . . .  how much can you do before that goes backwards, too? So, we're just working on fundamentals. I think they're pretty good. I think they're decent. They can move and they use their hands and they like to play football.

"So, we've got to overcome that, and then we've got to, you know, Clayborn was such a good leader. That part of the game, you don't know who's going to take over that part of the game. You never know that until the next season comes."

KCRG's John Sears and I discuss Iowa's D-line in today's Sports Desk, sponsored (thankfully) by Jim Miller Subaru.

This link will take you to the five-minute discussion.

Here's Norm Parker talking D-line from this week's news conference.