Injuries ruling Hawkeyes at fall camp

The first big surprise walked down the stairs onto the Kinnick Stadium field in shorts. The second limped in a few minutes later.

It's not good when the surprises of a football scrimmage come in shirts and shorts before the scrimmage even starts.

Preseason All-American Bryan Bulaga and No. 1 running back Jewel Hampton watched Saturday's two-hour scrimmage along with 10,000 fans. Both suffered some sort right knee injuries in practice last week. They wore sleeves on that knee.

Bulaga, 6-foot-6, 315 pounds, tweaked a knee Friday in practice, according to Coach Kirk Ferentz. The extent of the tweak and what exactly a tweak is remains undefined. Bulaga did run through some warmup-type sprints before the scrimmage.

"It's frustrating, obviously," Ferentz said. "Injuries are part of camp, they always are. It's just hard for players to get better if they're not out here."

Hampton, a sophomore, hurt the same knee that caused an uproar in July, when he injured it seriously enough to have an MRI. This injury happened in practice Thursday.

During media day Aug. 7, Hampton said he was fine and practiced as the No. 1 until Thursday.

"He's going to be off it a little bit," Ferentz said. "We'll just take it day-by-day. He tweaked it. We'll just have to see what happens here."

Without two of its best players, the offense operated well. Ricky Stanzi completed 12 of 18 for 149 yards and two TDs. Paki O'Meara stepped in for Hampton and rushed eight times for 59 yards and caught a 10-yard TD pass in a two-minute drill.

"It's not the same without them, that's obvious," Stanzi said. "They're two really great players. If we can move an offense without them ... we've got to have backups. Not having isn't a good thing, but guys are getting work."

Last week was costly for a team that opens the season in less than three weeks. Wednesday, cornerback Jordan Bernstine broke an ankle and will red-shirt this season.

"Everything else is pretty minor," Ferentz said.

Offensive tackle Kyle Calloway has been slowed with an IT band strain, which is basically runner's knee. He went through one-on-one rush drills and then took off the pads.

"It's just tight, I've been doing stretching and it's feeling better," Calloway said.

Without Bulaga, Calloway and guard Julian Vandervelde, who remains out recovering from June surgery, the O-line went with walk-on junior Kyle Haganman and senior Dace Richardson, who's coming back after missing two seasons, at tackles. Guards were red-shirt freshman Riley Reiff and sophomore Adam Gettis with senior Rafael Eubanks at center.

Haganman, 6-5, 285, is a fairly new face.

"He's an Iowa guy (Osage) and he pretty much embodies the whole Iowa mentality," Eubanks said. "He's a hard worker, he's tough, he's smart and he's done a good job when he's had a chance to step up."

Other notables who didn't play were freshman running back Brandon Wegher (no report) and junior wide receiver Colin Sandeman (hamstring, should be back soon).

The surprise on the field Saturday was on the defensive line.

On media day, D-line coach Rick Kaczenski told reporters the thought of moving 280-pound plus defensive ends Adrian Clayborn and Christian Ballard to tackle hadn't crossed his mind.

Saturday, Ballard moved inside, bouncing sophomore Mike Daniels and allowing sophomore Broderick Binns, who had 2.5 sacks last season, to slide in.

The move was to get the four best D-linemen on the field, Ferentz said.

"We're playing with it, nothing is written in ink," Ferentz said. "But I've been consistently saying this and I can echo them after this past week of work, Broderick Binns continues to really impress us, so it's something we're looking at."

Defensive end Adrian Clayborn, who had two sacks, said nothing is permanent.

"I could move down any second, for real," he said. "We're going to put the best four out there. I'd move down in a second if it'd get the best four guys out there."

Middle linebacker Pat Angerer applauds the move. The bigger the tackle in front of him, the harder it is to block him.

"Any time you've got a 295-pound guy in front of you, it's pretty fun," Angerer said. "Ballard is a freak athlete. He can play any position. He could probably play linebacker better than I can."

Iowa breaks camp next Saturday and opens Sept. 5 Northern Iowa.