3 and Out

1. QB2

- Iowa quarterback C.J. Beathard said on Tuesday that he's positive he'll play Saturday. Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said he's counting on Beathard to play.

Beathard is dealing with a groin injury that pretty much shut him down in the second half in last week's victory over Illinois. The Hawkeyes leaned heavily on senior running back Jordan Canzeri. They leaned more heavily than they have on any other running back in their history, handing the ball to Canzeri a school record 43 times for 256 yards and a pair of TDs.

It kind of had to work. Here were Beathard's numbers in the second half after the groin injury flared in the third quarter: one rush for minus-4 yards and 2 of 6 passing for 10 yards.

The offensive line and its degradation is a mitigating factor. True freshman James Daniels was thrust into the right tackle position after sophomore Ike Boettger suffered a high-ankle sprain and left the game two offensive plays into the third quarter. Between sacks, hurries and scrambles, Beathard took 11 hits in the game.

'I'm positive I'll play,” he said Tuesday.

'Count on it, yeah,” Ferentz said when asked if Beathard would play. 'I'm counting on it, absolutely.”

That said, it's been a week of treatment and mental reps for Beathard, who's practiced little. So, let's talk about Iowa's No. 2 quarterback Tyler Wiegers.

You know, just in case.

Tuesday, Ferentz said 'On the game field, we're confident in him. That's our motto. Tyler is gaining ground.”

- Rivals.com midwest recruiting analyst Josh Helmholdt said about Wiegers when the 6-4, 222-pounder signed with Iowa in 2014: 'We had him as a four-star early on because he's done some things in 7-on-7 camp settings that really I've seldom seen before. I covered a national 7-on-7 tournament the summer going into his junior year. It was a national championship tournament with tons of Division I prospects. He completed 21 straight passes in that setting. That's really phenomenal. He's one of the most accurate passers I've covered in the past couple of years. He throws such a beautiful ball.”

- Wiegers, a Detroit, Mich., native, committed to Rutgers early in the recruiting process before opening recruiting back up and selecting the Hawkeyes.

- Here are a couple of factlets to tell you about the intellect Wiegers brings to the table: He's a biomedical engineering major and, while at Detroit Country Day in high school, he was the silver medal and magna cum laude winner on National Latin exam.

'There are good days and bad days,” Wiegers said when August camp started. 'Overall, I felt like I made steady improvement over spring. I came out with a higher comfort level with the offense and can handle it a lot better as far as getting in and out of the huddle, making reads quicker, stuff like that.”

Beathard is positive he'll play. Ferentz is counting on him. So, this is just covering the base.

2. RB2s

- Yeah, 40-plus carries won't become the standard for Canzeri. No one will debate that. Thirty carries won't become the standard. Thirty carries probably won't become the standard.

No, 30 carries won't become the standard. It's never happened at Iowa. Canzeri is, however, on pace for a top 5 workhorse season in Iowa history.

Sedrick Shaw, whose 42 carries (1995) was the single-game record before last week, put up a herculean season in 1995, with an Iowa record 316 carries, averaging 26.33 carries a game.

Here's the top 5 workhorse RB seasons:

- Shaw 316 carries, 26.33 per game (1995)

- Shonn Greene 307 carries, 23.62 per game (2008)

- Fred Russell 282 carries, 21.7 per game (2003)

- Marcus Coker 281 carries, 23.33 per game (2011)

- Dennis Mosley 270 carries, 24.54 per game (1979)

Canzeri has 132 carries through six games, averaging 22 per game. That's a 282-carry pace (22.0 carries per game).

So, the 5-9, 190-pounder, who's fumbled twice with one lost so far, isn't in uncharted territory, more like rare air.

Yes, of course, Ferentz was asked about workload this week. It's a logical question. Junior LeShun Daniels is out this week, missing his second game with a high-ankle sprain he suffered Sept. 12 at Iowa State.

That leaves sophomores Akrum Wadley and Derrick Mitchell. Wadley has four fumbles in 41 career carries and that has undoubtedly limited his profile since he burst on the scene with 106 yards and a TD on 15 carries last season against . . . Northwestern (a different Northwestern, one that was missing a few inside D-linemen). Mitchell had a high-ankle sprain in camp and a shoulder injury against North Texas on Sept. 26. He returned last week and caught a pass for 4 yards. All seven of the converted wide receiver's carries have come this season.

You can probably understand Ferentz's hesitation here. It's 'New Kirk,” not 'Evel Knievel.”

'We'd like to and we're going to have to, I expect we're going to have to,” Ferentz said about carries for Wadley and Mitchell. 'We're preparing that way. Next man in and next man ready. . . . Both those guys are fully healthy now, so I imagine we'll see at least one of them on Saturday, that would be my guess.”

3. Big Ten nerd game of the week

- It's a really great week for B1G football TV. I predict Iowa-Northwestern will be the 'Oregon Trail” game, meaning someone doesn't make it to the end because of some old-timey disease (Bronze John and Canine Madness are my faves) sprung from the era of offensive football that we potentially will see.

Michigan State at Michigan is five star. It's Vader vs. Skywalker. The loser of Nebraska at Minnesota falls into the Pit of Ultimate Darkness.

So . . . I have to try to sell you, in one paragraph, Rutgers at Indiana, both of which are 0-2 in the Big Ten.

Wait, wait, I've come down with a sudden case of Blackwater Fever. I'm out.

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com