3 and Out: Iowa punter Ron Coluzzi just makes sense

1. Ron Coluzzi for college football commissioner

— There's an element of alienation in football life for a punter. No one wants to hear them speak unless they've done something great, something terrible or, maybe, if they're in competition for a job.

This season has been weird that way.

Not only do you want to hear more from senior punter Ron Coluzzi, you want to subscribe to his podcast. You want to read his blog. You want to plug in wherever to get his thoughts on ... somersaults.

'I thought [the punt] was going to get blocked, so I took off and all of the sudden I thought I was on fire, so I decided to stop, drop and roll,' Coluzzi said, referring in a self-deprecating manner to the ill-conceived fake punt last week against Michigan, when he stumbled and did end up doing a somersault.

Michigan linebacker Devin Bush hammered Coluzzi on the turf with a nasty looking head-to-head shot. Targeting was called and Bush was ejected. Coluzzi was forgiving, in his own mysterious way.

'The Michigan player was just trying to put out the invisible fire,' Coluzzi said.

Coluzzi's view is askew. That was him taking the hit for a bad idea, one that did end up costing Iowa three points. And now here's him talking about the dog pile after he served as the holder for Keith Duncan's game-winning 33-yard field goal. The Hawkeyes made a mountain of ... well ...Hawkeyes on top of Coluzzi and Duncan. Yes, a few fans jumped in the pile.

'When I got up and I saw Keith up and I saw everyone around us, I was like 'Oh my gosh, this is unbelievable, this is everything I dreamed of,'' Coluzzi said.

Is that OK, fans jumping in the pile? Do you guys get mad when a fan is on top of you celebrating?

'Absolutely not,' Coluzzi said. 'We do this for them. We're entertainers, first and foremost. You've got to be willing to take criticism from people back home or, in that case, people willing to celebrate with you.

'That's how the game is.'

Now, this notion is interesting, the college athlete as entertainer. Did Coluzzi breach the fourth wall in that moment? You hear student-athlete, academics, the Big Ten playing football on Friday nights. You never hear the term 'entertainer.'

It was a simple notion, but rarely in my time doing this has a Hawkeye turned the camera toward us, you and me and the dude who hauled C.J. Beathard's helmet downtown last Saturday night.

'It's a business, first and foremost,' Coluzzi said. 'We know that coming in. We play it because we enjoy it, but essentially, it's a game that sells tickets and is entertainment.'

This is a May/June blog topic, but remember last summer when someone somewhere kicked up the idea of a college football commissioner? Alabama head coach Nick Saban was the unanimous choice.

I'd write in Coluzzi. He spent four years at Central Michigan and graduated. This is his one and only year in Iowa City. So, he's covered some terrain. Also, he's suffered two concussions in his career and would be able to share experience on a topic that likely will color the game for as long as it exists.

Coluzzi's performance against Michigan was uproarious. He jumped on the internet the next day. His favorite was a short video that set one of his two 'running into the kicker' penalties to big orchestra music. It's a 22-second video tweeted by @corkgaines.

November 13, 2016

#Iowa punter's dramatic death now set to appropriate Hollywood music. pic.twitter.com/tmGIhyvbzy

— Dr Cork Gaines (@CorkGaines)

'That's the best,' Coluzzi said. 'Whoever made that, my hat's off to him or her, because it was awesome.'

Just because we don't want to hear the punter talk doesn't mean they don't have something to say. Few players who have talked into my recorder (which now also serves as my phone) have illuminated the texture of the game more brilliantly than Coluzzi has this season.

The view is certainly askew and definitely a little sideways, but it's honest and refuses to bend a knee to what players are programmed to say.

I look forward to the punter's podcast. (I don't think there are plans now, but I want to plant the seed, I know Coluzzi will run with it. And then probably feel an invisible fire and stop, drop and roll.)

2. James Daniels in for round 2

Last season, James Daniels was a true freshman when in the third quarter of the Illinois game, he was shoved out on the field to replace Ike Boettger, who suffered an ankle injury.

The one thing Illinois was and is really, really good at is defensive line. It was a learning day for Daniels.

'That game taught me what Big Ten football is,' Daniels said. 'Every play I got beat on, it was due to fundamentals. If you don't have good fundamentals, you're going to get beat. That's pretty much the one thing I learned from that game.'

Ends Carroll Phillips and Dwuane Smoot and tackle Chunky Clements are back from last year's Illinois D-line. Phillips is tied for the Big Ten lead with 8.0 sacks and leads the B1G with 17.0 tackles for loss. Smoot has 12.5 tackles for loss and 3.0 sacks. Clements has 3.5 sacks.

Daniels played guard and tackle against the Illini last season. This year, he's anchored in at center and might be Iowa's hottest offensive performer not named Akrum Wadley.

Pro Football Focus graded Daniels as Iowa's top offensive performer in the loss at Penn State. Last week, Daniels was second behind Wadley, who accounted for nearly 73 percent of Iowa's offense.

Daniels isn't focused on any of the 'how well he's played' talk. He knows that's not going to get him anywhere.

'It's like when you take an exam in school,' Daniels said, comparing what happens during a game to a test. 'You take the exam, but you only remember a few certain questions on the exam. You can't tell someone after the exam happened that this, this and this was on the exam, like questions 1 through 30. I feel like it's (football) is the exact same way.'

3. Big Ten Love Tester

Let's walk this right down to who's on ESPNews.

Maryland (5-5, 2-5 Big Ten) goes into Nebraska (8-2, 5-2) having lost five of its last six, including back-to-back losses to Michigan and Ohio State by a combined score of 121-6. The Huskers are very much alive in the Big Ten West. They need help with Wisconsin, but they do have some life.

I almost pulled the trigger on Iowa-Illinois, but this one gets the ESPNews treatment. Kickoff is 11 a.m.