Hawkeye seniors laid the bricks for 10-0 turnaround

IOWA CITY - On Monday night, Iowa's seniors got together for their pretty much weekly meeting and talked about what kind of message they wanted to send the team for what could be a championship happening.

It's a meeting of 21 Hawkeyes who decided in the summer that they were going to have a strong say in the 2015 team.

'We just try to figure out ways to encourage the team and encourage the younger guys,” senior wide receiver Tevaun Smith said. 'We just want them to know how important the season is not only to us, but to the coaches.”

During Iowa's 8-0 run through the Big Ten in 2002, head coach Kirk Ferentz joked toward the end of the season that his team could've and might've if the coaches were late run their own practices.

This week, he said the 2015 Hawkeyes aren't quite there yet. There is, however, still time, with the No. 5 Hawkeyes (10-0, 6-0 Big Ten) playing host to Purdue (2-8, 1-5) in their home finale Saturday at Kinnick Stadium. Maybe sometime during Nebraska week, the coaches will be able to take a day off while these seniors, 14 of whom played on the 2012 team that nosedived to 4-8, run the show.

'The best kind of leadership is driven from within. It always has been,” Ferentz said. 'We've got guys who have bought in, certainly, and they've not only taken it upon themselves but embraced the responsibility of being older and being guys that are respected by the football team. They've really taken initiative.

'I don't know how good we are as a football team, but two things - these guys play hard and they're together. They're together, and that togetherness starts with leadership. The best kind of leadership is from your own players.”

The 'senior leadership” stories usually miss the mark because it's an intangible, nebulous concept. You hear people say it, but what is it? What are concrete examples?

- Monday night in the Hansen Performance Center, Iowa's 21 seniors met and talked about the week's message. On the table, of course, is the Big Ten West Division title.

The fact that the seniors are meeting on a somewhat weekly basis is a departure. It didn't happen last year. Senior meetings don't block and tackle, but a unified message certainly hasn't hurt.

'It's been something new,” Smith said. 'We've been trying to keep everything on a positive note. Those little things definitely help. It might not seem too important to a lot of people, but to us, it definitely is. It's gotten us this far, so we can't back away from that now. We have to keep doing what we're doing.”

- One bit of moto ('motivator”) that's been seen around the Hansen Center this season has been a T-shirt that reads 'Leave the jersey in a better place.” The seniors decide what goes on T-shirts.

'That's our objective,” running back Jordan Canzeri said. 'We're here for four or five years or some guys less, it's our objective to put it in a better place. We have to play the best football we can, make great plays with it and even if you don't play, be a great leader on the team and help in any area or any way possible. Just do nothing but positive things for this program, so this legacy can continue to grow and be as rich as it is.”

- Several seniors are playing the best football of their careers. Ferentz has said this repeatedly over the years and for a program that he freely admits is a developmental program it's an absolute that his best and most experienced players play their best.

Senior center Austin Blythe has started since his redshirt freshman year in 2012, but he's found an extra gear this season and is playing his best football. Canzeri is in the midst of a career season. Ditto for senior tight end Henry Krieger Coble, wide receiver Jacob Hillyer, punter Dillon Kidd, kicker Marshall Koehn, free safety Jordan Lomax, defensive end Nate Meier, linebacker Cole Fisher, fullbacks Macon Plewa and Adam Cox and guard Jordan Walsh.

Senior defensive end Drew Ott was headed toward his best season, but he suffered a torn ACL on Oct. 10 and is out. On the other hand, Smith has bounced back from injuries and has taken the top off defenses since recovering from a knee sprain.

'I think I'm definitely playing better than I did last year,” Walsh said. 'Definitely the first senior who's made big strides is Cole Fisher. Last year at this time, he wasn't starting, but he worked his butt off in the offseason, worked his butt off in the summer and got that staring job and he's playing really good football.”

- This is probably more of an intangible, but historical lows have an effect on future behavior. If you're there for the bottom and you know you're going to be there in the thereafter, you look around and figure out what went wrong. You internalize the wrong turns and you vow to never make that mistake again.

Maybe that's the tangible value of 21 seniors. The Hawkeyes are gifted with historians who were there for the bottoming out of 2012, when Iowa lost six straight and finished 4-8.

'This class of seniors has definitely had its ups and downs,” Blythe said. '2012 comes to mind, right off the top of my head ... We've talked about that as a team and we understand that's not who we want to be.”

The Hawkeyes have a couple of different moves to make going into this weekend. This team already walks on rare earth with the school's first 10-0 record. It has a chance to push that even farther and be one of those teams that's remembered like storms and droughts.

'You always hear honorary captains come back and talk about moments like this,” Blythe said. 'This is something coming into the season that I wanted to have happen as a senior. I wanted to be a part of a team that coach Ferentz references 10 years from now.”

That's the reflective side of senior day. Of course, there's the business at hand.

'This isn't something that we'll think too hard about until it's done,” Kreiger Coble said. 'So, right now we're focused and trying to compete every week. As far as all this stuff, it is a lot of fun, but we'll think about it down the road.”

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