Hawkeyes in search of their ‘trust’ back

IOWA CITY - If everyone Hawkeye spoke about graduated running back Mark Weisman in anymore of a reverential tone, they would be taking off their hats and pledging their allegiance.

Yes, Weisman was a fullback playing running back. He is now trying to gouge his way into the NFL in the Cincinnati Bengals camp. Why did Iowa use a fullback as a running back and allow him to carry the ball 598 times over the last three seasons? In a word, trust.

'Mark had earned so much trust from all of us, where do you start with that?” head coach Kirk Ferentz said. 'He had earned so much trust.”

Said running backs coach Chris White, 'Mark is just a special guy. You have a soft spot in your heart, because he did everything right. It was almost too good to be true.”

Weisman averaged 4.3 yards a carry over those 598 attempts. He rushed for 32 touchdowns, third on Iowa's career list. Clearly, he was No. 1 for Iowa coaches in reliability. This doesn't mean he was No. 1 in 'wow, look at that guy run the ball,” but it's pretty clear now that Iowa wanted trust and reliability. Another factor, at least in 2014, was senior Jordan Canzeri's injuries (ankle, heel) and junior LeShun Daniels' injuries (stress fracture).

'Mark had earned so much trust and then the other two things, in Jordan's case, I don't think he was ever right last year,” Ferentz said. 'I think he could've really helped us, but he was never right. . . . In LeShun's case, probably two things (with the injury being one): We probably didn't give him enough rope last year (he had just 14 carries before his injury), maybe. Or maybe, it's because he looked so good this spring, that maybe we should've run him a little bit more.”

The 'trust” precedent has been set. How deep does that go? Will that automatically disqualify a few of the four backs (Daniels, Canzeri, sophomore Derrick Mitchell Jr. and sophomore Akrum Wadley) who are in contention for serious roles?

When the offensive line coach says the following to the senior running back, you kind of get a feel for how much the Iowa staff values trust.

'Brian Ferentz has said to me, it's something so small, but it's something so huge,” Canzeri said. 'OK, I'm running the ball and I gain 3 yards, it's a 3-yard gain. It's just one handoff. But if I fumbled and the opponent picked it up and ran it back, that's a huge twist in the game, a huge change.

'It's something we need to understand as running backs. When we have the ball in our hands, the whole team is on our back. We've all taken that. It's not pressure that weighs us down, it's something we're confident in. That's why we're here.”

OK, that all makes sense. But Iowa's offense needs all the playmakers it can get. Why decide who carries the ball or who doesn't based on ball security?

Let's bring Wadley into the discussion. Iowa's run offense produced just three 100-yard performances last season and Wadley, as a redshirt freshman, logged one of those. In his first career carries, the 5-11, 190-pounder rushed 15 times for 106 yards and a TD. He had a respectable 5.64 yards per carry on 33 attempts last season. He also had two fumbles in those 33 carries.

White believes Wadley's ball security issues have to do with strength. Specifically, Wadley has had his weight fluctuate 7 to 10 pounds between practices.

Every player on the team has a target weight. These probably matter most with linemen and running backs. Wadley's is around 190 pounds.

Coaches trust that he'll hit that more often than he doesn't. Success here tells them how much they can trust Wadley away from the field. It's kind of a big deal.

'If they don't hit their target weights, that's telling us about what they're doing off the field,” White said. 'Are they sleeping right? Are they eating right? The whole thing is nutrition and sleep. Some of these guys haven't figured that out yet. Some of the older guys, you don't have to worry about.

'LeShun came in here and you didn't have to worry about him. We told him to lose weight and he lost it. He's hitting his weights all the time. Akrum can't fluctuate so much. That's a big part of the trust thing.”

Wadley is working on it. He knows it's the thing that could get him into the circle of trust.

'To me, I feel like when I'm up (in weight) I play the same as when I'm down,” Wadley said, 'but there is a big difference when you're going against guys who are 200 and 300 plus.”

White and Ferentz believe Daniels is the back they can trust to carry the ball 20-plus times, to take care of his body and to produce. The 6-0, 225-pounder is in the front of the line for a Weisman-like workload.

'Accountability and trust is absolutely crucial, and we feel that way about LeShun and, obviously, Jordan,” White said. 'The two unknown factors are the young guys (Wadley and Mitchell). Accountability and trust, they're working toward that. I wouldn't say we absolutely trust them to go in and do the right thing right now, but that's what we're here for right now, to see if they can get to that point.”

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