Lots of newness for the 2017 Iowa Hawkeyes

IOWA CITY — Media day often comes with props. Credit goes to the Des Moines TV station that brought a Rubix Cube to the Hawkeyes' festivities on Saturday.

It's really kind of a perfect metaphor for the 2017 Hawkeyes.

The offensive line side of the cube looks pretty close to finished. Everything lines up at linebacker. Let's assign the color green to running back, because you know that green means 'go.'

Lots of yellows and greens at wide receiver. The secondary is almost all some sort of new color, so let's go with some shade of green, maybe chartreuse. The defensive line is spinning and looking for combos.

Is sea foam a shade of green? If so, let's slap that on the quarterback position and get to the talking.

At this point, there just aren't a lot of answers to the questions. Iowa has had six practices, with four of those in pads.

We could meander and try to guess, but let's go over newness. There's more new than you might think.

Iowa basically has a new offensive staff.

Whether it was the offense's performance in 2016 or if it was five years with Greg Davis as offensive coordinator and it was time for a change, there's a new offensive staff. Pretty much, probably depends on how you count Ken O'Keefe, Iowa's new QB coach who was Ferentz's offensive coordinator for his first 13 seasons at Iowa, and LeVar Woods is coaching tight ends as well as adding special teams coordinator duties.

'Certainly defensively, we had a good year last year, and our staff's back intact,' Ferentz said. 'We had some things on our board that, boy, we better get better at these or we're going to pay for it moving forward. We've had plenty to do on both sides of the ball.

'But offensively it's been different because we're getting to know the players a little bit better. Even Brian who is at a different position, so it's a whole different dynamic for him. I think it's probably been healthy, quite frankly.'

Getting to know the offensive players a little bit better? File that thought away.

Iowa has a new playcaller.

For the first time in his coaching career, Brian Ferentz is calling plays. His dad has been Iowa's head coach for 19 seasons. He's had just three playcallers, O'Keefe, Davis and now Brian Ferentz.

On Sept. 2 against Wyoming, Ferentz will call his first play. The game won't stop. He won't get a ceremonial ball. It's game on and he knows it.

'That ended the day I was introduced, for me,' Brian Ferentz said about any honeymoon periods (offensive coordinators don't get those). 'The criticism is sure to pick up the minute we throw short of the sticks or we go three-and-out or we take a sack. I understand that's going to happen, but for me the honeymoon really ended that night. I told my wife the next morning that I didn't sleep very well.

'It was the first time in my life I had gotten a promotion where I think I fully realized not only all of the things that could go wrong but were more than likely going to go wrong. I think that's a by-product of experience and age and moving forward.'

Iowa will have a new quarterback. Eventually. At some point.

It's time to extinguish any doubt the vitality of the QB competition. Sophomore Nathan Stanley and junior Tyler Wiegers have evenly split first-team reps in the first week of practice. This is camp and reps are gold, so the fact that they're splitting them says, more than anything, no decision has been made.

Kirk Ferentz didn't declare a winner on Saturday.

One thing to keep in mind, O'Keefe is Iowa's first QB coach since Chuck Long in 1999, Kirk Ferentz's first season. He'll have a huge, if not final, say in this.

'Ken's in the room with those guys every minute,' Kirk Ferentz said. 'He's the one in their ear all the time. He's hearing the feedback. He hears things that the rest of us aren't privileged to hear. But ultimately it gets down to leading the team. That's what it gets down to. All of us have an opinion on that certainly.

'We'll keep observing, we'll watch, we'll pull information. At some point we'll have to make some decisions and go from there.'

Everyone, meet James Butler.

The graduate transfer running back from Chicago via Nevada is real. He has some blond highlights and wears braces. He also has the quintessential running back build.

The most amazing trick at some media days is how some of the star players can make themselves scarce. Maybe hide behind a TV camera or hold a mic. Butler, a senior, seemed totally happy to be here.

'You're always kind of iffy in a new situation, you never know how the team is going to take you,' said Butler, who rushed for more than 3,000 yards and 30 TDs in three seasons at Nevada before graduating and transferring to Iowa this summer. 'I've seen new guys come and the team didn't really accept them. I want to come in and be this new face and fresh guy and not go off what I've already done.'

Senior Akrum Wadley is the incumbent running back. Kirk Ferentz, Brian Ferentz and pretty much every offensive coach praised Wadley's effort in camp. He's the guy. Butler is another guy. Toks Akinribade and Toren Young will be yet more guys at running back.

One thing happened Saturday that doesn't happen often around Iowa football. Wadley was caught on the field.

'These bugs are killing me out here,' Wadley said. 'You guys aren't getting bit?'

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