No. 9 — DE Drew Ott

No. 9 ...

Drew Ott won the Solon Beef Days hail bale toss in July. He edged out former Hawkeye D-lineman Matt Kroul. Ott went with a shirtless ensemble with overalls and a red-white-and-blue bandanna. It went well with the scraggly beard that's more than a year old and the mullet that is all business on top and party in the back.

This is the lighthearted portion of the Ott story going into 2014. The heavy part is that Iowa has less than a handful of potential defensive ends on its roster. It has a few incoming freshmen who could perhaps accelerate their learning curve, but for the most part, it's Ott, senior Mike Hardy and juniors Nate Meier and Riley McMinn.

So, the Nebraska farm kid who played who played eight-man football for Giltner High School is an extremely important commodity for the Hawkeyes.

Defensive line coach Reese Morgan gave a pretty good breakdown of Ott this spring. You can tell Ott is a player he enjoys coaching.

'Drew Ott, 95, he's out there,” Morgan said. 'He doesn't say much, but he's extremely tough.

'This kid thinks he's a lot better than he really is, which is really a great testament to his high school program and his parents and what he's hearing here.

'But he's a pickup truck. Reliable, he starts every day, he's tough, he works hard, you can load him up, he's not afraid of anything. You can take him on the interstate. You can take him on a dirt road. That's the kind of guy he is.”

He's a pickup truck that can go anywhere. That's pretty much what Iowa wants out of its defensive ends. It's what it asks them to be.

'I don't know, maybe he thinks I'm cocky?” Ott said about Morgan's totally kidding comment on 'a lot better than he really is.” 'I don't think I'm that good, so I don't know.”

On being called a do-anything pickup?

'I try to be reliable,” Ott said. 'I come to work, try to get better and don't take any plays off.”

Easy Rider ...

You have to love players who don't take themselves too seriously. Last November, Ott gladly talked about his great moped/scooter ride across the state of Iowa to his home in Nebraska.

An excerpt:

There was no map. There didn't seem to be any plan.

All Drew Ott wanted to do was get home. He didn't want to be a bother to his parents, Sheree and Dan, for a ride from Iowa City to Trumbull, Neb., a 400-mile and nearly six-hour ride in the car.

Ott didn't want to be a bother, but that's not the whole truth. The fact is he wanted to drive his moped across the state of Iowa and home to Nebraska.

'I liked driving ATVs when I was younger,” said Ott, a sophomore defensive end for the Iowa Hawkeyes. 'I didn't have a vehicle here and instead of making my parents drive all the way here, I just took my moped.”

Ott's parents love him. They would've come and given him a ride.

'I'm sure they would've and I'm sure my mom would've preferred that,” he said. 'I just wanted to do this.”

Last summer (2013), when he jumped on the moped and put on some safety goggles, he was looking for an adventure.

OK, maybe 'adventure” is too strong of a word. Maybe peace of mind? Maybe a story to tell?

'There was this one little town that had 200 people in it,” Ott said. 'Above the town, there was this giant mansion on top of a hill. That was pretty sweet. Can't remember the town, but it was between here and Des Moines.”

For the record, Ott does now have a real motorcycle, so if he wants to drive home, it's the regular six hours and probably a lot of bugs in his mullet.

‘Different room' ...

Iowa's defensive ends are kind of a different group.

Ott is Ott. He wanted a single-digit number, but he was ticketed for DE from day 1, so he got a bona fide DE number (95). Hardy switched to DE from defensive tackle, so he fit in nicely with No. 98. Same deal for McMinn. Meier is way out there with No. 34. He started his career at running back.

'We have a diverse room,” Ott said, 'a lot of athletes and a lot of guys to fill some spots. We don't really have that one solid person who's good at everything. We have to sub people in and out to make it work. We work together as a unit pretty well.”

Ott doesn't like TV. He is living with a group this summer who has one, but 'as soon as my other roommates move in, we'll get rid of the TV and get back to the serious stuff.”

By the way, Ott was academic all-Big Ten last season. He is a health and human physiology major.

Outlook ...

I wrote the same thing with Hardy. Ott wants to work his pass-rush skills to the point where he can be on the field for third down. It may or may not go down this way this season, but last year, defensive coordinator Phil Parker subbed out defensive ends for a third-down rush package. Of course, the defensive ends don't want to be subbed out. They want to be trusted all three downs. They want to show the staff their pass rush is worth keeping on the field.

'We have to be more explosive,” Ott said. 'Hopefully, I can get to that point where I can be reliable on every down. That's the goal.”

Ott finished eighth on the team with 50 tackles. He was fourth on the team with 6.5 tackles for loss (No. 2 non-linebacker in this category, behind DT Louis Trinca-Pasat). He also tied for second on the team in sacks with 2.5. Iowa has had one player reach double digits in sacks (Adrian Clayborn has 11.5 in 2009) in the last seven seasons. Is that a realistic goal for Ott? No, but in the neighborhood of seven would probably keep Ott on the field for more third downs.

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@sourcemedia.net