The Hawkeyes remain a clenched fist

IOWA CITY - The long national nightmare of the Iowa football offseason is nearly over. OK, so maybe that's overstating. You could certainly argue that this offseason, coming off two uncharactistic bombs that ended things badly for the Hawkeyes in 2014, felt longer than most.

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz was asked if the offseason felt like 40 years.

'Not quite 40, but time does fly. I got to tell you, time does fly,” he said, with Saturday's season opener against Illinois State not far from his mind.

Quarterback C.J. Beathard was named Iowa's starting quarterback in January. Does it seem as if he's been Iowa's starter for two seasons?

'Not necessarily,” Beathard said. 'It obviously feels differently this year. I came into more of a leadership role this offseason. This offseason has been a long process, but a process we needed as a team. I think Saturday we'll finally get to show what we've been working on and working toward this whole offseason.”

The storyline here is that the Hawkeyes have been a clenched fist for about nine months now. This tends to come out, sometimes quite literally. And so we give you wide receiver Tevaun Smith, the quietest angry young man.

During Tuesday's media session, Smith broke down some of the camp battles he endured with Iowa cornerbacks Desmond King and Greg Mabin. You know how the old saying goes, 'Iron sharpens iron.” This may very well be true, but that also means you're going to have some clanking.

Sounds as if there was some serious clanking with the Hawkeyes top wideout and starting corners this August (of course, all in good fun, but make no mistake, these guys are competitive and want to win every repetition).

'I'd say there were a few scuffles during practice,” Smith said. 'I like that. I wouldn't throw one in a game (a punch), but I like it.”

There are a couple of factors at work here. There's the fact that Iowa endured, at least in the perception game on the outside of the Hansen Football Performance Center, a long, painful offseason. Players are aware and in the community. They've picked up on the unrest.

Also, the theme with Iowa's wide receivers this offseason has been 'Tevaun Smith and then what?” As you might imagine, that ignited the group.

'As receivers, they (coaches) kind of look at us as pretty boys,” said Smith, whose resume includes 70 career receptions. 'They want those gritty type guys. We've definitely been working on that and doing whatever we can to be those gritty receivers. It's definitely getting better every day.”

Wide receiver is a position that comes with an underlying layer of grit. The easy perception is sprinter sprinting for long passes and TDs. You know offensive coordinator Greg Davis' passing scheme comes with horizontal elements, which is exactly what Ferentz wants.

'Those are my favorite pass plays, short pass and long runs,” Ferentz said Tuesday.

With that horizontal element and with any route where a receiver has a defensive back standing directly in front of him, receivers have to be studied in the art of hand fighting.

'It really goes hand in hand,” Smith said.”If you can be that gritty wide receiver, it helps you when you're running your routes. You have to be that angry-type of guy. I feel a lot of us have taken pride in that. I know I get pretty angry running my routes. I have to put that into blocking, too. That's going to make me an all-around better receiver and everyone else a better receiver, too.”

Smith dropped the phrase 'There's a lot of holding in college, too.” This got Mabin's attention.

'I don't know what he's talking about,” said Mabin, who begins his second season as starter at corner. 'Coach Parker (defensive coordinator Phil Parker) teaches us not to hold, so we don't hold. I don't know where he's getting that information from.”

But . . .

'We're all competitors on the field,” Mabin said. 'He's my enemy during the play, so of course, we're going to get into it.”

Smith said the first to set the physical tone in the wide receiver-cornerback matchup has a huge advantage.

'As a player, you want to be the one who lands that first punch,” Smith said. 'Whoever does is usually going to dictate that game. If you can get gritty and get in their face early, that will help you out later in the game.”

So, this is an example of the agita the Hawkeyes have been walking around with since January. Saturday will be another form of therapy, one way or the other.

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