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Iowa football: Riley Moss, Julius Brents will start against Indiana

By Andrew Wade

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - OCTOBER 06: Jake Gervase #30 and Julius Brents #20 of the Iowa Hawkeyes break up a pass intended for Chris Autman-Bell #3 of the Minnesota Golden Gophers during the second quarter of the game on October 6, 2018 at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - OCTOBER 06: Jake Gervase #30 and Julius Brents #20 of the Iowa Hawkeyes break up a pass intended for Chris Autman-Bell #3 of the Minnesota Golden Gophers during the second quarter of the game on October 6, 2018 at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images) /
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The Iowa football program is heading to Bloomington to face off against Indiana. For the second week in a row, two freshman will start at corner for Iowa.

The University of Iowa football team is set to play Indiana Saturday for the first time since 2015 and for the 75th time in this series. As Iowa gets ready to take the field, they will be doing it with two freshman corners for the second time this season.

Against Minnesota, both Julius Brents and Riley Moss started in place of the injured Matt Hankins and Michael Ojemudia. It appears like they will continue to build off the experience for a second straight week.

Meanwhile, Hankins and Ojemudia will likely be in uniform (if not starting) and ready to play in case of emergency. According to Kirk though, they should be ready soon. Here is what he had to say in his Tuesday media conference.

"Anyway, I think he’s [Hankins] on the right side now and coming back up, and I think O.J. is the same way."

Kirk Ferentz isn’t worried though. He likes what he is seeing in his two young freshman who performed admirably on Saturday against a strong wide receiver group at Minnesota.

"The most important thing I think about both those guys and probably all these guys is we’re seeing improvement during the course of the game, and that’s encouraging. When you see guys growing and their arrows are going up, that’s really positive."

In fact, Moss was named Big Ten Freshman of the Week after intercepting Zach Annexstad twice and finishing the game with two tackles.

Julius Brents had himself a pretty good day as well finishing with one interception, two passes defensed, and three tackles. This performance garnered a grade of 78.2 according to Pro Football Focus, which was the second best in the game next to Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week Anthony Nelson.

As we talked about in our three takeaways from the Minnesota game, the youth movement is on in the Iowa football program, and the future is bright. These two young corners face a stiff challenge taking on a strong Indiana passing game on Saturday. Let’s see if they are up to the task.

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