Iowa football: Five reactions to 2019 preseason depth chart release

The Iowa football team released their latest 2019 depth chart, and for obvious reasons, it sparked a few questions and reactions. Here are our thoughts.

This is overreaction city. The latest Iowa football team depth chart was released and naturally, people had a lot of thoughts on it.

My goal with this is to clear up a few things and point out a few things I found interesting from the depth chart release.

First and foremost though, there was nothing outlandish on there. There wasn’t a major shift from what we predicted back in February with our initial depth chart prediction, and there is going to be a lot of movement as the Iowa football team gets into camp this summer.

With that being said, here are my five reactions to the new depth chart.

Reaction #1 – Where’s Michael Sleep-Dalton?

• I saw this question posed by a lot of people. Either that or people retweeting the depth chart releases with a comment saying the punting game sucks or we better fix it. I don’t disagree that the punting game definitely needs to be fixed. I felt so strongly about it, I wrote an article about it earlier this year, but hold your horses. Sleep-Dalton just joined the team this summer. Transfers aren’t included on this depth chart release, but I feel confident that Sleep-Dalton will come out ahead in the battle.

Reaction #2 – Daviyon Nixon and Austin Schulte neck and neck

• The Iowa football team is pretty traditional and intentional with their depth chart releases so when they put an OR next to names, it means those guys are truly neck and neck when it comes to the pecking order. This is actually important for the defensive line because Phil Parker likes to rotate linemen in and out so second string is going to get some time on the field. More interesting is this scenario almost never happened as Nixon explored the transfer market for a bit before returning to the Hawkeyes.

Reaction #3 – Mansell has a leg up

• I’m not going to lie, the backup quarterback battle is the most intriguing for me. I want to know who has the leg up heading into 2020 because that camp battle is going to be crazy. I’ve already gone into this before so you can read my thoughts there, but for now, Mansell still is in the lead over Petras and Padilla.

Reaction #4 – Defensive back clarity

• This is probably the area with the least amount of clarity and the area that will likely morph the most as the season progresses. Multiple defensive backs have worked out in multiple spots in the secondary, and at the end of the day, it will be all about getting the best defensive backs on the field. Geno Stone and Matt Hankins are all but guaranteed spots. From this list it appears Michael Ojemudia, DJ Johnson and Kaevon Merriweather are the other guys in line to start, but where does that put Julius Brents? This guy has a ton of talent and showcased some intriguing skills in his true freshman season. I want to see the Hawks get him some playing time this year.

Reaction #5 – What happened to Nick Niemann

• This might be one of the more confusing takes for me. I know Niemann was not listed as a starter heading into this depth chart release, but I don’t understand what happened for him to not be the starter. This could just be me, but I loved his play last season prior to his injury. He was aggressive and had a nose for the ball and wrapped up ball carriers nicely. It’ll be interesting to see what time he sees this year on the field as a junior.

There’s a lot of time left before the first game so there is likely to be a change or two, and we’re certainly going to get more clarity on some of the reactions above.

For now, though, we have to wait and let the camp process play out.