Iowa football: Reactions to Miami (OH) depth chart release

The Iowa football team released their two-deep depth chart for the season opener against Miami (OH). Here are my quick reactions to what I am seeing.

Knowing the Iowa football team’s season opener depth chart would be released today, I was most excited to find out who the backup quarterback would be.

Unfortunately, we didn’t find that out as the Hawkeyes chose to list Peyton Mansell and Spencer Petras together, but we did find out quite a few other things.

That being said, here are my quick reactions to what I saw:

• The Paulsen twins are getting the start together at both guard positions against Miami of Ohio. As we wrote about earlier this week, the interior offensive line has been a lot more in flux than we initially anticipated, and with last year’s starting guard Cole Banwart in walking boot, it’s the Paulsen twins’ job to lose.
• We’ve got ourselves an upgrade at punter. While most of us expected graduate transfer Michael Sleep-Dalton to win the job, the Hawks remained tight lip until now.
• Who the hell is kicking? Caleb Shudak and Keith Duncan remain entrenched in a kicker battle that will likely not be decided anytime soon.
• The tight end position is still not resolved as Shaun Beyer is not on the two-deep. It sounds like he is still recovering from injury, but for the first game, they don’t need him. That being said, at this point, it’s Nate Wieting’s job to lose.
• Amani Jones is resurrecting his career at the defensive end spot, and I am excited to see what that looks like. Last year Phil Parker deployed his Nascar package featuring four defensive ends, and expect to see a similar thing this year with Jones coming in.
• Julius Brents must be injured as he doesn’t make an appearance on this depth chart.
• After concerns about Kaevon Merriweather not being ready, he is going to get the start. Whether or not he can hold on to this though, remains to be seen.
• Ihmir Smith-Marsette is about to go off on special teams unit this year. He is listed as the number one kick and punt returner after just returning kicks last year. After last year’s outstanding performance, I expect the Paul Hornung Award watch list nominee to blow up this year in a good way.

Again, I would have liked to get some additional clarification on the quarterback battle, but it’s nice to see a few decisions made going forward.

Expect a few more updates as guys return from injuries and we see how these guys perform in live action. Just look at last year’s linebacker group. We started out with Kristian Welch, Nick Niemann, and Amani Jones. Fast forward a year and Jones is a defensive end, Welch is moving to middle linebacker and Niemann is a backup.

A lot can change over the course of the season, but with the season opener depth chart being released, we are just over a week away from Iowa football.