Iowa football: Reading the tea leaves of the Oliver Martin situation

Mum is the word from the Iowa football team on the Oliver Martin situation, but let’s take a look at the signs and see what we can glean.

Now that the backup quarterback situation is resolved for the time being for the Iowa football team, one of the biggest remaining stories is the Oliver Martin situation.

Unfortunately, there has been no clarification on whether or not Oliver Martin will be available for the Iowa football team’s season opener Saturday despite a few fake media sources attempts to lead folks in the wrong direction.

According to Chad Leistikow, a resolution is getting close, but we are still aren’t there yet, but there have been some interesting signs that I want to point out that can maybe help us see which direction this is going.

First, and most importantly, Oliver Martin has been practicing with the team as if he is going to play this weekend, and as we wrote a few weeks ago, this has big impacts on the rest of the team. Kirk Ferentz is a smart and conservative guy. Getting Martin time with the 1s and Nate Stanley would not make sense if they didn’t feel confident that he might actually get his waiver approved. It would be taking away valuable time from Nico Ragaini and Tyrone Tracy Jr.

According to Kirk during yesterday’s press conference, Martin is very much in the game plan for Saturday.

"Yeah, he’s definitely in our plan to play him, and he would be on the travel team if we were traveling. Yeah, if we get the green light, he’ll be in there playing at some point, absolutely."

Again, Kirk isn’t the kind of guy to waste valuable reps if he didn’t think someone was going to be playing.

Another interesting thing to note is yesterday the NCAA granted a waiver approval to another Michigan transfer, Aubrey Solomon, so he can play immediately at Tennessee this season.

Does that bode well for Oliver Martin’s case? I mean, it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Until we actually find out though, it’s all speculation, and we are literally just sitting here (as I am) trying to read into every little sign that could point in either direction.

Hopefully, we get some resolution today.