Iowa football: Hawks could return all season opener starters vs Penn State

The Iowa football team is days away from taking on Penn State, and it appears they are going to be mostly healthy. Here’s the injury report for the game.

For the first time since the Iowa football team’s season opener win over Miami of Ohio, ever single starter from that game might actually appear in the game against Penn State.

More so than we have in the past, we’ve seen the Iowa football team be battered by injuries losing a defensive lineman (Brady Reiff), three members of the secondary (Matt Hankins, Kaevon Merriweather, and Julius Brents), and a star offensive lineman (Alaric Jackson).

Jackson, Merriweather, and Brents returned last week and if we’re being honest, the results were mixed, especially with Jackson, but with another week of preparation and getting his feet back under him, I expect a much better performance this week. Merriweather and Brents, meanwhile, are back but in reserve roles for the Iowa football team. Merriweather was unseated back former walk-on Jack Koerner and Brents lost his possible starting role to redshirt freshman DJ Johnson, who is stepping in for Matt Hankins.

Hankins though may actually be back this week, although likely in a reserve role as he works his way back into game shape.

In talking to the media Kirk Ferentz made this note about Hankins (who for the record, was not listed on the two-deeps this Monday):

"Hankins was able to jump in and start working yesterday so we’ll see how the week goes with him but I think he has a chance to be available, so we’ll see where that all goes."

Given how finicky Hankin’s hamstring has been throughout his Iowa football career, we won’t know until Saturday what the word is for his status.

Ferentz did sound much more confident in discussing Reiff’s status though:

"Brady Reiff has practiced, started practicing last week, so I think he should be ready to go this week."

On the Penn State side, they have four offensive players who are considered questionable at this point, but given the Nittany Lion’s ability to plug and play skill position players to this point, I am not going to read to much into it.

With this being a huge game for the Iowa football team if they want to have a chance at the College Football Playoffs, it will be great to have the team mostly healthy and hopefully back to tip-top form Saturday against Penn State.