Iowa football: Hawks getting healthier before Illinois game

With the Fighting Illini coming to town Saturday, the Iowa football team seems to be finally getting healthy, or at least healthier.

It’s been a long winding road full of injuries since this summer when Cole Banwart got injured and followed up by Alaric Jackson injuring his knee in the first half of the first official Iowa football game. Each week since then, it’s been one injury after another with starters Brandon Smith, Kyler Schott, Brady Reiff, Kristian Welch, Matt Hankins, and Kaevon Merriweather all missing time.

And don’t get me started on the rest of the secondary depth where Julius Brents and Riley Moss have been dealing with injuries throughout the season.

Finally, though, it appears the Iowa football team may be ready to kick the injury bug.

Last week after playing sparingly, starting wide receiver Brandon Smith is set to return to the lineup or at least the news was encouraging enough to list him as the number two wide receiver on the depth chart and Kirk Ferentz didn’t dispute the point.

Staying on the offensive side of the ball, freshman sensation Tyler Goodson is healthy and ready to go for what should be his second career start Saturday.

And as we do every week, it’s time to talk about the secondary. The aforementioned Julius Brents made an appearance on the depth chart after playing sparingly this season due to an injury and Riley Moss is currently listed as the starter as the Iowa football team works Michael Ojemudia back from injury.

Whether Ojemudia plays or not remains to be seen, but Kirk Ferentz seemed to be happy with his progress thus far having this to say about the senior corner:

"I don’t want to say they’re full speed but at least they’re moving in the right direction. Hopefully, they’ll be able to play at least partially on Saturday."

While Smith’s presence in the lineup is huge, redshirt freshman Tyrone Tracy Jr has played fantastic in his absence. At corner, however, it’s less of a concern from my standpoint as both Moss and Brents saw significant game action last season and have flashed on occasion.

It pains me to say this, but with Ilinois playing some of their best football in the past decade, the Hawks will need all the talent they can field to take down the Fighting Illini for the sixth straight time.