On Friday, Malik Rucker drove to Iowa City from New Hope, Minnesota to make an unofficial visit and to commit to Kirk Ferentz and The University of Iowa in person. Rucker became the ninth Iowa commit and the second defensive back.

All the scouting services list Rucker as a safety, but Iowa is bringing him on as a cornerback with the door open to move to safety if it's a better fit. Based on Rucker's size (6'0", 175 lbs.) and speed (a reported 4.48 40), he seems built more like a corner to me. Also, Iowa already has a committed safety in this class, Delano Hill, so corner may be a bigger need.

High School

Rucker attends Robbinsdale Cooper High School, whose nickname is appropriately the Hawks. The Hawks went just 4-5 last year, but Rucker had a very good season personally as a junior. He accumulated 83 tackles, including 10 for loss, and had 2 interceptions. He performance last year earned him a spot on Team USA for the International Federation of American Football Under-19 World Championship.

It seems strange to be breaking down the fullback position in June, but with a new Offensive Coordinator and an uncertain situation at running back, the fullbacks are kind of interesting. And Brad Rogers makes things even more interesting as he is capable of carrying the ball and could supplement the running back rotation.

The first question really is, are fullbacks even part of the Greg Davis offense? True fullbacks seem to be a dying breed in college football. Even at Iowa, this past season a fullback is only used around 20 plays a game, roughly the same amount as the third receiver.

Anyway, we're in luck...as Marc Morehouse had that same question and asked Brad Rogers yesterday. And rest assured, fullbacks will be part of Iowa's offense going forward. Not to reiterate everything from the interview, but expect Iowa's running game to be very similar to the past 13 years. Fullback will remain a big part of that as a run blocker. Also expect more passing routes for the fullbacks. Davis wants to spread the ball around beyond just the top two receivers and that includes fullbacks in addition to the tight ends (that was mostly missing last year) and the running backs (that has been mostly missing the past 13 years).

Just when I was thinking, "hey, Iowa's doing great at keeping out of trouble this off season" Greg Garmon gets arrested for possession of a small amount of marijuana. Not only does that dirty Iowa's clean slate this summer, it is also an awful reminder that the Hawkeyes are painfully thin at running back. So even though this news is a week old, it still seems as good of a time as any to talk about running backs.

The cynic inside of me, and probably inside of all Hawkeye fans at this point when it comes to RBs, envisions something like this: Garmon comes in and is disciplined. He misses a game or two and gets fewer reps in practice. As a result, he sinks to 5th or 6th on the depth chart behind a bunch of other underclassmen. With little prospect of playing anytime soon, Garmon decides to take his talents to Southern Illinois. (Sound familiar?)

Twitter recently updated its logo to a new Twitter bird. Twitter throws around some fancy words like "ornithology" when describing how they designed their new logo, but to me it's pretty clear...they stole the design from Iowa's Tigerhawk. Flip that little birdy over and it looks strikingly similar to the top section of the Tigerhawk. I'll let you judge for yourself...

Tweethawk

The kickoff times have been announced for Iowa's first 3 games of the season. The games against Northern Illinois, Iowa State, and UNI will all begin at 2:30 PM. Pretty spectacular news in my book. I was almost certain that all 3 of these were destine for early starts. I love the afternoon kicks...plenty of time in the morning to get ready, eat lunch, etc... And the game is over in time for dinner. Nice.

The latter two games will be televised on BTN, which is really beefing up its 2:30 time slot offerings, a start time that in the past was mostly reserved for ABC/ESPN.

The Northern Illinois game will be televised on ESPNU. Which is a serious UGH. I don't really want to fork out more cash to Mediacom just to watch 1 football game and a couple of basketball games. It should be broadcast on ESPN3 as well, so it'll at least be watchable online. Hopefully Mediacom Connection Channel can pick it up or something. Anyway, it's technically a NIU home game, even though the game's at Soldier Field, so the MAC has the rights to the game. ESPNU isn't bad considering last year Wisconsin played NIU in the exact same circumstances and that game was on ESPN3 only. So take that Badgers.

The game times are now set for 8 games on Iowa's schedule. The games against Minnesota, Michigan State, Northwestern, and Nebraska are all 11:00 kicks, and the Penn State game is the lone night game at 7:00.