Today, Larry Station was elected to be a part of college football's most elite group, the Hall of Fame. Station was a linebacker for the Hawkeyes in 1981 through 1984. He joins his teammate Chuck Long and coach Hayden Fry as the 14th Hall of Fame Hawkeye. Here is the full list in the 2009 Hall of Fame class.

There are a few new pictures of the progress on the FieldTurf installation at Kinnick Stadium. In other Kinnick news, The University of Iowa showed its interest in hosting World Cup matches.

The Iowa Hawkeyes Football Roster is now sortable and should be up to date.

For the more recent roster, see the 2010 Iowa Football Roster.

The Wolverines are Iowa's sixth opponent of the year. This will be the Hawkeye's homecoming game and will be played under the lights at Kinnick with a 7:00 kickoff. Michigan is coming off a 3-9 season, the worst since 1962 when the team went 2-7 and the 5th worst ever. However, 2008 was the first year under head coach Rich Rodriguez and the team was learning a whole new system. This year with the spread fully in place and a boat load of offensive starters returning, the Michigan offense should be better than last year when it averaged less than 300 yards per game and only 20.2 points. The defense was less of a problem last year (except in the 4th quarter, giving up 101 points in 12 games), but only 5 starters return in 2009.

Offense: Key Returning Players
Basically the whole offense is returning from last year and every player should at least have some starting experience. RB Brandon Minor led the team in rushing yards last year and scored 9 touchdowns on the ground and 2 receiving. The two leader receivers from 2008, Martavious Odoms and Greg Mathews also return. The two combined for 84 catches for 852 yards. Odoms was also the team's punt return and returned one for a touchdown. The offensive line returns 7 players with starting experience and should be a veteran line with 3 senoirs (LG Tim McAvoy, RG David Moosman, and LT Mark Ortmann).

Offense: Key Losses
The only starter lost is QB Steven Threet who is transferring to Arizona State. Nick Sheridan did start a few games a quarterback, but it will likely be newcomer Tate Forcier that gets the nod as starter.

Defense: Key Returning Players
Michigan has 3 of the 4 leading tacklers on the team returning in 2009. LB Obi Ezeh led the team with 98 tackles in 2008 and another linebacker Jonas Mouton was second with 76. Coming in at fourth was S Stevie Brown with 64 tackles. Also back is DE Brandon Graham who had a team high 10 sacks and 20 tackles for loss and CB Donovan Warren.

Defense: Key Losses
The biggest loss on defense is FS Brandon Harrison, who was very disruptive in 2008. Harrison was third on the team in tackles and had 7 tackles for loss with of those sacks. Three solid linemen, DE Tim Jamison, DT Will Johnson, and DT Terrance Taylor, are also gone. Though the impact of their losses should be lessened by the switch to a 3-4 scheme under new defensive coordinator Greg Robinson.

Here is Michigan's spring prospectus.

In the 10 years of Kirk Ferentz’s tenure as the head coach of Iowa Football, 6 of the 33 players drafted to the NFL have been tight ends. The Hawkeyes have constantly had strong TEs and the starter from each year has gone on to be been drafted since 1999.

Year	Starter	Draft
1999	Austin Wheatley	2000 round 5
2000	Robert Gallery*	2004 round 1
2001-2002	Dallas Clark	2003 round 1
2003	Erik Jensen	2004 round 7
2004	Tony Jackson	2005 round 6
2004-2006	Scott Chandler	2007 round 4
2007-2008	Brandon Myers	2009 round 6

*This is kind of a cop out…Robert Gallery started at TE for a few games in 2000 but was ultimately moved and drafted as an offensive lineman

Tight ends play a prominent role in the Iowa offense, both as a receiver and a blocker. Iowa TEs have racked up some impressive stats. In 5 of the past 10 years, a TE has gone for at least 400 yards receiving, including Dallas Clark’s 742 yards with 4 touchdowns in 2002 and Scott Chandler’s 591 yards with 6 touchdowns in 2006.

Brandon Myers continued the tradition of drafted TEs this Sunday when he was picked by the Oakland Raiders in the 6th round. In 2008 Myers had 34 receptions for 441 yards and caught 4 touchdown passes. He was often to go-to-guy for QB Ricky Stanzi on third down and made a huge impact in Iowa's upset victory over Penn State catching 2 passes for first downs on the game-winning drive.

Looking forward Iowa has two tight ends with plenty of experience headed into 2009. Brandon Myers may not have had the success he did if it were not for multiple injuries that plagued Tony Moeaki that allowed Myers to step in as the starter. In 2005 Moeaki was rated the number 1 tight end out of high school. In the upcoming season he will resume his starting role and we will get a chance to see if he lives up to his potential…and see if that potential translates to a draft pick. Backing up Moeaki will be Allen Reisner, who had a successful sophomore year with 11 catches for 200 yards.