Adrian Clayborn a consensus All-American

The NCAA released their list of consensus All-Americans yesterday, and Adrian Clayborn made the cut. He is just the 21st Hawkeye to earn the honor. Clayborn became a consensus by making the American Football Coaches Association and the Walter Camp teams.

I have to admit I'm a little surprised that Clayborn is an All-American. His production this year was not as strong as last year and not as impressive as some of the other defensive linemen out there. I believe this was kind of a The Return of the King winning Best Picture type of thing, where it wasn't so much that he had a great year, but had a great career and a ton of hype this year following his amazing Orange Bowl.

Jacob Rudock
Playoffs, Florida Class 5A Championship W Tampa Plant 7 - St. Thomas Aquinas 29 | (15-0)

Aquinas won it's 6th state title on Friday with big plays on offense and a dominant defense. The Raiders had a hard time finishing their drives early and settled for two early field goals. Two quick touchdowns in the second quarter, though, made the game 20-7 at half time. From there the defense really took over and Tampa Plant went scoreless in the second half. Aquinas added another field goal in the 3rd quarter, then following an interception Rudock connected on a long pass play to seal the game.

Rudock had several big pass plays on Friday night including 34 and 74-yard touchdowns. He finished the game 13 of 23 for 283 yards with 2 TDs and no INTs.

The Raiders were previously ranked the #2 high school team in the nation by ESPN. The top team, Euless Trinity in Texas, lost on Friday, so look for St. Thomas Aquinas to win the high school "nation championship" when the new rankings are released today.

Season Over: Florida Class 5A State Champions

Every day a star is born. Today it may be you. - Norm Parker

Bowl season is among us. There are 3 games today (New Mexico: BYU-UTEP, Humanitarian: Northern Illinois-Fresno St., and New Orleans: Ohio-Troy) and there has finally been a shift from talking about off the field issues to talking about the Insight Bowl. Ferentz, along with Ken O'Keefe and Norm Parker, met with the press yesterday to discuss the upcoming bowl game. The best part of the presser was just having Norm back healthy and as witty as ever.

Quick hits

Ferentz:

• Injuries - Tarpinian is doing better and has a shot at playing. Sandeman is 100%. Gettis and MacMillan are rusty but could provide some depth on the O-line.
• Receiver - Filling in for DJK will be kind of a committee approach. Chaney will be the other kick returner with Davis, but Sandeman, McNutt, and Nordmann will also have to step up.
• Since the bowl game is the last game, there will be no holding Coker back. He will get the majority of the carries.
• Unsurprisingly, Ferentz has not thought a lot about the division names or the new trophies.

Parker:

• Health - Norm has feeling better and has been out on the practice field and in the office. He expects to be back next year.
• Missouri's offense - They run an offense like Northwestern only more bizarre. They use unbalanced formations and spread the ball around quickly.
• Quote of the day - "You start to get out of bed, you say, Oh, $#!%, I only got one leg on, I better get the other leg on."

New Big Ten logo and division names

Kind of lost in all the craziest this week is that the Big Ten unveiled it's new logo, the names for the two football divisions, and 18 new trophies/award that will be handed out. While the new logo is rather ugly, at least the color anyway, and it's not nearly as clever as the BIG1T1EN logo, it is the new division names that are truly terrible. Legends and Leaders. Iowa is in the Legends division along with Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, and Nebraska. I'm not exactly sure what the Big Ten was thinking on these, but they missed the boat. But I guess in a year or two, we'll all be used to it and it won't be a big deal.

Only one future Hawkeye was in action this past week, so I'm not doing a full out round up with all the extra information on the bottom of the post today.

Jacob Rudock
Playoffs, Semifinals W Bradenton Manatee 7 - St. Thomas Aquinas 37 | (14-0)

The last time these two teams met was the Florida 5A semifinals last year. Manatee came out on top ending a 37-game winning streak by Aquinas. Aquinas has not lost a game since and were determined for their new winning streak to not end in the hands of Manatee again.

The Raiders got their revenge. A big difference in this game was red zone efficiency. Manatee had 3 trips to the red zone but came away with only 7 points. Aquinas had 4 trips to the red zone and scored a TD on each. The Raiders' rushing attack was in top gear and that helped propelled them to victory. They had 251 rushing yards and all the touchdowns scored were on the ground. A a result, Rudock didn't need to do much other than hand off the ball. He threw for just 137 yards on 10/18 passing with no TDs or INTs.

Aquinas will play Tampa Plant, the defending champions, this Friday (tomorrow) in a rematch of the 2008 championship game. Tampa Plan is 12-2 this year, but it currently on a 9-game winning streak.

Next Game: vs. Tampa Plant - 12/17 (Playoffs, Florida Class 5A Championship Game)