The Black and Gold Spirit game has produced its first commit with the verbal from Melvin Spears that was announced early on Friday. Spears, who was in attendance for the Penn State game last weekend, is a linebacker from Texas and is now the 15th member of the 2011 Iowa recruiting class. He is also the 3rd linebacker that has committed to Iowa. Spears is rated 3-stars on both Scout and Rivals.

Spears in High School

Spears attends Allen High School in Allen, TX. The Eagles currently boast a perfect 6-0 record this year with their most recent victory coming last night beating Plano East 34-24. Spears had an interception last night in the win. He has also been playing well all season and earned the Defense Player of the Week award by the Dallas Morning News for his 11 tackles, 1 interception, and 1 forced fumble outing a few weeks ago.

Video!
The Allen Eagle Football site has 3 videos featuring Spears (they are all .wmv files):

• 2008-2009
• 2010 Spring
• 2010 Season

Quick Thoughts:
Linebacker was one of the most important positions for Iowa to recruit this year with 4 seniors on the two-deeps. We saw last weekend too, the importance of having a deep pool at middle linebacker as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd string guys all were out leaving true freshman James Morris to play the majority of the game.

Spears looks like a good prospect to help at the position. In his film he moved laterally very well, especially in run support. He also made a few big plays dropping back into coverage. He seems like the prototypical guy that Ferentz likes to recruit that could play linebacker, tight end, fullback, or put on some size and grow into a lineman.

Bored this week? Yeah, me too. The bye week doesn't exactly lead to lots of new stories to blog about, but at least it's allowed me to get some extra sleep. Anyway, here are a few videos to check out that hopefully will help tide you over to next week.

Homecoming HighlightsThis video, via the Penn State blog NittanyWhiteOut, provides a rather comprehensive look back at Iowa's most recent victory over the Nittany Lions.

Ray Hamilton
W Strongsville 34 - Medina 14 | (4-2)
Strongsville's usual starting quarterback was suspended from the game on Friday, but his backup proved to be just as good leading the Mustangs to a big win over Medina. The new QB completed 8 of 11 passes, 4 of which were to Hamilton. Hamilton's 4 receptions were good for 57 yards and two touchdowns including one at the very end of the first half that put the Mustangs up for good. Also, here is his latest blog post.

Next Game: at Mayfield - 10/08

Austin Blythe
W Williamsburg 62 - Benton 19 | (6-0)
Williamsburg started this game out sloppy with a few turnovers and held only a 21-19 lead in the third quarter. From there though, the Raiders turned on the afterburners and scored 6 second-half touchdowns turning the close game into another big victory. No mentions of Blythe were found, but you can see him on a couple plays in this KCRG highlight video (Blythe is #77 in the black).

Next Game: at Solon - 10/08

Jake Duzey
L Athens 28 - West Bloomfield 33 | (2-4)
I couldn't find anything on this game other than the score. Duzey and Co. have been struggling as of late and next week doesn't get any easier against an undefeated Lake Orion.

Next Game: vs. Lake Orion - 10/08

Riley McMinn
W Rochester 54 - Springfield 26 | (6-0)
Rochester won its sixth straight on Saturday scoring on 6 of its 8 first half possessions, then cruising the rest of the way. McMinn caught his second pass of the year, a 28-yard reception. He is also quoted in the linked article: "Basically we're going to take it to every team. I don't think we have anything to prove anymore. We're going to do this thing outright."

Next Game: at Springfield - 10/02

There are no longer a sufficient number of undefeated teams to fill my ballot, so 1-loss teams are making their way back on. I still am giving a little bit more weight to losses than perhaps I should, but things are starting to take shape as most everyone has started conference play.

Some movement at the top
I still believe that Ohio State is a more complete team at each position than Alabama, but it's hard to argue with back-to-back victories over top-10 teams. Ohio State had a nice win over Miami, who is looking better each week, but OSU's struggles against Illinois sealed the deal...Bama to 1, Bucky to 2.

Not out of it yet
There are a handful of undefeated teams that with an upset or two could be legitimately have a shot at the BCS. Yeah, there are the mid-majors that we know about, but not too many people were talking about teams like Michigan State and Arizona having any shot until recent big wins. Michigan State gets a huge bump after the big win over Wisconsin. That game as well as Florida and Stanford losing, helped a few other teams move up.

The one loss crew
The one loss teams that I have ranked are Arkansas, Iowa, Florida, Stanford, Wisconsin, Miami, and Florida State. All of these teams only loss have come at the hands of top 15 teams and they have at least semi-impressive wins on their resumes. It was pretty hard deciding where they should fall in the mix with all the undefeated. I ranked Arkansas and Iowa the highest because Arkansas was within a couple of plays from beating Alabama and Iowa has played dominant football besides 3 or 4 bad (really, really bad) plays against Arizona.

What kind of stood out to me looking at the drive chart was just how bad Iowa's field position was, especially in the second half. When Iowa got the ball past their own 30 yard-line, 2 of the 3 times they scored a touchdown. They started most of their drives though, pinned back inside their own 25 and actually did a decent job of moving the ball down-field to at least give Penn State worse field position.

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