It's here. It's finally, finally here. Game week. Some how we've all managed to survive the long off-season. Thankfully the Olympics provided an oasis for at least a couple of weeks in there. I've found myself spending way too much time watching "Greatest Games" on BTN with teams I don't care about and games I already know the outcome. I even watched the entirety of the GODADDY.com Bowl over the weekend just to scout Northern Illinois.

Anyway. We made it and there are real football things to talk about and a game just 5 days away. For today there are a couple of things I didn't get to last week that I'm deciding to get to now.

The running back situation

Barkley Hill is out for the season with a torn ACL. Old news, but still awful. I am just dumbfounded by the bad luck Iowa has had at running back. We've all gone through it before...pointing fingers at running back coach Lester Erb (which I still think there might be something there, or maybe not), blaming the field turf (which I don't think there is anything there), and cursing AIRBHG.

So now the running back position looks like a wide receiver, a true freshman, and a walk-on true freshman. That's not exactly encouraging. However, I do think Damon Bullock is going to surprise a lot of people this year. He may not be the most skilled runner between the tackles, but I think he will be serviceable. And, I think he'll be a real threat in the passing game.

The high school football season kicked off in Iowa and Indiana last Friday. It seems really early to be plaing change mid August, but I'm not complaining. It was a good start to the 2012 season as all three members of the Iowa 2013 recruiting class in action came away with victories.

John Kenny

W Carmel 27 - Columbus North 7 | (1-0)
John Kenny and the Carmel defense held Columbus North scoreless until the final minute of the game. The game was close during the first half, but Carmel was able to pull away with a 20-point third quarter. No mentions of Kenny were found.

Up next: at Valparaiso - 08/24

Saturday afternoon I was living vicariously through a handful of media types on Twitter than were live Tweeting Iowa's second open practice. It was more of a game day practice with real tackling, pumped in crowd noise, coordinators up in the press box...

Overshadowing the whole day, was the unfortunate injury of running back Barkley Hill. It was the final play of the scrimmage portion of the practice and it happened as Hill was crossing the line into the endzone on an 8-yard touchdown run. There hasn't been any official word on his injury, but it's his left leg and it sounds bad. Hopefully it's just a sprain and he can work his way back after the bye week. If not, he'll be looking at a redshirt year, and Iowa running back will be looking very thin once again.

On to the good news. A lot of players were back after not dressing last week: Brad Rogers, Greg Garmon, Michael Malloy, Nolan MacMillan, B.J. Lowery, to name a few. And only a couple missed practice: Brett Van Sloten, Keenan Davis, and Kevonte Martin-Manley. I don't think any of those are serious injuries.

It sounds like, even with Davis and Martin-Manley out, the offense was more in sync than last week. The tight ends were once again the stars on offense and Jake Duzey's name came up quite a few times. He's probably the number 3 tight end and will see the field on more than just special teams.

On defense Carl Davis was finally making some noise. He had a sack, knocked down a pass at the line, and had at least one other tackle for loss. B.J. Lowery, who is coming off a sprain, was the other name that came up a lot. He forced and recovered a fumble, and was good in coverage.

Besides the injury to Hill, which is really hard to overlook, the mood from practice was more upbeat than last week. It sounds like this young team is learning quickly and making strides. Hopefully that'll continue now that the kids are starting classes today and aren't able to think football 24/7. I think it will and the team will be ready to go in less than 2 weeks.

There is more change going in to this Iowa football season than there has been since Kirk Ferentz was originally hired. New coordinators, faster recruiting pace, blitzing, iPads, etc... And the latest example is the second open practice that's going to be held this weekend. What has me most interested though, is the new Hawkeye offense under Greg Davis.

We've had a couple of glimpses of the offense, and to my untrained eye it hasn't looked all that different. It's a lot of the same formations, and the running game is practically identical. There were a couple of things I haven't seen before, or in a long time...a jet sweep by Keenan Davis shown in the BTN special, and a reverse by Jordan Cotton that came off of a zone read look on Kids Day. Other than that it is mostly the routes and the reads in the passing game that are different (and I'm not savvy enough to notice).

What I think is particularly interesting though, is the way Iowa may try to create mismatches this year. I think it is going to be done using some of the versatile players on offense, and moving them around the field. I've written about this already with Brad Rogers being capable of playing fullback or running back (and it looks like Mark Weisman can do the same). Iowa has done this sort of thing before and we saw it a little last year. In the bowl game Iowa used a formation where the TEs lined up wide and the receivers were in the slot. And, throughout the year Iowa had a 5-wide formation that used a TE and RB in either slot.