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There is a shuffle at linebackers on this week’s Hawkeye depth chart released today for Saturday’s game against Michigan.
Tyler Nielsen is listed as the starting middle linebacker, with James Morris moving to the “will” linebacker position and Christian Kirksey shifting to the outside linebacker spot that Nielsen initially filled this season.
The changes are among the first this season on the pre-game depth chart, although Nielsen moved into the middle position last weekend at Minnesota and Morris lined up outside.
The depth chart also lists Keenan Davis as a starter at wide receiver and Tom Nardo as a starting defensive tackle. Both missed the game with the Golden Gophers because of injuries.
Also today, the Big Ten announced that ESPN and ABC have taken a six-day option allowed in their contract with the conference for games being played on Nov. 12.
All conference games being played on that date remain under consideration for telecast by ABC or ESPN on that date, leaving the starting time for the Hawkeyes’ home finale against Michigan State that date undetermined.
The networks have until next Monday to decide which games they will air.
Stay tuned…

Minnesota added its name to the list of offenses which have found room to roam through, over and around the Iowa football team’s defense this season.
The Gophers – who had totaled 177, 213 and 254 yards of offense – against their first three Big Ten opponents piled up 371 against Iowa on Saturday.
It wasn’t so much the yards as it was the how and when that created the problem for Iowa, which surrendered scoring drives of 80 and 59 yards to Minnesota in the fourth quarter with the game on the line.
“Fatigue wasn’t a factor, it was execution,” linebacker Tyler Nielsen said.
Defensive end Broderick Binns said the Hawkeyes found themselves out of position to make plays as the Golden Gophers overcame a 21-10 deficit to earn a 22-21 victory and retain possession of Floyd of Rosedale in consecutive years for the first time in over a decade.
“We weren’t coasting,” Binns said. “I think more or less it was us not being in the right positions to just make the plays.”
Eight games into the season, those words are somewhat disturbing.
Iowa has dealt with injury issues – Tom Nardo missed his third straight start on a line that needs contributions for every body it can muster and linebacker Anthony Hitchens missed his fourth straight game – but that sholdn’t be an excuse for a defense which has allowed 395, 495, 414 and 371 yards during the Hawkeyes’ 2-2 Big Ten start.
Minnesota quarterback MarQueis Gray deserves some credit. He showed poise and leadership as the Gophers rallied for their first Big Ten win since beating the Hawkeyes in Minneapolis a year ago, picking apart Iowa with his arm and his feet.
And in the end, Iowa’s inability to contain – a season-long problem for the Hawkeyes – allowed Gray to reach the end zone on a 3-yard run with the game-winning score.
Gray, however, is a mere warm-up act to the challenges that await the Hawkeyes the next two weeks.
Denard Robinson of Michigan and Kirk Cousins of Michigan State present Iowa with two different, but equally effective styles of slicing apart opposing defenses.
“It’s all about being prepared,” Binns said.
And that has remained a somewhat elusive objective for the Hawkeyes this season.

It’s been nearly a year since the Iowa football team won a true road game.
The Hawkeyes have gone winless in four tries since Damarlo Belcher dropped a pass in the end zone in the final seconds to allow the Hawkeyes to hold on for an 18-13 win at Indiana on Nov. 6, 2010.
The string of losses includes a 27-24 defeat at Minnesota a year ago, and this week’s thoughts inside the Iowa football program include avenging that defeat.
“We haven’t won on the road and that is something that good teams do. It’s something that we need to do,” Iowa quarterback James Vandenberg said.
Coach Kirk Ferentz sees success away from home as another step in the progression a young football team needs to make after winning a couple of conference games at home.
“It’s the next big challenge that is in front of us,” Ferentz said. “There is no mystique about being in a different place. It’s just how you handle things and how you play that given day.
“We certainly didn’t handle things well up in Minneapolis last year. We didn’t deserve to win. They did. It’s about as simple as that.”
Defensive end Broderick Binns sees returning to his state as a perfect opportunity to turn that around.
“A lot of it comes down to being ready to play,” he said. “We’ve got go up there ready. They were ready for us last year. We weren’t ready for them. It’s tough to explain, but it’s easy to try to fix it.”

New Iowa linebacker A.J. Derby expects to receive plenty of instant feedback as he adjusts to his new role on the Iowa football team.
His father, John, was an all-Big Ten linebacker for the Hawkeyes in the 1980s and the converted quarterback said his father is excited to have another linebacker in the family.
“He said he’ll critique me once I start playing,” the former Iowa City High standout said.
That will come with time.
Derby was simply glad to have a chance today to compete on special teams.
“I still have a lot to learn at linebacker. The technique stuff is different, but it did feel good to be out on the field,” he said.
Derby’s playing time was limited to special teams on Saturday and he recorded a tackle on his first opportunity.
“That felt pretty good,” he said. “I want to do what is best for the team and if I can help this way, then that’s what I want to do.”
Derby talked the position change over with his father and brother, Iowa tight end Zach Derby, before returning to tell coaches a couple hours after a meeting on Tuesday that he was willing to change positions.
“I hadn’t thought about it at all until I met with coach (Kirk) Ferentz on Tuesday morning,” he said. “I’m excited about it.”
Ferentz said that gives Derby a chance to make the position change work.
“If the player doesn’t embrace it, don’t even bother. That has been my experience,” Ferentz said. “It’s up to the player to make it work.”
Derby knows it is now up to him to make that happen at a position where injuries and departures have left the Hawkeyes with razor-thin depth.
“I’m going to go out, bust it every day and see how much I can make of it,” the redshirt freshman said. “The coaches, they’ll determine when I’m ready to take the field at the position.”
And when that happens, Derby knows he’ll be closely watched.
“Dad’s pretty excited about it, and I am, too,” Derby said.

Long before San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh and Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz endured a less-than-friendly postgame exchange Sunday, they had something in common with Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz.
All three were employed by the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens in 1998.
Harbaugh was still playing at that time, Schwartz was a defensive assistant and Ferentz was the assistant head coach and offensive line coach in Baltimore that season.
The interaction between Harbaugh and Schwartz following the 49ers’ 25-19 win over the Lions on Sunday led Ferentz to reflect a bit today on the pair.
“Jim Harbaugh was a spontaneous kind of guy. That was his personality. Jim Schwartz, he was much more reserved,” Ferentz said.
Those traits intersected Sunday shortly after San Francisco scored the game-winning touchdown with a little over a minute remaining to hand Detroit its first loss of the season.
Harbaugh sprinted across the field, offered an aggressive handshake to Schwartz and then slapped him on the back.
That led to a quick confrontation between the two and the pair had to be separated.
Wrapped up in preparations for his own team’s game with Indiana this week, Ferentz first learned of the situation late Sunday night when caught a glimpse of it on a highlight show on television.
“Those guys are getting a lot of air time this week,” Ferentz said. “If nothing else, it gives people something to talk about.”

The numbers did not necessarily add up tonight for the Iowa football team, but in the end the only number that mattered was the digit the Hawkeyes were able to their win total.
“When they came back, we stepped up,” Iowa running back Marcus Coker said. “At that point, I think we expected it of ourselves, we expected it of each other and we got it done. We had to find a way to win this game.”
Iowa found that way to earn its first win since 2007 over Northwestern despite some strange statistics.
The Wildcats ran 92 plays in the game, 42 more than the Hawkeyes were able to run.
Northwestern, a team which had struggled to convert third-down plays throughout the season, converted on 16-of-22 opportunities against the Hawkeyes.
The Hawkeyes turned the ball over just once, on an interception thrown by James Vandenberg, but Northwestern managed to own a lopsided edge in possession time, holding onto the football for 38 minutes, 23 seconds. The Hawkeyes had the ball in their hands for a season-low 21:37.
Northwestern piled up 495 yards of offense, 116 more than the Hawkeyes but Iowa helped itself by averaging 7.6 yards per play, more than 2 yards better than the Wildcats.
Somehow at the end of the day, all of those numbers didn’t matter.
They left coaches and players alike scratching their heads.
“It’s about points and offense,” Wildcats coach Pat Fitzgerald said. “I think we stopped ourselves with turnovers and obviously some self-inflicted wounds. … So it starts with us as coaches. What are we asking them to do? Why are they confused? Why are they on different pages? It’s not like Iowa did anything different than they typically do.”
The Hawkeyes did overcome some things as well and Iowa responded when Northwestern battled its way back from a 17-point deficit.
“There’s a lot we can learn from this,” defensive back Micah Hyde said. “It was a good learning situation for our team. We rose up when we needed to, made some big plays, overcame some adversity. It’s a step forward for us, and the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many yards or how many you give up, it’s about finding ways to be successful and win games. That is what matters the most. That is what everybody will remember.”

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz refers to his program as a developmental operation from time to time.
He’s right – and the Hawkeyes are not alone.
About 90 percent of college football programs are developmental operations when you really look at it. Many of those fail more than they succeed.
Iowa has given itself a chance to compete at the game’s highest level because it understands what it is, that development of players from the time they arrive on campus until the time they see their first action is critical to the program’s overall chances for success.
“I think if you look at college football, there are a handful of teams that have great population bases, great resources. Look at stadiums — common sensical things I think — and it really has not changed much over 30, 40 years, probably longer than that, what schools those are,” Ferentz said.
“They start on the inside track and there’s others that start way on the outside and there’s some in the middle. That fluctuates year to year, but there are some teams on that inside lane each and every year.”
That’s not Iowa.
Never has been.
Never will be.
That is one of the reasons that Iowa’s recent success – eight finishes over .500 in the last 10 seasons under Ferentz and 13 in 20 years under his predecessor, Hayden Fry – is something not to be taken for granted.
Ferentz, like Fry, understood the need to develop players and prepare them to compete at the Big Ten level.
Iowa has never been a school that floods of five-star recruits have gravitated toward. It has been a school where players with a desire to work hard, develop skills and accept teaching have been able to thrive over time.
Collectively, that can lead to success as a team. There are no guarantees.
Ferentz said he enjoys watching teams grow and work toward their potential.
As Penn State illustrated to Iowa last week, this group of Hawkeyes has room to grow.
The journey is part of the process when you are a developmental operation, a ride Ferentz enjoys traveling.
“One of the cool things about sports is that nobody knows – as much as we all want to say we know – that this or that is going to happen,” Ferentz said. “That’s what I think makes sports interesting.”

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said today he felt “terrible” for Mike Stoops, the former Hawkeye who was fired as Arizona’s head coach on Monday.
He also accurately pointed out that in-season and now mid-season ousters of struggling coaches are part of the environment in college athletics.
It’s an environment that administrators alone did not create. With escalating salaries, coaches share in the reasoning that the end can now come before the end of the season for those who do not win enough games.
“It’s part of the territory anymore,” Ferentz said during his weekly news conference.
“There is a lot of pressure on the people making decisions and as the stakes go up, there is an upside and a downside. Rightly or wrongly, college sports have become a lot like pro sports in that way and if you aren’t ready to deal with it, don’t sign up for it.”

When you climb a mountain, you typically start at the bottom.
The Iowa football team did just that today in a sputtering, wheezing performance at Penn State which illustrated that Hawkeyes have a long climb in front of them.
Iowa was the fifth team of the six Penn State has played which failed to gain 300 yards and the fifth team that the Nittany Lions held below 100 yards rushing so the Hawkeyes are not the first team to leave the field against Penn State wondering what just hit it.
With Mt. Nittany as a backdrop, a Penn State defense which ranks in the top 10 nationally in four statistics taught Iowa that it has plenty of work to do if it hopes to play its way among the leaders in the in the Big Ten Legends Division.
The no-huddle look which allowed Iowa to craft a historic comeback against Pittsburgh and enjoy a strong start a week later against Louisiana-Monroe comes with no guarantee of success in the trenches of battle in the Big Ten.
Penn State switched defensive looks on nearly every snap Saturday and sent plenty of blitzes in the direction of quarterback James Vandenberg.
The junior got a taste of the degree of difficulty that accompanies playing some of the top defensive teams in the league.
It was a collaborative effort, however. Iowa receivers did not help matters, dropping a half-dozen passes which would have kept drives alive.
The combination led to a long day on the start of the Hawkeyes’ journey through an eight-game Big Ten schedule.
It also leaves Iowa with an opportunity, something coach Kirk Ferentz was quick to point out following the game.
“We have a team that’s capable of growing. Each time out, we have to get better,” he said. “We have to learn. If we do that, we’ll become a better football team. That’s where our focus is.”
The climb continues one week from today when Northwestern visits Kinnick Stadium.

There is no shortage of ties between Kirk Ferentz and the Penn State program.
His wife Mary’s brother, Kevin Hart, was a linebacker who lettered for the Nittany Lions in 1976.
His father-in-law, Gerry Hart, played football with Penn State coach Joe Paterno at Brooklyn Prep.
And, a nephew, Mike Hart, was a quarterback in the Penn State program in the past decade.
That hasn’t created many awkward moments lately when the family gets together.
“In my time since coming back to Iowa, it’s never been an issue,” Ferentz said.
There was a time, though, when things were different.
“Early in my career, when I was a grad assistant at Pitt, that was no picnic,” Ferentz recalled earlier this week.
“It was like two sides of the Berlin Wall then. Penn State and Pitt were real rivals then, both good, and the in-laws never warmed up to that, not at all,” Ferentz said. “Now, it’s all friendly. We’re all family.”