The Iowa football team may be losing as few as seven full-time starters from this years 8-4 team or as many as eleven depending on the decisions of Nate Stanley, Amani Hooker, Anthony Nelson, and TJ Hockenson which we discussed in an earlier post. While seven isn’t a ton to replace in any given season, that does leave opportunities for players next year to step in and step up in a big way. Guys who made that step this year were TJ Hockenson, AJ Epenesa, Nick Niemann, Matt Hankins, and Geno Stone.
Obviously, Hockenson’s was easily the biggest considering he went from unknown second team tight end to second team All-American and potential NFL draft pick this year.