Iowa Football: Hawkeyes posts depth chart for Showdown with Penn State

When the Iowa Hawkeyes entered Week 5 of the college football season, there was a lot of dismay around their top-5 placement and how the team would hold up when they hit the calendar teeth. Big Ten. Many of these questions were answered on Friday evening.

Iowa completely dominated the previously undefeated Maryland on Friday night and now enter week six in third place in the country. Most Hawkeye fans and media talking heads have come to accept that, regardless of individual talent or star rating, Iowa deserves to be mentioned among the top teams in the country.

But a new test awaits them as they host No.4 Penn State in the Top 5’s first game at Kinnick Stadium since the No.1 Hawkeyes defeated the No.2 Michigan Wolverines in 1985.

Ahead of this clash, the Hawkeyes released a new depth chart on Monday and, somewhat surprisingly, we have a reshuffle along the offensive line.

Here’s a look at the pre-game situation against Penn State.

Image via HawkeyeSports.com

Notables Noted

• Kyler Schott is your new starter at LG. He was listed as an RG substitute a week ago, but started at LG against Maryland. he played on 56% of Iowa’s offensive snaps in the game, but it’s worth noting that Iowa’s offense turned into 11 different linemen during the game given the glowing nature.
• With Schott back at LG, Cody Ince comes out of the starting rotation to save LG. It brings rookie Tyler Elsbury out of both depths… to that position.
• True freshman Connor Colby, like Schott, finds himself officially listed as a starter this week after actually making the start in Maryland. He played one less snap than Schott in this one and looked pretty good doing it.
• With Colby as a starter, Justin Britt slips to the backup spot. It should be noted that despite being the replacement, he only played two snaps less than Colby (42) against Maryland.
• The only other change this week is the aforementioned landing point for Elsbury. After being moved as a replacement at LG, he finds himself listed as a replacement at RT behind Nick DeJong. This is the place previously occupied by Colby.

No changes to note on the defensive side (as you’d expect given how great this whole unit looked) or on the special teams. This week will be interesting to follow upstream. The Iowa offensive line struggled a bit early, but looked very solid against Maryland.

The Hawkeyes continue to spin several players on the line. As stated, 11 different linemen got reps. But we saw 7 different players registering at least 42 reps (53% of total offensive plays). That is to say, the rotation did not really decrease very much. At some point, George Barnett, Brian Ferentz and the Iowa offense are going to have to settle into their top 5 and let them freeze.

Iowa and Penn State are set for a 3 p.m. CT Saturday kickoff. This week’s game will air on FOX with Iowa City, the location of FOX’s Big Noon Saturday pre-game show. The game will be Iowa’s annual “mind game” with sections wearing black or gold depending on the number.