February 23, 2012

Defensive line a focus of Iowa spring drills

The defensive line will get plenty of attention during spring drills for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Adrian Clayborn, Christian Ballard and Karl Klug are gone from last year’s defense and a number of new faces looking to move into the lineup.

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz says it’s similar to what happened last year with the offensive line, where they had a lot of good veterans graduate, but had some good leaders coming back. He says while a number of young players will be counted on there may be more depth this year.

Ferentz says he can envision them playing 6 to 8 guys this year compared to being locked in at 5 last year. One of those in the mix is freshman Carl Davis. The 300-pound native of Michigan redshirted in 2010, and Ferentz says he probably could have been brought in a little bit, but they decided to hold him back and believes that was the right decision.