Jordan Canzeri is anxiously awaiting his return to the game field. Iowa’s sophomore running back was impressive during Sunday’s practice in West Des Moines, a little more than a year after suffering a torn ACL in spring drills that kept him out of the 2012 season.
“I just feel like I am a lot more confident,” Canzeri says, “I took the injury as a blessing to be able to watch my teammates, to watch our ups and downs, watch practice and just be able to see from the standpoint of not being able to play, that made me really humble as to just how quickly you can can lose things. So I was just excited to go through all the rehab successfully and come back an play.”
Canzeri was cleared to play during the 2012 season but was held out of competition to preserve his redshirt. He says he just wanted to help the team out any way he could and understood the decision of the coaches to hold him out.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz is not surprised at how quickly Canzeri has returned to form. “He really practiced well last year, I was half tempted to throw him in there, it just didn’t make sense,” Ferentz says. He says Canzeri looked really good in the practice and it was good to see him out there.
Ferentz says they felt it was best for Canzeri to hold him out of last season as it didn’t seem like the right thing to put him in at the time. Canzeri is joining Mark Weisman and Damon Bullock in the battle for the starting running back spot.