Hawkeyes Ready To Get Back Together
Austin Schulte has spent his college football career working in practice against Iowa’s offensive linemen.
This spring, Schulte has been working against his brother, who is a freshman in high school.
“It’s a little different going against your brother, whose, like, 190 pounds, versus (offensive tackles) Tristan Wirfs and (Alaric Jackson) last year,” Schulte said, smiling.
It’s what life has been like for the Hawkeyes since the COVID-19 pandemic closed Iowa’s campus and sent many of the players home.
Iowa, coming off a 10-3 season with a win over USC in the Holiday Bowl, didn’t even get to have spring practice.
Schulte, a defensive tackle, went back to his home in Pella, Iowa. Defensive end Chauncey Golston and wide receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette stayed in Iowa City.
Each player talked during Thursday’s video conference about their challenges of staying ready as campuses, and college facilities, will start to open again.
“Sometimes you wake up, and without having a structured day, you’re like, ‘Hmmm, do I actually want to go downstairs to my garage to lift?’” Golston said. “Yeah, I’m going to do it. But if I’m in a facility, there’s no asking myself if I’m going to do it. You have to do it. I really want to get back in there, be around my guys again.”
“I can’t wait to be back with everybody,” Smith-Marsette said. “It’s going to feel good. It’s going to feel like a fresh first day of school, when you go to school after being off for a long summer. So I can’t wait to get back, see my friends, be able to be back with people that love the game of football.”
Golston and his fellow housemates, all Iowa football players, have tried to find fields for workouts since they couldn’t get on Iowa’s fields. But they got
“Some of them you try to go to, and they, like, kick you off or whatever,” Golston said.
They tried Iowa City West High School, and then City High’s fields. They eventually found a park, but the grass surface was different than what they were used to with the turf at Iowa’s facility.
“We never got kicked off, but it was grass, and then it started to rain more,” Golston said. “That wasn’t really productive, people started slipping and sliding more.”
Smith-Marsette was able to work with quarterback Spencer Petras, in line to be the starter this season, center Tyler Linderbaum, and some other offensive players.
Schulte was able to set up an area to lift weights in his garage at home, building a weight bench and a squat rack. He also installed a pull-up bar.
“You definitely find out your true colors,” he said. “You find out how good you are adjusting on the fly. When you don’t have any control over the situation, that’s all you can do — make the most of a bad situation.”
The players know the concerns about how a college football season will look. The NCAA has lifted the ban on voluntary on-campus facilities starting June 1, but the Big Ten has not lifted its moratorium. There is talk of games without fans in the stands.
“It will have some impact, I believe,” Smith-Marsette said when asked about what games without fans would be like. “I feel like the way Kinnick (Stadium) is built, it’s meant to have fans in it, how closely packed it is, how loud it gets, just the feeling you get when other teams walk in there. But if it’s played without fans, you still have to show up to play. I’m going to show up to play. I believe everyone on my team is going to show up to play. I’m pretty sure we can just play a game with pads popping all day.”
“A big part of playing at home is getting your fans into it,” Golston said.”Without having that momentum, it’s like, yeah, it’s a game, but it feels like a scrimmage.
“It’s not as loud. It’s not as intense.”
For now, the players wait.
“I’m super, super excited to get back, whenever that is,” Schulte said. “You definitely do miss being around the guys, being in that environment of competitiveness. It’s hard to have that when you’re by yourself.
“There are definitely concerns with how everything’s going to operate. Obviously, the logistics of everybody getting back together is just unknown. But at the end of the day, we’ll have to adjust the best we can.”
“I want to get in there as soon as possible,” Golston said.
“There’s definitely a lot of unfinished business I want to complete, the team wants to complete,” Smith-Marsette said. “If we get the chance to, we’re going to go out there and prove it. If we don’t, we don’t. But I believe we’ll be able to.
“As far as everyone coming back together, I’m not too worried about it. When we’ll be back together, we’ll be back together. It will be all fun. Well, maybe not all fun.”
