Wisconsin Hawkeyes will head back to the home state, the fullbacks are returning to the field more regularly, and Brandon Snyder will return to the surgeons.
By Courtney Baumann
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When the Iowa football heads to Madison, Wisconsin, this weekend, it will be a homecoming of sorts for a few of the Hawkeyes.
Nate Stanley and Toren Young are both from the state, and they plan to have plenty of support at the game from the people back home.
Stanley, a native of Menomonie, grew up about three hours northwest of the Wisconsin campus, and he said he will definitely know quite a few people attending the game. He didn’t have to worry too much about grabbing extra tickets, though, as many of his family and friends already them for the season.
“I’ve only had to get four … A lot of friends from high school go to Wisconsin and have tickets for the game in the student section,” Stanley said. “I haven’t had to find any more tickets, but I’d say there’s at least 150 to 200 people who I know personally who will probably be there.”
Even with his state ties, Stanley was never a big Wisconsin football fan. In fact, he said, he never really followed college football in the first place. When he paid attention, it was to the North Carolina basketball team.
Young, on the other hand, grew up right in the Badgers’ backyard — in Monona Grove, around 15 minutes from Camp Randall.
Though he was not recruited by Wisconsin, a handful of his friends were. The redshirt freshman running back looks forward to getting to see and play against the people he grew up with.
Because his hometown is just a rock’s throw away from campus, Young also expects to see plenty of people he knows at the game. The issue is trying to convert them to rooting for the Hawkeyes rather than the Badgers.
“A lot of them joke and say I hope you play well, but I hope the Badgers win,” Young said. “I think I’ve got a lot of support from family and people back home, so I think I’ll be able to convert a couple of them.”
Return of the fullbacks
After not getting a whole lot of reps at the beginning of the season, fullbacks Drake Kulick and Brady Ross are seeing more action on the field lately.
They seem to go a little unnoticed a lot of the time, but Kulick made sure to be noticed against Ohio State, when he scored the first touchdown of his career on a 2-yard pass from Stanley.
“I was pretty confident Nate was going to throw me the ball,” Kulick said. “I actually talked to him Friday, and I was like, ‘Dude, if Brian calls this play, throw me the ball. I don’t care if I’m open or not. Throw me the ball.’ ”
He caught the pass right in front of a group of Ohio State fans, and he had to have a little bit of fun with them when he had the opportunity.
“I knew if I caught it, I was going to let them know that it was now a rout. When I caught it, I yelled at them a little bit. I liked to see the dismay on their face,” Kulick said. “Thirty-one points, they were the No. 3 AP team … came into here and got put in a body bag.”
Snyder returns to OR
Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz announced Tuesday afternoon that Brandon Snyder would miss the remainder of the season.
After rebounding from an ACL tear in under six months and retuning for an explosive Homecoming game against Illinois, Snyder has not played the last few games because he re-injured the same knee. He will undergo surgery later this week.
Even with the injury, Ferentz did not waver from his belief that Snyder was ready to go when they put him in the game.
“I think everybody was very comfortable, the family, Brandon, us as coaches with what the facts were, what the odds are — I think we all felt he made the right move coming back,” Ferentz said. “We were very conservative with his return, based on what he had tested and how he had passed through all the protocol.”
A junior, Snyder will have another chance to return to the field next season. However, his chances for a redshirt are slim, Ferentz said, because he played in the Illinois game and already redshirted in 2014.
