I haven't seen anything official yet, but it's all over the message boards: Jewel Hampton badly injured his knee on Friday. Here's links to the story from Des Moines Register and from boards on Hawkeye Nation and Hawkeye Report. People are saying it's everything from a season ending torn ACL to a minor knee sprain.
Hampton was expected to be the successor to Shonn Greene this year and be the Hawkeyes go to guy in the running game. As a true freshman Hampton ran for 463 yards on 91 attempts and scored 7 touchdowns. He did suffer a minor injury during the spring, but it only slowed him down for a few days. This new injury leaves the door open for Jeff Brinson and incoming freshman Brandon Wegher, but neither back has even played a down in college. Paki O'Meara is the most experienced back, but was not expected to be the starter this year. I suspect if Hampton's injury really is serious, we will see all 3 of those guys splitting the load.
In other news, linebacker Jacody Coleman has decided to transfer. There was speculation earlier in the spring that he was going to leave but decided to stay and redshirt during the 2009 season. Coleman was stuck behind Pat Angerer on the depth chart, but figured to be the starter for 2010 and 2011. With his departure it makes the commitment of 3 linebackers in the 2010 class even more important. Though I wrote on Thursday that the "neediness" level for linebackers is low, however, Coleman's transfer hurts the depth at linebacker and another commitment at linebacker would definitely be helpful.
Anyway, that's all pretty bad news for the Fourth of July. At least there is only 9 weeks until football starts up again.