Congrats to Bulaga
Former Hawkeye Bryan Bulaga was a key part in Green Bay's Super Bowl win last night. He was solid on left side of the line and protected Aaron Rogers all night. He also became the youngest player to ever start in a Super Bowl.
A year ago he helped Iowa win 11 games and the Orange Bowl. He decided to leave school after just 3 years and head to the NFL. Now he has a Super Bowl ring.
Rhabdo 13 news from the last week
I was so focused on signing day and recruiting last week that I haven't been writing at all about the updates on the Rhabdo 13. Here are a few things that happened in the past week:- All 13 have been out since last Sunday, but are now being treated as outpatients and will be required to have blood test every couple of days to ensure proper kidney function. They will not be able to return to workouts (or spring practice if it takes that long) until their blood test shows that they have sufficiently recovers.
- Kirk Ferentz's signing day presser [pdf] was supposed to be about the 24 incoming Hawkeyes, but instead was largely focused on the Rhabdo cases. Ferentz answered questions openly (at least as openly as he could) and defended the coaches, specifically Coach Doyle, and Iowa's conditioning program. A couple of big items from the presser: Iowa has done this same 100-squat workout 3 other times (2000, 2004, and 2007), and there is no evidence that any of the players did anything wrong.
- The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics fired 3 staff members and suspended 2 without pay for innapropriately accessing the electronic medical records of Iowa football players.
- Several of the players that did commit to Iowa were asked about the Rhabdo situation and if it affected their decision at all. It did not appear to slow down Iowa's recruiting at all as they added 5 players after the 13 were hospitalized. All the recruits that were asked about the situation had similar responses...they talked to the coaches about it and were confident that it won't happen again.