JonDMiller
Publisher/Founder
It has been an eventful day in Hawkeye Nation, and HawkeyeNation.com.
First, let's get to the press release that was shared early on Monday evening, then more thoughts to follow. The release is in italics:
IOWA CITY, IA – Sophomore running back Jewel Hampton has decided to leave the University of Iowa. And, sophomore running back Adam Robinson will not be part of the Hawkeye team that makes the trip to Arizona for the Insight Bowl. The announcement was made today by Head Football Coach Kirk Ferentz.
“Jewel Hampton has decided to leave the team and plans to transfer to another school to complete his degree and finish his career. We wish him the best of success in the future,” said Ferentz.
“While Adam has been cleared medically, he will not be participating in the upcoming Insight Bowl game as a result of failing to comply with team expectations and policies. Adam will have the option to rejoin the team when classes resume in January.”
Hampton, a 5-9, 210-pounder from Indianapolis, IN, has been plagued by injury problems during his three years at Iowa. He has rushed for 577 yards and scored eight touchdowns as a Hawkeye. He was injured in the Arizona game earlier this season and was lost for the season following surgery.
Robinson, a 5-9, 205-pound back from Des Moines, IA, led the team in rushing with 941 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground.
Hampton not playing football again for Iowa is not a shock. He has been through rehab for a torn ACL once, he knows what it takes to come back and I wondered in September if we might have seen the last of him on a football field for Iowa. However, the release gives you the impression that he intends to continue his career, which would be playing football again. We'll see if that happens.
The Adam Robinson wording was interesting, especially this part: While Adam has been cleared medically...Iowa comes right out and says he will not be participating in the bowl game and it has nothing to do with the concussions he suffered this fall. It later went on to say that he failed to comply with team expectations and policies.
Given the amount of rumors that were swirling on Monday related to Robinson and others, I realize there are several theories about what Robinson might have done to fail to comply with expectations and policies. I realize this will disappoint some, but I am not going to postulate those theories here. As it relates to Robinson, there is nothing that is a matter of record aside from what was contained in the release above. The Robinson piece ended with the statement that Robinson will have the chance to rejoin the team when classes resume in January.
Now, that leads me to believe whatever it was that Robinson did to fall out of good standing and miss the bowl game is on par with an OWI, as Iowa players have been held out of bowl games in the past due to such lapses in judgement; CJ Jones missed the 2001 Alamo Bowl for this very reason.
At the time of that suspension, Kirk Ferentz said the following:
"I'm not going into detail except to say that I expect C.J. to be back here with the start of classes in January. He is an outstanding player, and I feel he is an outstanding young man who has made a bad choice or two. I just feel like this was something I needed to do at this stage."
The suspension might very well not be related to anything like that. Remember, Robinson missed the first quarter of the Ohio State game due to 'Academic Indigestion' according to Ferentz after the loss.
We'll see what Ferentz has to say about Robinson at Tuesday's press conference. We'll also see what he has to say about Derrell Johnson-Koulianos and he will likely be asked questions related to rumors of a larger scope of problems.
This press conference was announced around 5:30pm on Monday and will take place at 10am on Tuesday. I can tell you that is not a common practice. Most Iowa press conferences are scheduled days, if not a week or more in advance, so this is out of the norm. The fact that Gary Barta will also be speaking at the press conference is not something that is 'usual' as it relates to football press conferences. He is typically at these events when bowl invitations are announced or contract extensions are announced. We've already experienced the former and I don't suspect Tuesday would be an opportune time to bring up the latter if that were in the works, and we've already gone down that road once this year.
So this could be one of the more significant press conferences Iowa has had since the summer of 2008. It would shock me if Barta was there with Ferentz for the two of them to say 'no comment' or not have anything of substance to say, but I have been shocked before. I am not ruling anything out as it relates to this press conference.
I hope that we hear that this is the end of it, and that the rampant rumors are mostly going to fall by the wayside and into the 'unfounded abyss'. I really, really hope that is the case.
Either way, we'll host a chat beginning at 9:45a central time, and you can find the link for that here. You can also enter your email to be notified when the chat begins. I will type what Ferentz and Barta are saying as they say it, or as best I can. Then afterwards, we will have a lengthy discussion in the chat room related to what they had to say.
As for the eventful day on the site, Monday set a new record for page views and visitors on a single day since we relaunched the site in October of 2009. Nearly a half million page views and more than 25,000 individual users visited the site. I just wish it would have been for much more positive reasons. We apologize for the slow load times in the afternoon and early evening. We have planned to change host companies this month, made those plans back in November and we will still do that. The new digs are already paid for, but I wish we would have made that move early last week. So thanks for bearing with the slow load times; that will not be a problem in the coming weeks, months and years. We greatly appreciate you visiting the site.
First, let's get to the press release that was shared early on Monday evening, then more thoughts to follow. The release is in italics:
IOWA CITY, IA – Sophomore running back Jewel Hampton has decided to leave the University of Iowa. And, sophomore running back Adam Robinson will not be part of the Hawkeye team that makes the trip to Arizona for the Insight Bowl. The announcement was made today by Head Football Coach Kirk Ferentz.
“Jewel Hampton has decided to leave the team and plans to transfer to another school to complete his degree and finish his career. We wish him the best of success in the future,” said Ferentz.
“While Adam has been cleared medically, he will not be participating in the upcoming Insight Bowl game as a result of failing to comply with team expectations and policies. Adam will have the option to rejoin the team when classes resume in January.”
Hampton, a 5-9, 210-pounder from Indianapolis, IN, has been plagued by injury problems during his three years at Iowa. He has rushed for 577 yards and scored eight touchdowns as a Hawkeye. He was injured in the Arizona game earlier this season and was lost for the season following surgery.
Robinson, a 5-9, 205-pound back from Des Moines, IA, led the team in rushing with 941 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground.
Hampton not playing football again for Iowa is not a shock. He has been through rehab for a torn ACL once, he knows what it takes to come back and I wondered in September if we might have seen the last of him on a football field for Iowa. However, the release gives you the impression that he intends to continue his career, which would be playing football again. We'll see if that happens.
The Adam Robinson wording was interesting, especially this part: While Adam has been cleared medically...Iowa comes right out and says he will not be participating in the bowl game and it has nothing to do with the concussions he suffered this fall. It later went on to say that he failed to comply with team expectations and policies.
Given the amount of rumors that were swirling on Monday related to Robinson and others, I realize there are several theories about what Robinson might have done to fail to comply with expectations and policies. I realize this will disappoint some, but I am not going to postulate those theories here. As it relates to Robinson, there is nothing that is a matter of record aside from what was contained in the release above. The Robinson piece ended with the statement that Robinson will have the chance to rejoin the team when classes resume in January.
Now, that leads me to believe whatever it was that Robinson did to fall out of good standing and miss the bowl game is on par with an OWI, as Iowa players have been held out of bowl games in the past due to such lapses in judgement; CJ Jones missed the 2001 Alamo Bowl for this very reason.
At the time of that suspension, Kirk Ferentz said the following:
"I'm not going into detail except to say that I expect C.J. to be back here with the start of classes in January. He is an outstanding player, and I feel he is an outstanding young man who has made a bad choice or two. I just feel like this was something I needed to do at this stage."
The suspension might very well not be related to anything like that. Remember, Robinson missed the first quarter of the Ohio State game due to 'Academic Indigestion' according to Ferentz after the loss.
We'll see what Ferentz has to say about Robinson at Tuesday's press conference. We'll also see what he has to say about Derrell Johnson-Koulianos and he will likely be asked questions related to rumors of a larger scope of problems.
This press conference was announced around 5:30pm on Monday and will take place at 10am on Tuesday. I can tell you that is not a common practice. Most Iowa press conferences are scheduled days, if not a week or more in advance, so this is out of the norm. The fact that Gary Barta will also be speaking at the press conference is not something that is 'usual' as it relates to football press conferences. He is typically at these events when bowl invitations are announced or contract extensions are announced. We've already experienced the former and I don't suspect Tuesday would be an opportune time to bring up the latter if that were in the works, and we've already gone down that road once this year.
So this could be one of the more significant press conferences Iowa has had since the summer of 2008. It would shock me if Barta was there with Ferentz for the two of them to say 'no comment' or not have anything of substance to say, but I have been shocked before. I am not ruling anything out as it relates to this press conference.
I hope that we hear that this is the end of it, and that the rampant rumors are mostly going to fall by the wayside and into the 'unfounded abyss'. I really, really hope that is the case.
Either way, we'll host a chat beginning at 9:45a central time, and you can find the link for that here. You can also enter your email to be notified when the chat begins. I will type what Ferentz and Barta are saying as they say it, or as best I can. Then afterwards, we will have a lengthy discussion in the chat room related to what they had to say.
As for the eventful day on the site, Monday set a new record for page views and visitors on a single day since we relaunched the site in October of 2009. Nearly a half million page views and more than 25,000 individual users visited the site. I just wish it would have been for much more positive reasons. We apologize for the slow load times in the afternoon and early evening. We have planned to change host companies this month, made those plans back in November and we will still do that. The new digs are already paid for, but I wish we would have made that move early last week. So thanks for bearing with the slow load times; that will not be a problem in the coming weeks, months and years. We greatly appreciate you visiting the site.
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