College Football Insider: What's Happening in Iowa City?

As someone who has followed the Iowa Hawkeyes for several years now and has seen many things happen with the Hawks in Iowa City, I am somewhat confused by all of the things that have happened to this team in the past few months.

First, we had the arrest of wide receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos for drug possession, among other things. Shortly after that, running back Adam Robinson was let go from the team after he had been caught with marijuana in his possession.

It ended up being a rough road to the Insight Bowl, but despite all of the problems the Hawkeyes prevailed and beat the Missouri Tigers in that game. The program went into the offseason knowing and hoping that they would be able to have much greater success in 2011.

Then came all of the turmoil that has happened during the last week-and-a-half. 

Just to catch you up if you haven’t heard much about the incident, the Hawkeyes football team held a practice just a few weeks after their bowl game and during this practice the coaching staff subjected the players to a very intense and very rough workout.

The result?

Thirteen players ended up in the hospital with a condition described as rhabdomyolysis. This is a condition where, due to high levels of stress on the body, cells are damaged and kidneys are forced to pass urine that is discolored. The muscle structure will break down and damage the kidneys if this condition is not treated right away.

The families of those players feel that the Hawkeyes coaching and training staffs are to blame for subjecting their sons to such a harsh workout after they hadn’t done any physical training since their bowl game.  

Those workouts were said to be very intense and weren’t the kind of workouts that those players should have been doing after that much time off. It’s also been said that the workouts were conducted because the Hawkeyes failed to finish games and were being punished for that fact.  

The damage happened over the course of four days, according to some, and ended with those players being hospitalized.  

It is common knowledge that athletes should not be worked out in the manner that these players were after such a layoff. It’s happened before (the problems suffered after workouts similar to what the Hawkeye players went through) and the staff should have known that this could cause problems for the players.

Another interesting thing that happened when the players were admitted to the hospital was that they were all tested for drugs. Perhaps this is normal procedure, but after all of the problems the Hawkeyes had suffered with players involving themselves with drugs, it was a move that was possibly necessary. All of the drug tests came back negative.

Things become strained further after head coach Kirk Ferentz remained on the recruiting trail while all of this was going on. The parents of the players that were hospitalized felt that Ferentz should have returned to Iowa City immediately to talk with them about the incident and offer his support to the players and their parents.

Ferentz didn’t even speak about the incident until well after it happened, which fueled the fire against Ferentz even further. He did end up releasing a statement about the players and their discharge from the hospital, showing his concern for the players' health and vowing to look into the matter so that it wouldn’t happen again.

Has the football program under Ferentz started to crumble?

This whole incident, coupled with the fact that he didn’t attend to the players or their parents (by answering their questions and offering support immediately), has to leave some unanswered questions.

Add that to the fact that he had some players have problems with drugs and a couple others transfer out of the program, and things aren’t looking too good in Iowa City.

This incident shows that Ferentz needs to tighten things up with his program and get back to the way things were the first three years he was in Iowa City. Ferentz needs to get back to what coaches are known for and that’s taking care of their players, speaking with parents as soon as there is a problem with their son and making sure that his team is following the rules and not breaking the law.

This incident, along with a few of the others that were mentioned and with some that have taken place over the course of the time that Ferentz has been at the University of Iowa, go to show that this program has had some problems. Granted, every program has its issues. But with good coaching and concern about the players these problems can be lessened and the program will come under less scrutiny.

Let’s just hope that Ferentz can get things under control and put the program back in a better light.