Injuries haven’t been a huge issue for Iowa this season.
Wide receiver Jarriett Buie has missed the entire season with an undisclosed injury, and tight end Addision Ostrenga got hurt against Iowa State and has missed the rest of the season since. Outside of that, and an early-season injury to wide receiver Reece Vander Zee, the Hawkeyes haven’t really dealt with many long-term injuries this year. And they’re hoping to keep that trend going.
Two key seniors missed last week’s game against Michigan State with injuries: tight end Hayden Large and cornerback TJ Hall. Large has been instrumental in the blocking game for a strong Iowa rushing attack, while Hall has been the best coverage corner on the team. And after both of them weren’t on the depth chart for the Nebraska game, concerns continued to grow that they wouldn’t be available for Friday’s game.
Kirk Ferentz had his weekly media availability on Tuesday and shed some light on how Large and Hall are doing, and what their availability could be for Friday’s matchup with the Cornhuskers.
Kirk Ferentz shares key injury update
Here’s what Ferentz had to say about how Large and Hall are doing at the moment:
“Injury front, both TJ Hall and then Hayden Large were able to work a little bit today and yesterday, but I’m not sure if they’ll make it or not. We’ll have to wait and see how the week pans out, but they’ve both made a lot of progress. Probably more so than we’ve anticipated. We’ll see. I don’t know. We still have a couple more days for them to recover, and hopefully they’ll be able to contribute a little bit, but we’ll see how that goes,” Ferentz said.
It’s great news that Ferentz didn’t rule out either player for the game, and that some significant progress is being made on both fronts. It’s the final regular-season game in an Iowa uniform for both players, so they’re going to be chomping at the bit to get out there and play. And it seems like they may be making enough progress in their rehab for Ferentz to give them that opportunity. Both of them would give Iowa a huge jolt heading into this rivalry game.
Iowa and Nebraska will kick off at 11:00 a.m. on Friday in Lincoln, Nebraska. The game can be seen on CBS.
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: Iowa football shares key injury updates before date vs. Nebraska
Reporting by Zach Hiney, Hawkeyes Wire / Hawkeyes Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
