The junior running back is making a name for himself in Iowa’s backfield this season.
By Blake Dowson
Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz is a calm guy.
Sure, his gum will fall out of his mouth every once in a while on the sidelines if there’s a blown coverage in the secondary, but overall, he has a very laid-back personality.
When he talks with the media, he likes to use a lot of the same quips week in and week out. Things like, “There’s a fine line between winning and losing in football.”
“It’s a week-to-week thing,” Ferentz said. “Really, I think what’s important for our football team right now is that we keep our focus on trying to grow and improve as a football team. That’s where our focus has to be.”
His players and the rest of his coaching staff take on the same persona, too.
Quarterback C.J. Beathard is becoming better and better at using recycled one-liners, and it’s easy to revert to that when the team isn’t winning as many games as it’s used to.
“We had a good week of practice,” Beathard said on Tuesday, and as he’s done every other Tuesday of the season.
It’s what Ferentz wants when players speak with the media, and it’s the reason freshmen aren’t allowed to speak.
But Akrum Wadley isn’t like that. He tells it how it is and doesn’t hold back if he wants his thoughts heard.
And that’s a good thing. Iowa needs more players like Wadley, who are not afraid to say the team is in trouble from time to time.
“Every win is a must-win game,” Wadley said before the Minnesota game. “With our backs against the wall, we got to come out swinging.”
And he did, with a little more than five minutes to play in a tie game against the Gophers. Wadley broke through the left side of the offensive line, broke a tackle at the second level, and outran everyone to the end zone to put the Hawkeyes up for good.
Wadley has been the most outspoken guy on the team all year, and it’s refreshing to hear a guy say, “Enough is enough,” and go out the next week and do something about it.
After losses, when players say over and over again that the team needs to go back and watch the tape, you believe them.
And when they say they don’t want to talk about past games in which the team struggled or got beat, it’s an acceptable answer.
But what Wadley expresses is real, and a team can’t have enough of those types of players.
“It was embarrassing,” Wadley said last week, referring to the 51-14 loss to Minnesota in Minneapolis in 2014. “It was a real embarrassing game for us.”
And although he hasn’t been the feature back much this season, Wadley is putting together a very solid junior campaign.
The Newark, New Jersey, native has rushed for 424 yards on 64 carries this season, only 29 fewer yards than LeShun Daniels Jr. on 21 fewer carries.
He’s as shifty as anyone in the country in open space, and he’s getting better at finding extra yards between the tackles, too.
He’s also caught 9 balls for 91 yards and a touchdown.
Wadley is becoming more and more of a staple in the offense, and he’s holding himself more accountable each week.
It’s an evolution for the running back, who has faded into the sideline in years past around this time.
“Everybody needs to stay focused,” Wadley said. “We can’t get global with our thoughts. Everybody needs to take care of his own job. [The] running backs need to take care of what we do.”