Quote Originally Posted by Hawkeyegoofball View Post
There are a lot of good, large framed lads in the midwest. Southern teams are missing the boat if they're not recruiting the midwest for big boys in the trenches (OL specifically...I think they've got it down on the DL side of things)...also, add in the work ethic and humility for these guys and it becomes a no brainer. The trick is identifying, attracting and developing.

A lot of Iowa's linemen are leaner than say, Wisconsin, when they get on campus...and many of them are TEs or QBs or DL in high school...but we get them on campus, put them through good S&C and have coaches who are rock solid at technique and fundamentals.

You'll see Iowa's line on Jan 1. and at first sight they won't look that big, but more like a group of power forwards. They're tall, but lean...300Lbs+ lean. And they have good feet, allowing Iowa to run zone blocking schemes. Completely different from the Badgers, who have a lot of girth/heft and work the philosophy over overpowering the opponent by mass. Either philosophy can work.
Badgers are pretty good laterally too. They?re also fairly tall and lean, they just don?t have a great QB