IOWA CITY — For as vaunted as Iowa's tight end, linebacker and secondary rooms have become, one position group that national acclaim continues to elude is the Hawkeye backfield. Some of that is structural — Iowa's offensive line has struggled for years to clear running lanes for its ballcarriers with consistency — but some has also just been a backfield in search of its bell cow.
On the 2024 Hawkeyes, the leader emerging from the crowded backfield just might be a freshman — albeit a familiar face.
Iowa's Week 1 depth chart somewhat surprisingly placed redshirt freshman Kamari Moulton ahead of senior RB Leshon Williams (eight starts in 2023) and junior Kaleb Johnson (five starts in 2023).
"I figured that might get everybody's attention," Ferentz said wryly at his Tuesday press conference. "Leshon's missed some time — he's had an injury that nagged throughout camp, so Kamari got a lot of work [with the first string] this August. The other component is Kamari's done a really nice job."
Moulton played in four games last year, preserving his redshirt; he finished with a mostly unremarkable 27 rushes for 93 yards and two touchdowns. The 5'9" tailback has bulked up from 185 pounds to 197 in the offseason, and as he's grown as a Hawkeye tailback, the respect from teammates has followed.
"Kamari's an awesome dude," said starting quarterback Cade McNamara at Tuesday's media availability. "He's definitely one of the favorites on the team. Me and the rest of the guys can't wait to see what he does this year."
"[Kamari] is just a ball of enjoyment," said cornerback Jermari Harris. "When you talk to him, he's always smiling, and he plays like that on the field. Hard-nosed running, [he can] get downhill, great vision. I think he's showed that over the last couple weeks."
It should also be noted, though, that Iowa's depth chart at running back is little more than a week-by-week snapshot of a deep, dynamic unit. A different running back led the Hawkeyes in rushing yards in each of the first four games of 2023 — Johnson, Jaziun Patterson, Williams and Moulton, in order — and all told, Iowa had three running backs start games last year.
"There's competition, and that's what you really want in the room," said running backs coach Ladell Betts, a former Hawkeye RB and nine-year NFL veteran in his fourth year coaching for Kirk Ferentz in Iowa City. "You want to have depth, you want to have competition, especially at the running back position. It's a grueling position. At any given moment a guy can go down and we need another ballcarrier in there, and I think we have that."
Iowa used five scholarship running backs last year (plus walk-on Max White, mostly a special teamer). That's a lot of mouths to feed, especially everyone eligible to return in 2024. In today's near-lawless transfer portal world, it's easier than ever for talented players to find playing time elsewhere — or for unscrupulous coaches to promise it to secure a transfer. Indeed, Johnson said he received numerous inquiries from other NCAA teams, despite never officially entering the transfer portal.
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Instead, Iowa's entire backfield decided to return to the team in 2024. They're running backs; it's rather appropriate that they're going to "run it back."
"I think [everyone returning] speaks to the culture of the team," Betts said. "And then there's a little bit of stagger: Leshon's kind of fifth-year, KJ's in his third, Jaz is in his third but he's a redshirt sophomore. So they're not 'stacked up;' for them, they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak."
Williams ended last season with a firm grasp on the starting role, but minor offseason injuries kept him sidelined for much of camp. Ferentz said Williams has had a few practices to round back into form, though the time off still plays a factor.
"Leshon has only been back maybe 10 days, and it looks like he’s good to go," Ferentz said. "It’s just he had a long, nagging injury that took a while to work through, but happy he’s back."
Johnson, meanwhile, looked like the heir apparent at tailback in 2022, with a sparkling freshman season that saw him rush for 762 yards, six touchdowns and a stellar 5.6 yards per carry. A preseason leg injury hampered him, though, and his production dropped across the board, finishing with 429 yards and three scores on 110 carries — a jarring drop to just 3.9 yards per rush as Johnson was limited to 10 games.
But it's all about Moulton in the backfield, at least for Week 1 — a culmination of the strongest offseason in the backfield.
"He started to look comfortable and did a lot of good things [in bowl prep], did a good job in the spring and has just been consistent all the way through August," said Ferentz. "I feel pretty good about the group. I’m eager to see them play, and Kamari especially, we haven’t really seen him go in game activity."
"Everybody that we recruit can run the football, but what else can you do?" said Betts. "So for [Moulton], I feel like he's becoming a solid pass protector, and more importantly he's able to catch the ball out of the backfield — something he needed to work on coming out of high school.
Betts noted at Media Day that while the job of keeping his backfield happy with one ball to go around is a Good Problem to have, it's still a problem — and redshirt freshman Terrell Washington Jr.'s move to a hybrid RB/WR role (and true freshman Brevin Doll entering the program at WR) reflects the team's desire to get its best players on the field, logjammed depth chart be damned.
"Keeping them happy is the hard part," Betts said. "Everybody naturally wants to have the football in their hands; I don't care if you're a wide receiver, tight end, whatever. And there's only one football. But you see it moreso at running back. The only position that has it worse than us is quarterback; there's usually only one of them on the field at the same time.
Still, though, competition means winners and losers — for snaps, carries and yards — and that's just an Iowa football dynamic.
"I also tell them this: you're free to go wherever you want to go, if that's what you choose," Betts said. "But you have to understand: no matter where you go, you're going to face competition. You're not going to walk into any room where there's no other running backs, so it's just the nature of the position."
For now, at least, Moulton is the standard-bearer of the backfield. It might last a week, it might last all season. How that shakes out may go a long way in determining whether Iowa can not only rely on its run game in 2024, but excel with it.
