Young skill position players have no choice but to step up for the Hawkeyes in week 1

IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) - A relatively young group will lead the Hawkeye offense onto the field on Saturday, but young doesn’t always mean inexperienced.

A perfect example is sophomore wide reciever Arland Bruce IV, who played 14 games as a true freshman.

“Those game reps and those mental reps that you get they are everything compared to practice reps,” Bruce said. “You can practice as much as you want. You don’t really know how you’re going to react until you get in (a game).”

It’s a similar story with the running backs in Iowa City. The feature backs Gavin and Leshon Williams are only redshirt sophomores, but they learned how to be starters last year at the Citrus Bowl.

“Fighting through that adversity in the bowl game kind of gave me the foundation,” Gavin WIlliams said.

Iowa’s most senior offensive starter says injuries happen, and young players don’t just get to step up, they have to.

“Football is a game of injuries every week we’re gonna have guys that we lose,” Petras said. “Beauty of the game of football is that if we go out there on Saturday and those guys play really well then there’s no issues.”

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