This is the first in a series of position-by-position looks at the Iowa football team for 2010.

Projected starters – Ends Adrian Clayborn (6-4, 285, sr.) and Broderick Binns (6-2, 261, jr.); tackles Karl Klug (6-4, 270, sr.) and Christian Ballard (6-5, 297, sr.)

Top reserves – Mike Daniels ((6-1, 275, jr.), Lebron Daniel (6-2, 250, jr.), Joe Forgy (6-4, 255, jr.), Thomas Nardo (6-3, 277, jr.), Steve Bigach (6-3, 272, so.)

Futures — Dominic Alvis (6-4, 240, fr.), Mike Hardy 6-5, 270, fr.), Carl Davis (6-5, 295, fr.), Louis Trinca-Pasat (6-3, 250, fr.), Anthony Ferguson (6-3, 280, fr.), Martin Hopkins (6-3, 250, fr.), Scott Covert (6-2, 245, fr.), Donavan Johnson (6-3, 265, fr.)

All four starters return and almost all the position ratings assembled by preseason magazines rate this as the premier defensive line in the country. There not only is ample talent, but it’s a nice mix of styles.

Clayborn is a 285-pound monster with the mobility of a linebacker. He’s on pretty much every preseason All-American team and has been projected to go as high as No. 2 in the next NFL draft. Klug, who played at 256 pounds last year, is a relentless agitator in the mold of Mitch King. Binns also is on the small side, but has long arms and batted down nine passes last season. Ballard, who started at defensive end in 2008, is the unsung hero, a reliable, rock-solid performer who also is likely to show up in the NFL someday. He originally came in as a tight end, but now weighs 297.

The coaching staff regards junior Mike Daniels as a fifth starter and junior Lebron Daniel also might be good enough to start for some other teams. He is likely to start the opener with Eastern Illinois while Binns serves a one-game suspension.

There are five true freshmen at this position, including a few players — Davis, Hardy, Ferguson — who arrive with more size than the Hawkeyes generally have had in the defensive line.

It’s been a long, relatively quiet summer – for everyone except maybe Broderick Binns, Jewel Hampton and Jordan Bernstine – but things are about to start gearing up again. The Big Ten will hold its football media day this week, the Iowa resumes practice later in the week and the Hawkeyes will hold their own media day on Friday.

The Big Ten media day always brings little bits of information, mixed with lots of posturing and happy talk from the coaches. Each coach will have 15 minutes in a massive group interview with the media on Monday, then reporters have a chance to speak to the coaches and three players from each team in a one-on-one setting on Tuesday morning. Iowa’s three players in attendance will be Ricky Stanzi, Adrian Clayborn and Karl Klug.

The big topic of discussion Monday figures to be the expansion of the Big Ten – commissioner Jim Delany also will get 15 minutes at the podium – and I would think Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz will have some information on what sort of punishments will be levied against Binns, Hampton and Bernstine, all of whom had brushes with the law during the summer.

We will have coverage of Monday’s activities in a live blog at Hawkmania.com and qctimes.com from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will have updates throughout the week from both the Big Ten and Hawkeyes media days.

Iowa may or may not have one of its best football teams ever next fall.

One thing that does seem certain: It will be one of the deepest teams it has had.

The Hawkeyes will be pretty well insulated against injuries at almost every position except pos-sibly the offensive line and safety. Everywhere else, there are pretty good players waiting in the wings in case the starter goes down.

A look at the Hawkeyes by position following spring drills:

Quarterback: Ricky Stanzi is going into his third season as the starter and should be less turn-over-prone. That was a major point of emphasis in the spring. James Vandenberg showed last sea-son that he can be a capable backup and you get the feeling southpaw John Wienke gained ground on Vandenberg in the spring. The coaches said he made a major step up and you could see it in the spring scrimmage. Wienke looked crisper and more accurate than Vandenberg that day.

Running back: If Jewel Hampton, Adam Robinson and Brandon Wegher all are healthy, this is going to be very interesting. Robinson may have a slight edge in some of the little things like pick-ing up the blitz, but the other two probably are more elusive and have a bigger upside. It’s almost guaranteed that one of them will get hurt anyway. If more than one gets hurt, I still think there is a chance freshman Marcus Coker could be a factor right away.

Fullback: Senior Brett Morse is solid and there’s not a ton of drop-off to junior Wade Leppert. This isn’t an every-down position anyway.

Wide receiver: Marvin McNutt and Derrell Johnson-Koulianos have a chance to be the Hawk-eyes’ best receiver tandem since … well, maybe ever. Colin Sandeman and Paul Chaney are pretty good, too. If Keenan Davis improves as much as the coaches hope and Jordan Cotton continues to progress and 6-foot-6 Don Nordmann is as good as he looked in the spring scrimmage, they’re loaded.

Tight end: Don’t be surprised if Allen Reisner duplicates the statistical numbers Tony Moeaki provided last year although he’s probably not going to be as good a blocker. Brad Herman and Jonathan Gimm apparently made strides as the backups this spring but they still might have trou-ble holding off high school All-American C.J. Fiedorowicz, who should be game-ready when he arrives.

Offensive line: There is good depth at center, where James Ferentz and Josh Koeppel are bat-tling for the starting job, but this is one place the depth is a bit thin. There are a lot of big bodies behind Riley Reiff, Julian Vandervelde, Markus Zusevics and Adam Gettis but apparently no one who is ready to play with any sort of consistency. Coach Kirk Ferentz said converted defensive lineman Cody Hundertmark is the closest to being ready. If no one steps forward in the fall, there may be an opportunity for Ohio high school star Andrew Donnal to see playing time as a true freshman.

Defensive line: The Hawkeyes may be deeper than ever here. All four starters – Adrian Clay-born, Karl Klug, Christian Ballard and Broderick Binns – return intact with Clayborn and appar-ently Klug primed for starring roles. And some of us have felt for some time that Ballard ranks among the most underrated players on this team. Backup tackle Mike Daniels is good enough to start for half the teams in the Big Ten and young ends LeBron Daniel and Dominic Alvis have emerged as potential stars of the future. Pencil in Daniels and Daniel as certain starters for 2011.

Linebacker: This is another area where the competition has been fierce. Jeremiha Hunter is a third-year starter and Jeff Tarpinian and Tyler Nielsen have emerged as the starters at the other two spots, but Bruce Davis and Troy Johnson are still pushing. Even long-time walk-on Ross Peter-sen looked good in the spring scrimmage. You’ll still see some true freshman play here in the fall, though, as the Hawkeyes brace for the future. Hunter, Tarpinian, Johnson and Petersen are seniors and Davis and Nielsen are juniors.

Cornerback: Shaun Prater is solidly entrenched on one side and sophomore Micah Hyde may be a future star on the other side. Jordan Bernstine, projected to start ahead of Prater last fall before breaking his ankle, may have a hard time finding playing time but he, Greg Castillo and William Lowe provide quality depth.

Safety: Tyler Sash and Brett Greenwood – known to some of us as Sashwood – are one of the best tandems in the country but it’s hard to even guess at who the backups are at this point. Walk-ons Kyle Steinbrecher and Tom Donatell ran with the No. 1 unit in the spring scrimmage, apparently moving ahead of two scholarship players, Jack Swanson and Nick Nielsen, in the final week of drills. All those players have good size and Nielsen had two interceptions last Saturday. The depth isn’t necessarily bad, just unproven.

Kicker: Daniel Murray is the returning starter, but Ferentz has made it clear he wasn’t com-pletely satisfied with the job he did. Trent Mossbrucker, who redshirted last season after being the kicker for much of 2008, has at least an shot at winning the job.

Punter: Another place where the depth isn’t great behind four-year regular Ryan Donahue. But how often does your punter get hurt anyway?

After handling Georgia Tech 24-14 in Tuesday’s night’s Orange Bowl, the Iowa football team probably is going to finish in a very familiar spot in the final Associated Press poll.

The Hawkeyes are likely to be eighth, which is exactly where they were at the end of the 2002, 2003 and 2004 seasons.

They were 10th entering the bowls and they clearly are going to leap ahead of No. 9 Georgia Tech and No. 7 Oregon, which lost to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.

The only way they can go higher is if the voters severely penalize No. 4 Cincinnati for getting routed by No.5 Florida in the Sugar Bowl. It was the Bearcats’ first loss, but I could see some voters dropping them down below the Hawkeyes. No. 3 TCU also lost but it was a close enough game that I don’t think they’ll fall to lower than sixth.

If the Hawkeyes should get up the No. 6 or No. 7, it will be their highest ranking since they were third in the 1960 poll.

The most impressive thing about Iowa’s 24-14 conquest of Georgia Tech, I think, is that the Hawks didn’t even radically change their defense to shut down Tech’s much-feared (and clearly overrated) triple option. They didn’t need to bring their safeties up close to the line to add extra run support.

They left it to their front seven to manhandle Tech’s front, and they did.

I came away thinking that if Tech defensive end Derrick Morgan is a top 10 NFL draft choice, as some experts are saying, then Iowa’s Adrian Clayborn is too. Fortunately, Clayborn is not going pro this year. Look for him on some All-American teams next season.

The Hawkeyes announced their team award winners at the team post-season banquet Saturday night in Iowa City. It’s quite a list.

A total of 36 different players won some sort of award. By my count, there were only five starters who didn’t win anything at all. Surprisingly, one of those was Amari Spievey, who played almost every defensive down of every game and may be the best cornerback the Hawkeyes have had in the Kirk Ferentz era.

Not surprisingly, middle linebacker Pat Angerer was the biggest winner. Angerer, who also was named a first team All-American by the Football Writers Association of America on Saturday, shared the team MVP award with Ricky Stanzi and won three other awards. I think most of us who watched this team all year would have given the MVP award to Angerer alone. Nothing against Stanzi, but Angerer was the undisputed leader of the defense on a team that was significantly better defensively than it was offensively.

The full list of awards:

Hayden Fry Extra Heartbeat award: Angerer and Tony Moeaki.

Iron Hawk award: Angerer.

Comeback Player of the Year: Dace Richardson.

Next Man In awards: Riley Reiff, Adam Robinson, Brandon Wegher, Joe Conklin, Derrell Johnson-Koulianos and Colin Sandeman.

Forest Evashevski Scholastic Achievement award: A.J Edds.

Coaches Appreciation awards: Bryan Bulaga, Marvin McNutt, Tyler Sash, Broderick Binns, Tyler Nielsen and Jeff Tarpinian.

Reggie Roby Special Teams Specialist of the Year: Andrew Schulze.

Reggie Roby Special Teams Player of the Year: Ryan Donahue.

Hawkeye Hustle awards: Allen Reisner, Brett Morse, Trey Stross, Karl Klug, Christian Ballard, Adrian Clayborn, Paki O’Meara and Bruce Davis.    

Team Leader awards: Nick Kuchel, Zach Furlong, Joe Forgy, Thomas Nardo, Brad Rogers and Zach Derby.

Permanent captains: Stanzi, Moeaki, Edds, Angerer and Clayborn.

Win During The Week awards: Stanzi, Edds, Rafael Eubanks, Brett Greenwood and Troy Johnson.

The Hawkeyes also gave a few awards to regular people for the support they have given the university and the football program through the years. A Player Appreciation Award was given to three couples who are long-time supporters: Jim and Darlene McCord of Iowa City, Dale and Marilyn Howard of Iowa Falls and Stew and LeNore Hansen of West Des Moines. The Bump Elliott Appreciation Award went to businessmen Mike Riggan and Ed Huff, who have helped transport the Hawkeyes and all their equipment when they go on the road.

There were only a few surprises on the All-Big Ten teams that were announced Monday night. One of the surprises was that Iowa was as well-represented as it was.

I figured the Hawkeyes might get as many as five first-team selections, but they had a league-high seven first-team players on the team chosen by the BigTen coaches, only four on the media team.
The five I thought were deserving: Linebacker Pat Angerer, strong safety Tyler Sash, defensive end Adrian Clayborn, offensive tackle Bryan Bulaga and cornerback Amari Spievey. All of those players made the coaches team and all but Spievey were honored by the media.

The coaches also put Dace Richardson and Tony Moeaki on the first team even though Richardson missed the last 4 ½ games of the conference season and Moeaki was more or less missing in action over that same span.

Other thoughts:

– The offensive line, which never really got its act together, had four players selected. In addition to Bulaga and Richardson, Rafael Eubanks and Kyle Calloway made the second team.

– Although 19 Iowa players received some sort of mention, there was at least one more that merited at least honorable mention. Receiver Marvin McNutt scored six touchdowns in a span of four Big Ten games, including some of the clutch plays of the season.

– Iowa’s defense received the recognition it deserved. The only two starters who didn’t get some sort of mention were Jeremiha Hunter and Shaun Prater.

– Although everyone knew Wisconsin’s John Clay and Penn State’s Evan Royster would be the first team running backs, I thought Adam Robinson had a chance to make the second team. He ended up being honorable mention on both teams with Purdue’s Ralph Bolden and Ohio State’s Brandon Saine making the second team.

– There was widespread disagreement on the first team wide receivers. The coaches picked Minnesota’s Eric Decker and Michigan State’s Blair White. The media went with Indiana’s Tandon Doss and Purdue’s Keith Smith. I would have voted for White and Smith.

– It was interesting that Penn State defensive tackle Jared Odrick was the coaches’ defensive player of the year, but he wasn’t even first team on the media squad. There’s no way he had a better season than Wisconsin’s O’Brien Schofield, Michigan State’s Greg Jones (the media pick) and Angerer.

– You can’t help but wonder how the coach of the year voting might have gone if the voting hadn’t been done with a week to go in the season. Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz won the award, but Pat Fitzgerald’s Northwestern club finished very strong, beating Wisconsin in the final game to finish 8-4. Fitz might have gotten a few more votes if the voting was done later.

The All-Big Ten teams selected by the coaches and the media will be announced Monday night and it will be interesting to see how the Hawkeyes are rewarded for the season they’ve had.

They have plenty of guys who have a chance to make All-Big Ten, but the only two sure things on the first team probably are linebacker Pat Angerer and safety Tyler Sash. I’ll be stunned if those two aren’t there. Angerer may even have a shot at being the league’s defensive player of the year.

Cornerback Amari Spievey is a great player but could get overlooked because his statistics don’t necessarily reflect the type of player he is.

Adrian Clayborn has the stats, but the Big Ten is loaded with quality defensive linemen this season. Wisconsin’s O’Brien Schofield is a great player. So are Penn State’s Jared Odrick and Ohio State’s Thaddeus Gibson. And you could make a case for Michigan’s Brandon Graham, Indiana’s Jammie Kirlew and Purdue’s Ryan Kerrigan each being the best player on their teams.

There probably are a dozen other Hawkeyes with a chance of getting some sort of All-Big Ten mention.

Then, of course, there is the Coach of the Year award. I think Kirk Ferentz probably gets it although there might be some sentiment for Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald. I don’t really see another viable candidate unless Ohio State’s Jim Tressel gets some votes for winning a fifth straight league title.

It was pretty easy to see the biggest area of improvement for Iowa on Saturday in an impressive 27-17 victory over Arizona: The Hawkeyes’ defensive line, especially end Adrian Clayborn, played much better than it did in the first two games of the season.

The other two layers of the defense – the linebackers and secondary – were solid (and occasionally spectacular) in the first two games of the season and the line also came together in a fairly thorough shutdown of what had been a pretty good offense.

The statistics don’t really tell how well the D-line played although the stats weren’t bad. The Hawkeyes had two sacks, five tackles for losses and four quarterback hurries (three by Clayborn). They’d had only two sacks in the first two games against less talented, more pass-oriented teams.

They also allowed 148 yards rushing (about half Arizona’s season average), with almost none of it coming between the tackles. Most of it came on three plays – a reverse, a quarterback scramble and a draw play in the final minutes against a prevent defense.

All told, it was an important step forward for an area of the team that had to be retooled following the graduations of Mitch King and Matt Kroul.