The Daily Iowan
PREGAME
‘GO HULK!’
Iowa running back Kamari Moulton leans on his battles through adversity to find success.
The Daily Iowan
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Iowa defensive back Jacob Wallace stepped into a very important role on the Hawkeye defense: the CASH position. The CASH, also called nickel, is typically a hybrid safety or cornerback who plays both run support and coverage on receivers and tight ends. Wallace, a second-year, played in just three games last season. Now, he has been asked to fill the starting A position most recently played by Zach Lutmer, who now plays free safety. While Wallace has played well against the run, his pass coverage hasn’t looked great so far this season. Pro Football Focus grades Wallace’s pass coverage at 68.8, ranking 409th among all college defensive backs. innesota likes to push the ball downfield with him. Look for Wallace to be tested with deep shots early and often.
Lindsey was ranked as the 11th-best quarterback in the upcoming 2027 NFL Draft by ESPN NFL Draft analyst Jordan Reid. Reid pointed out Lindsey’s size and arm talent as his top traits, and labeled him a “true throwback” quarterback. So far this season, Lindsey has been hit-or-miss. The third-year quarterback has thrown for 1,335 yards and nine touchdowns. Lindsey has also thrown fi e interceptions, including at least one in each of his last four games. Last year against the Hawkeyes, Lindsey had one of his worst career performances in a 41-3 loss at Kinnick. Lindsey threw for just 109 yards with three interceptions, with one returned for a touchdown by Lutmer. Iowa has struggled to grab turnovers this season, ranking 115th in total turnovers this season. Considering Lindsey’s turnover issues this season and against the Hawkeyes in 2025, this could be a chance for Iowa to add to its turnover total.
Iowa running back Kamari Moulton i s c o m i n g o f f a career-best 208-yard, two-touchdown performance against Washington. The Huskies ranked in the 40s in rush defense entering that game, and Minnesota currently sits at 52nd nationally in rushing defense. This week could present another opportunity for Moulton to have a big day on the ground, which isn’t unusual for a Hawkeye running back in Minneapolis. In 2024, Iowa running back Kaleb Johnson ran for 206 yards and three scores against the Gophers on the road. Against a soft defensive front, Moulton will look to repeat Johnson’s success in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Iowa quarterback Jeremy Hecklinski stepped in for an injured Hank Brown against Washington two weeks ago, and tossed three touchdown passes with 202 passing yards. Hecklinski’s performance reignited the quarterback controversy. While Kirk Ferentz typically doesn’t let a starter lose his job to injury, the competition being as close as it was leading into the season certainly spurs some conversation. ffensi e coordinator Tim ester said he expects both quarterbacks to get meaningful snaps during the remainder of the season. Ferentz announced on Tuesday that Hecklinski will start Saturday, but Brown is still expected to get meaningful snaps throughout the rest of the season.
Iowa and Minnesota play annually for the Floyd of Rosedale trophy. The origin of the trophy started in 1935, when Iowa Governor Clyde Herring and Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olson made a wager on the game. Minnesota won the game in 1935, so Herring sent Olson a live pig donated by Rosedale Farms near Fort Dodge, Iowa. After the pig died in 1936, the schools replaced it with a traveling trophy. The Hawkeyes have won 10 of their last 11 games against the Gophers.
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‘GO HULK!’ Hank Brown has faced adversity throughout his career. His faith and mental toughness keeps him poised and ready for whatever is thrown his way.
u ed music bumps through the walls of a compact and co y media room at usky tadium in eattle, and owa running back Kamari oulton enters with a smile on his face. The smile was nothing new for oulton. ut this time it meant more. t wasn t ust the yards. r the two touchdowns. r owa s con incing riday night win in eattle, long considered one of the toughest places to play. t was the date. ct. , . actly si years from the day his grandmother died from - . Thirty-three days after losing his grandmother, oulton also lost his mother, ata ia, to - . oulton was highlighted in ig Ten etwork s documentary series The ourney,” in o ember , where he said that moment was the hardest thing ll e er ha e to deal with in my life.” oulton said losing his grandmother and mother in such a
short time made him mature faster and understand that not e ery day is promised. ow, really try to lo e on the people lo e and make sure people lo e know m here for them,” oulton said. o of course on this night in eattle, between the bumping music, there was a smile. A big one. hat would his mother and grandmother think of this
oulton grew up in ort auderdale, lorida, and was always in ol ed in sports. The first sport he played was soccer before transitioning into flag football and e entually tackle football. rowing up with two older sisters, oulton said he and his siblings were always acti e. oulton s tackle football career started at age , around the same time the first ar el A engers mo ie came out in . oulton said he always liked the A engers character, ulk, and he began to embody him in football. oulton said his teammates, family, and friends started calling him ulk” because of how hard he ran.
is mom used to say, o, ulk ” oulton s father, Kirk, said. oulton said if his friends in ort auderdale heard his real name, they would be confused because they were so used to calling him ulk. oulton had fallen in lo e with football from the moment he began playing, and once he got to ardinal ibbons igh chool, it didn t take long for his head coach, att u uc, to reali e he had the talent to play at the ne t le el. u uc said he could see where the ulk” nickname came from with how hard oulton ran during his sophomore year, especially for a player who wasn t ery big. ou look at him and go, ell, he s not the biggest guy, not the fastest guy, but he s a producti e guy,” u uc said. And production matters.” oulton s production showed up in the lorida A tate hampionship game, as he rushed for yards and two touchdowns in a ictory for ardinal ibbons o er ocoa igh chool. u uc, who ran the famous Air aid offense when he played at Te as Tech from to , brought a similar attack to
Cardinal Gibbons until Moulton showed up. Cocoa’s defense started dropping eight players into coverage to stop the air raid attack in the state championship game, but DuBuc adjusted his game plan to give the ball to Moulton and let him go to work. “I’ll proclaim myself as the Air Raid guy,” u uc said. ut howe er you e got to first downs and win, I’m going to do it. Kamari was a big part of that.”Moulton wanted to prove he was one of the best players on the field in that state championship game. Moulton said he felt like he was under-recruited. “It was a surreal moment for me,” Moulton said. “It was one of the best moments in my life, just to be with my team and win another state championship.”
owa was the only ower our team to offer a scholarship to Moulton, as his other nine offers came from or roup of i teams. Moulton initially committed to Florida Atlantic before the Hawkeyes entered the picture. Florida Atlantic’s campus is just 30 minutes away from Fort Lauderdale, and he was already familiar with the Boca Raton area. Moulton attended A.D. Henderson ni ersity chool during middle school, taking classes on the Florida Atlantic campus. While he was committed to the Owls, Moulton felt like he needed to step out of his comfort one and find a school farther from home. oulton said it s e actly what his mom wanted him to do. “My mom always talked about me being able to tra el and see different parts of the world, so that was in the back of my mind,” Moulton said. “I also knew going to Iowa would put me in a different position around different people in a different en ironment.” Former Hawkeye Ladell Betts was Iowa’s running backs coach during Moulton’s recruitment, and he was heavily involved in getting Moulton to sign with the Hawkeyes. Betts had already seen Moulton play before oining the owa coaching staff, as he coached against him while he was head coach at Pine rest igh chool from to . Already having a connection to Betts, DuBuc reached out to him about taking a look at Moulton, but Kendrick Raphael, a running back from Naples, Florida, was already committed to the Hawkeyes. Raphael ultimately decommitted from Iowa and signed with orth arolina tate. One day, when Betts was in Fort Lauderdale, he called DuBuc to ask if he’d meet up with him for dinner at afe e ille on the north side of town. DuBuc said shortly after their conversation, Moulton committed to the Hawkeyes. “I give a lot of credit to Ladell because he coached against him and remembered what type of talent he was,” DuBuc said. “We had dinner, and the rest is history for [Moulton].
He had opportunities in other places, but not as good as Iowa.” With Betts heavily involved in Moulton’s recruitment and development, Moulton said he still stays in contact with him, as he now coaches running backs for the Miami Dolphins. e definitely was a great coach for me, and he really wanted nothing but the best for me,” Moulton said. “I have a lot of respect for Coach Betts. I’m here because of him.”
Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz has described many players as people who “never have a bad day.” It’s the type of people he’s wanted to build his program around during his historic tenure with the Hawkeyes. Ferentz used that description for the fourthyear running back after Moulton rushed for yards and two touchdowns in the season opener against Northern Illinois. “I’ve never seen him have a bad day,” Ferentz said after the Hawkeyes’ 40-0 win over the uskies on ept. . e s had some reasons to have bad days, but I never see him [have bad days]. He’s always eager and ready to go, and likes playing football.” Whether it’s at practice, before a game, after a game, or even during a game, Moulton almost always has a smile on his face. He said he’s always been someone who enjoys laughter and smiling, and he loves to spread positivity anywhere he can. As erent said after owa s eek win, Moulton has reasons to be negative or have bad days, considering the adversity he faced from losing two of his closest family members within the span of a month, or even initially struggling to adjust to college football. “When I got here, he was always upbeat, which helped him get through some of the hard times when, at least in our run scheme, he wasn t seeing holes,” offensi e coordinator Tim ester said. want to say, the first ball handed him, he ran right into Connor Colby, right into the back of our right guard, and fell.” When Lester took over as offensive coordinator for the awkeyes in , Moulton was the starting running back until Kaleb Johnson burst into the starting role. Johnson went on to have one of the best rushing seasons in Iowa football history, collecting , yards and a program-record rushing touchdowns. ohnson s season earned him All-American honors and a firstteam All-Big Ten selection. Johnson led the Big Ten and ranked seventh nationally in rushing yards and was a Doak alker Award finalist, the award gi en to the nation’s best running back. Lester said Moulton’s positive mentality helped him battle through losing his starting job and has helped him earn his role this season, where he’s making positive plays and bouncing back from adversity.
Moulton suffered a shoulder injury in owa s - win o er owa tate in eek , leading to him missing the ne t game against Northern Iowa. “It’s been fun to watch him battle back from his little injury he had, getting banged up a little bit in game two, and he bounces right back like a pro,” Lester said. “I’m really happy for him because he’s put a lot of work into this thing.”
In his fourth year, Moulton has the most e perience in the owa running backs room and has taken a leadership role to heart. Transfer running back L.J. Phillips is the oldest running back on the Hawkeyes’ roster, but is only in his first year at owa. hile Phillips is new to Iowa’s program, it didn’t take long for Moulton to create a strong bond with him. After Phillips injured his ankle in the season opener against Northern Illinois, Moulton immediately checked in on him and made sure to support Phillips during his recovery. “Kamari is a leader for a reason,” Phillips said. “He’s a special guy; he’s a really great player. The whole running back room was there for me, but Kamari is an amazing person and an even better player.” Moulton and Phillips’ personalities are very similar, as Phillips said they both like to joke with each other and spend quality time together. While in the hotel at away games, Moulton, Phillips, and other teammates stay competitive by playing “trash PIG,” a spinoff of the basketball competition where players must copy each other’s shots. With no basketball or hoop at the hotels,
they use a bottle and a trash can to play. “I was actually 4-0, so they could tell you how it feels to lose,” Moulton said. “It gets competitive between us because we’re all athletes and think we’re the best at everything.” oulton and hillips also shadow bo against each other. hadow bo ing doesn t refer to practicing their jabs or left hooks, but rather a competitive game where two players try to trick their opponent into moving their head in the same direction that they point. One player points up, down, left, or right, and the other has to turn their head in one of those directions at the same time, without matching the direction their opponent points. If the player pointing predicts their opponent’s movement three times in a row, they win the game. While these silly competitions keep Moulton and Phillips entertained and competitive, they’re also vulnerable with each other. “When we were at Michigan, we sat at the fire pit talking about life,” hillips said. ust separating ourselves from football.” Moulton said being a leader for the entire running back group has been easy for him because he’s seen most of them get recruited into the program and has been able to grow with them. The fourth-year said the group makes it easy for him to lead, and there is no animosity among them when one player gets more playing time than the others. “We all want to see each other have success on the field,” oulton said. Between all the highs and lows of Moulton’s life and football career, he hopes to leave just one lasting impact on the people he meets. “When I leave this world, I want to be remembered as a great person and a good teammate.”
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For 11-year-old Kaelyn O’Brien, the average weekend consisted of playing sports and hanging out with friends. However, one Saturday in May of 2024, the Jesup, Iowa, native’s life flipped upside down. Kaelyn pursued the morning groggily, walking the halls of her home in a sluggish manner. To an outsider, it came across as if she had a bad night’s sleep. To Tammy O’Brien, her mother, alarm bells rang. “The week prior, she had been complaining of a migraine, and it sounded exactly like what happens when I get them,” Tammy said. “But when she woke up, and her speech was slurred, and she was ping-ponging down the hallway, I knew there was something very, very wrong.” Thinking Kaelyn was suffering a stroke, Tammy and Mike O’Brien wasted no time loading their daughter into the car, making their way to an urgent care in Waterloo, Iowa. However, their stay wasn’t long, as they were immediately directed to the University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital. There, the O’Briens would experience a parent’s worst nightmare. “[The doctor] told us he thought she had cancer,” Tammy said. “That was just so scary, and as a parent, nothing you would ever expect or want to hear.” “‘I wish it was me, not you,’” Mike said, repeating his initial reaction. “I wanted it to be me and anybody else. You don’t want to see your kid go through something like that.” After testing, Kaelyn was officially diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma, a cancer in which Reed-Sternberg cells— abnormally large white blood cells—are present in the lymph nodes. Doctors found paraneoplastic syndrome was the reason behind her neurological symptoms. As Kaelyn’s immune system began fighting the cancer, it mistakenly attacked her cerebellum, the part of the brain responsible for balance, speech, and fine motor skills. From then on, Kaelyn would reside on the oncology floor of the Children’s
Hospital, undergoing four intensive 21-day chemotherapy cycles. “It was scary,” Kaelyn said, describing the treatment process. “It’s scary as an adult, but watching an 11-year-old child having to go through all the tests and the procedures is just so heartbreaking,” Mike said. Along with the chemotherapy came physical therapy and Kaelyn was determined to regain the strength she lost. She biked, balanced on lines on the floor, played hopscotch, and lifted weights, eventually upgrading from a wheelchair to a walker, to now being able to walk on her own. Yet the best part of Kaelyn’s journey came on Aug. 30, 2024, when she rang Stead’s bell, announcing she was cancer-free. “I was really happy,” Kaelyn said. “It was like that full circle moment, like a big burden lifted off your chest,” Tammy said. Instead of blocking out her past, Kaelyn embraces it, as she recently enrolled in a research study about paraneoplastic syndrome. “I wanted to help other kids going through it,” she said. Kaelyn proudly establishes herself as a shoulder for other cancer patients to lean on, providing advice and words of motivation throughout their treatments, with one of those people being Tammy’s friend, who was diagnosed with breast cancer. “I don’t know… I’m going to start crying,” Mike said. “Knowing what could’ve been, or if she would still be in a wheelchair, all kinds of bad things. But seeing that she’s thriving, doing this, it’s amazing.” Now, Kaelyn’s cancer is in remission, as the eighth-grader is returning to the things she loves, such as playing volleyball, softball, and basketball. On Saturday, Kaelyn will celebrate her 14th birthday, as she cheers on the Iowa Hawkeyes from her community watch party in Jesup as a Kid Captain. “Our philosophy since all of this started was, ‘Yes, it’s a bad situation, but there’s always some good in it,’” Tammy said. “If we can help other people, that’s really what we want to do.”