Hawkeyes picked second in West by Athlon Sports

Offensive pessimism aside, there’s a lot of reasons to like the Iowa Hawkeyes heading into the 2023 college football season.

Iowa has added a Big Ten championship-winning quarterback in Cade McNamara to pair with tight ends Erick All and Luke Lachey. Wide receiver Nico Ragaini elected to return to Iowa City and the Hawkeyes went out and brought in Charleston Southern wide receiver Seth Anderson, too. Diante Vines, Brody Brecht, Jacob Bostick and Alec Wick will be other names to watch at wide receiver.

Plus, running back Kaleb Johnson is an easy candidate for a season where his numbers balloon from the already-impressive freshman campaign he authored of 779 rushing yards and six scores on 151 carries. Of course, that will depend on everything else around him, but it’s not impossible to envision.

Hopefully, experience will finally pay off up front along the offensive line for Iowa. There’s another addition up front in Saginaw Valley State transfer offensive tackle Daijon Parker that should help that along.

Then, there’s a defense that has all sorts of talent back and that folks expect to be stingy once more. Defensive back Cooper DeJean returns and looks like one of the best college football players nationally. He and fellow Hawkeye defensive back Xavier Nwankpa had pick sixes in the 21-0 TransPerfect Music City Bowl win over Kentucky.

That duo along with defensive backs Sebastian Castro, Jermari Harris, Jamison Heinz, Quinn Schulte and TJ Hall should form a nice collection of secondary talent.

Up front defensively, Iowa brings back impact players Noah Shannon, Logan Lee, Yahya Black, Joe Evans, Deontae Craig and Aaron Graves.

Linebacker will be the biggest area of concern heading into 2023. Iowa will replace Butkus Award-winning linebacker Jack Campbell and longtime starter Seth Benson. Jestin Jacobs was in the Hawkeyes’ plans, but he transferred to Oregon.

That means Jay Higgins, Kyler Fisher and Karson Sharar will be counted upon to step into leading…