For Adrian Clayborn, the highlight of the 2009 football season was Iowa’s Orange Bowl victory against Georgia Tech, particularly because the win was a result of an entire team — and especially defensive — effort.
But now, nearly six months later, the victory is virtually irrelevant as far as he’s concerned.
Although it was the Hawkeyes’ first ever BCS-bowl win, it won’t help them in 2010.
“It’s fun to look back, and watch, and see how we did in the bowl game,” the redshirt senior defensive end said Tuesday at the Hayden Fry Football Complex. “But no team’s going to care about the [2010] Orange Bowl. They’re going to be looking to beat us.”
Fortunately for Iowa, many of the players who helped fuel that dominating defensive performance in the Orange bowl — including Clayborn — still have college games left to play.
Clayborn is among eight returning starters from last year’s defense.
And more specifically, the St. Louis native’s decision to come back to Iowa for his senior season means last year’s entire starting defensive line is intact. That group — Clayborn, seniors Christian Ballard and (redshirt) Karl Klug and redshirt junior Broderick Binns — combined for 52 tackles for loss last season, including 27 sacks.
“I think it’s huge having us all back just because we’ve all played one year with each other,” Klug said. “We don’t have to look at each other and be all confused on the field. We can just read each other’s mind for the most part and be on the same page playing together.”
Many believe the foursome will be among the 2010’s best — if not the best — defensive line in the country. Combine that with five other defensive starters returning, and fans and prognosticators alike expect the Hawkeye defense to improve even though Iowa’s 286.7 yards allowed per game was 11th-best in the country last year.
As a senior and member of the line, Clayborn said he feels the pressure to produce, but he called it “fun” pressure.
“It’s not a burden or anything,” he said. “We want it, and we’re going to take it on.”
The players must be in better shape than last season if they’re going to take domination to new heights, Clayborn said. Last year, the line’s conditioning wasn’t up to par at the beginning of the season, and players were sluggish as a result, he said.
Now, the 6-4 285-pound quarterback’s nightmare said he and his peers are making sure to push each other to the limit while going through strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle’s workouts — and that means trying to win each drill.
The unit still has to go to camp and “clear some things up,” Clayborn said, but he believes the 2010 edition of the defense can be as good as the players want it to be.
And after the success of last year, he said, he is even hungrier to achieve more.
“It makes you want to get back to that level and get even better,” Clayborn said. “I mean we lost two games last year; we weren’t perfect. So we have something to push for.”