No. 18 — DT Nathan Bazata

No. 18 . . .

Last August was when Nathan Bazata (6-2, 284) started to make his move. You started seeing more of the then-redshirt freshman as a No. 2 defensive tackle. The jump from eight-man football for Howells-Dodge High School in Nebraska to the Big Ten wasn't complete, but it was off to a terrific start.

Last season, the momentum Bazata built in August didn't translate to the field. He didn't play in four of Iowa's first six games and didn't log a stat until Illinois on Nov. 15. He finished with four tackles. But hey, he had senior Louis Trinca-Pasat ahead of him. The indefatigable Trinca-Pasat was the DT who didn't come off the field. He's also now in the St. Louis Rams camp. So, last season wasn't exactly set up to be a launchpad for young defensive tackles.

Things do show up, however, in pregame and Bazata consistently lined up as the No. 2 DT behind Trinca-Pasat. And then in January, when head coach Kirk Ferentz released the first 2015 depth chart, Bazata was listed as the starter. He worked with the first-team defense this spring and switched out on passing downs with junior DT Faith Ekakitie.

Bazata has slowly worked his way ahead of older players on the depth chart. He's giving D-line coach Reese Morgan what he wants to see.

Three stars, two offers . . .

When Bazata (pronounced BUDGET-A, BTW) signed with Iowa in 2013, there was the eight-man football thing. He also had only one other offer, from South Dakota State. Iowa's current recruiting class is sitting at 22 with a handful of players whose lone Power 5 offer is from Iowa. There's some hand-wringing over that. You can probably mark down Bazata and what's ahead of him this season as a case study. Can Iowa still develop effective low-offer, high-effort players with the raw ability? (Bazata has been developed to the point where he's won a starting job. So far so good.)

'Bazata was the state wrestling champ, state shot-put champ, only lost, I think, five matches in four years in high school,' Morgan said. 'Two-time state champ, so these guys (not a ton of offers, eight-man footballers) all have those other things and characteristics. That helps reinforce the argument for trying to take guys like that.'

Outlook . . .

There have been positive signs for Bazata, but he's far from a made player. He had four career tackles. This still is developmental mode. Ferentz has referenced Trinca-Pasat's struggles during the 2013 season (when he finished with an injured shoulder that needed surgery).

Plus, Iowa has decent depth at DT with Bazata, Ekakitie, Jaleel Johnson and Kyle Terlouw. There is healthy competition happening on a daily basis.

Wait, did someone say wrestler? That always seems to work more often than it doesn't.

'On film, the tools are there,' Rivals Midwest recruiting coordinator Josh Helmholdt told me for a 2013 post. 'A lot of people overdo the level of competition in high school and how that translates into what type of college football it produces. Herschel Walker played in the lowest level of Georgia high school football and was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy his freshman year. A football player is a football player. Bazata is a football player.'

And wrestlers as D-tackles: 'I love wrestlers in that defensive tackle spot, because they understand leverage, they understand how to move their opponent, they understand pad level. There's a lot of that in wrestling. I think a defensive tackle with a wrestling background has a definite advantage.'

In wrestle-ese, Bazata has scored a few takedowns. He's still looking for the big 3-point nearfall.

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com