And he’d be freaking Superman. Jeff Chadia profiles Dallas “Be the fastest man alive!” Clark.
Clark might have remained an unsuccessful linebacker if not for a snowy day in January following his third year at Iowa. When his roommate, then Iowa quarterback Kyle McCann, asked him to play catch in the team’s indoor training facility, Hawkeyes head coach Kirk Ferentz just happened to be walking by during their session.
What Ferentz saw was the prototype for a pass-catching tight end: a big kid with soft hands, surprising agility and a natural feel for running routes.
Though Clark always had wanted to be a linebacker just like Derrik, he was Iowa’s starting tight end by the following season. As a tribute to Jan, he wrote “Mom” on the tape wrapped around his wrists during games.
“It didn’t take long for us to see he could catch the ball and run with it,” said Hawkeyes offensive coordinator Ken O’Keefe.
“Dallas would catch a 5-yard pass and go 50 yards with it. He once caught a simple dump-off and went 95 yards for a touchdown. He just had a knack for knowing how to finish plays.”
Clark developed so quickly that he won the John Mackey Award — given to the nation’s top tight end — as a junior. But he still didn’t feel like a star when he passed up his senior year to enter the 2003 NFL draft.
Kuharsky follows up by asking if jams off the line would slow him down
“A lot of times on third down, they’ll jam me so I don’t get a free release. But D-ends, they’re not worried about me, they’re trying to get to that quarterback, they’re trying to get their sacks. Asking them to jam me, really isn’t helping them get off the ball, get an edge on that tackle. It’s kind of give and take, pick your poison.
“Do you want to have less chance of getting a sack and give up that to try to get a jam on a tight end who might not even be getting the ball? Or do you want the end to get a nice, good jump on the tackle and get some good pressure on the quarterback? So it’s a defense’s decision.”
“You always want to get clean off the line, but sometimes they get you. Sometimes you can kind of sense that they are going to do something, but sometimes they get you. You just try to get back in your route and you have to adjust the depth [to preserve the timing]. You just try to make plays.”
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