Greg Mabin content with being Iowa’s other cornerback
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Greg Mabin seems just fine being the other cornerback on the Iowa football team.
The Florida native is comfortable and content playing in Desmond King’s vast shadow because Mabin admires greatness, but also knows that he’s pretty good himself.
He isn’t in King’s elite category, and is quick to say it.
“If I was the other teams I would throw my way, too,” Mabin said. “I wouldn’t want to throw it against the Jim Thorpe winner.”
Mabin said that to reporters on Wednesday, drawing laughter in response.
Instead of being resentful or jealous of King’s rise to stardom, Mabin has embraced it and has fun with it.
It’s not every day that you get play alongside a Jim Thorpe Award winner. In fact, it’s never happened before as King is the first Jim Thorpe Award winner to return to college.
Mabin tries to use King’s greatness to his advantage.
“When I say I was watching film, most of the film I was watching was on him,” Mabin said to reporters on Wednesday. “I mean he’s the best and they teach you to learn from the best. Just his patience. He’s so patient at the line and he’s so good at getting his hands in the right spot every single time. And that’s what makes him so great when he’s able to get hands and pretty much control the receiver at the line.”
Mabin wasn’t nearly as talkative when reminded that he hardly is a pushover at cornerback and that teams might not want to throw his way, either.
“I like to say that, too,” said Mabin, who combined to start 26 games over the past two seasons. “But we’ll see once the season comes.”
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Mabin is on the verge of being a three-year starter at cornerback after coming to Iowa as a lightly-recruited receiver. He is one of many players who have switched positions under head coach Kirk Ferentz and then flourished at Iowa, a list that includes Dallas Clark, Eric Steinbach, Robert Gallery, Marvin McNutt and Nate Meier among others.
Mabin is probably right to assume that he’ll get plenty of chances to prove himself this season with King patrolling the other cornerback position.
Mabin seems to relish the challenge that awaits him as a senior.
“Going into the season, I’m already going to be expecting that,” Mabin said. “I’m going to be watching a lot more film when it gets closer to that time. But until then, it’s a challenge that I have to step to.”
It also is a challenge that Mabin will face with two healthy shoulders for a change. He missed all of spring practice after having shoulder surgery, but now says he feels great.
“This is the best my shoulder has felt since high school,” Mabin said.
Ferentz seems confident that Mabin will meet the challenge when tested by opposing quarterbacks. Mabin has earned Ferentz’s trust with his performance on the field and in the classroom.
“I think he’ll do fine," Ferentz said. "Greg is a good football player and he did a great job in the classroom, the Dean’s list this past semester, coincidentally.”
Mabin is in select company as a three-year starter. He could start 40 games as a Hawkeye should they have another 14-game season like a year ago.
His experience is a testimony to Mabin’s consistency, durability and commitment.
Maybe the only downside to Mabin and King combining to start for seven seasons between them is that it came at the expense of good friend and fellow cornerback Maurice Fleming, who transferred from Iowa to West Virginia after the spring practice.
Fleming wanted to start as a senior, but there were two huge obstacles standing in his way at Iowa in King and Mabin.
So Fleming picked a school where he feels he has a better chance of starting next season as a graduate transfer.
“He’s been one of my best friends ever since my freshman year,” Mabin said of Fleming, who is from Chicago. “We’ve been roommates for the past couple years. So it’s just competition. That’s just part of the game. We don’t take anything personal.
“We’re still best friends to this day. We still talk pretty much every day. I feel like we’re still going to stay in contact even though he transferred for his senior year.”
Fleming’s decision didn’t come as a surprise to Mabin because they had talked about it previously as friends often do.
“I would say that I’m not surprised just because he has been thinking about it for a while,” Mabin said. “We had been talking about it among ourselves and among his family. And he just felt like that was the best decision for him.”