By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – If you were granted five wishes for the Iowa football team’s 2021 season, in addition to winning the national title and defeating Iowa State by 30 points, what would they be?

Here are my five in no particular order:

1. Ivory Kelly-Martin stays healthy and makes a significant contribution: It’s easy to forget that he started the 2018 season opener at running back, and six games overall that season. Injuries have derailed his career and now Tyler Goodson is the featured running back, and deservedly so.

But there is always room for more than one running back, and it takes more than one running back to navigate through the rugged Big Ten.

Kelly-Martin is entering his fifth season in the program, and he easily could’ve transferred to another school in search of more playing time, or after the racial unrest from last season. But he has stayed the course and is now a respected leader.

When healthy, Kelly-Martin is an elusive running back with good hands. He also has a thorough understanding of the offense and has excelled on special teams.

He is the ultimate team-first guy, and now it’s time for him to be rewarded for that.

2. Tyler Linderbaum wins the Outland Trophy: A center hasn’t won this award, which goes to the nation’s top interior lineman, since Minnesota’s Greg Eslinger was the recipient in 2005. The last center to win it before Eslinger was Nebraska’s Dave Rimington in 1982.

Linderbaum has made incredible progress since switching from defensive tackle to center late in his true freshman season. The Solon native is widely regarded as the best player in the country at his position, and some consider him the best offensive lineman overall.

So it’s hardly a reach to have Linderbaum winning the Outland Trophy. He would become the third Iowa player under Kirk Ferentz to win the award, joining tackles Robert Gallery and Brandon Scherff, who were the recipients in 2003 and 2014, respectively.

3. Caleb Shudak rises to the occasion: The Council Bluffs native is another player who could’ve easily transferred in search of a starting position.

But he also has stayed the course, a very long course with this being Shudak’s sixth season as a Hawkeye, and now he finally has the opportunity to be Iowa’s full-time starting kicker.

Shudak handled kickoffs in each of the past two seasons, while Keith Duncan kicked almost all of the field goals, and was hugely successful, earning All-America honors in 2019.

Shudak entered the transfer portal briefly after the 2019 season before deciding to stay at Iowa.

He could have a big impact this season, considering Iowa’s history of playing in close games that sometimes come down to special teams.

4. Matt Hankins makes first-team All-Big Ten: The Texas native has been a key contributor at cornerback in each of the past three seasons.

His biggest problem has been staying healthy as he missed five games in 2018 and three games in 2019 due to injury.

When healthy, Hankins gives Iowa a lock-down corner with good length and range.

He also showed his maturity in 2019 when he was benched during a game, but still attended the post-game press conference and made no excuses or showed any resentment. It couldn’t have been easy for Hankins to face the glare of the media spotlight under the circumstances, but he stood strong and showed poise and maturity.

5. Spencer Petras silences his critics: It probably is fair to say that some Iowa fans aren’t completely sold on Petras being the starting quarterback.

He struggled at times last season with accuracy and touch, but he also won his final six games, and that ultimately is how a quarterback is judged.

Petras played under difficult circumstances last season with the global pandemic a major distraction and challenge. Spring practice was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic and he also twice was quarantined.

I’ll admit to being sort of biased where Petras is concerned because for one, he’s a Grateful Dead fan, as am I, but mostly because he’s a good guy who has the respect and admiration of his teammates and coaches.

Petras works extremely hard and knows the offense from top to bottom. He also has great command of the huddle.

Another reason to pull for Petras is because if he struggles, Iowa is likely to struggle.