By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Running out of time can be a powerful motivator and maybe that helps to explain how and why Iowa senior free safety Xavier Nwankpa has clearly lifted his performance level.

The former five-star recruit is playing as you would expect a five-star to play; with confidence, toughness, consistency and a little moxie.

Nwankpa is soft-spoken until he gets on the football field where he talks loudly with his now violent style of play as a free safety.

A 2022 graduate of Southeast Polk High School, Nwankpa will leave Iowa as a multi-year starter who was good enough to play as a true freshman.

But he has yet to even make third-team All-Big Ten, so there was obviously room for improvement heading into his final season as a Hawkeye.

And improve he has, sometimes in spectacular fashion, including last Saturday’s 25-24 win over Penn State in which he had 10 tackles, a forced fumble and his first interception in nearly two years, which he almost turned into his second pick-six as a Hawkeye.

The Big Ten Conference honored the 6-foot-2, 213-pound Nwankpa by naming him the Defensive Player of the Week on Monday.

“It’s my last year. I have limited opportunities to go out there and prove myself and show what I can do,” Nwankpa said Tuesday at Iowa’s weekly press gathering. “So I’m really just laying it on the line and giving everything I have for this team.”

Nwankpa has 37 tackles, one interception, one quarterback hurry and one forced fumble heading into Saturday’s game against Minnesota at Kinnick Stadium.

Nwankpa said he has more freedom to make plays all over the field as a free safety after having played strong safety in his first three seasons at Iowa.

He isn’t just making plays, though.

He is making plays with a level of violence and physicality that he only showed glimpses of in his first three seasons.

Nobody is ready to compare Nwankpa to the great Bob Sanders. But it’s hard to think of another Iowa defensive back since Sanders played for the Hawkeyes from 2000 to 2003 that has delivered hits as violent as Nwankpa has this season.

The game and how it’s officiated has changed considerably since Sanders last played for Iowa more than two decades ago as officials now closely watch for hits that violate the targeting rule.

So it not only takes physicality and toughness to making-jarring hits, but also a little finesse.

This past summer, Nwankpa and some of the other Iowa defensive backs including starting strong safety Koen Entringer, at the encouragement of Iowa defensive coordinator/defensive backs coach Phil Parker, pulled out some old video of Sanders playing for the Hawkeyes.

The videos were labeled the physical tape and violent tape.

“Me and Koen and some of the other DBs this past summer we turned a little bit on,” Nwankpa said. “Coach Parker shows every now and then a couple highlights from what they call the physical tape and violence tape.

“It was just a couple big hits. He was just flaying around. So that’s something that we’re trying to implement.”

Almost two decades before Sanders terrorized opponents carrying the football, Phil Parker did the same as a three-time, first-team all-Big Ten safety for Michigan State in the 1980s..

Every once in a while, Parker will remind the Iowa defensive backs about his glory days as a player. He apparently does it partly to keep their egos in check.

“He talks about it a little bit. We’ll make a play in practice and he’ll be like, yeah, I made that player before,” Nwankpa said. “It’s not even that good of a play. You come out and break a little slow and he’s like that should be  pick-six. He gives a little crap, but he was a real good player. He sees what we see and he sees us making plays that we didn’t make. So, he’s really helped us in the DB room.”

When asked on Tuesday what he prefers between laying out a ball carrier or making an interception, Nwankpa mentioned something he was told by former Iowa defensive back Kaevon Merriweather, who now plays in the NFL.

“It really just depends,” Nwankpa said. “I do like hitting people, but I like getting the ball in my hands.

“Kaevon told me a couple years ago that every pick is worth like a million dollars. So the more picks you have, the better you’ll get paid at the end of the day.”

Nwankpa carried the heavy burden of being a heralded recruit when he came to Iowa.

Fans loved and appreciated that he turned down practically every blue blood program in the country to stay home and be a Hawkeye.

But with his high recruiting ranking also came a level of expectation from fans, and from the media, that was maybe a little unrealistic or even unfair.

So when Nwankpa didn’t right away perform at a star level, some labeled him as an under-achiever, much to the disappointment of Kirk Ferentz, who sort of went off on what he called a tangent while addressing Nwankpa’s career at his weekly press conference.

“First of all, not that anybody cares, but I think these ratings, outside ratings, they’re just unfair,” Kirk Ferentz said. “I guess that’s the best word I can use. I’m not sure what criteria people use sometimes to make those determinations. There’s a lot of things that go into being a good college football player, just like if you go to the next level it’s the same thing up there. A lot of subjectivity, all those kinds of things.

“But the downside, and I’m not trying to kill anybody’s business, but the downside of tagging a player as a can’t-miss guy, what if he doesn’t come in and play as a freshman. First of all, it might mean you have some other guys that are good players on your team, and second thing it means is probably it’s a reality of playing good college football and playing good NFL football is kind of the same way.”

Ferentz basically was saying that even star recruits sometimes need time to develop because it’s big step from high school to college football, physically, mentally and emotionally.

The fact that Nwankpa is having his breakthrough season as a senior has been crucial to 5-2 Iowa’s success this season.

“Xavier went through that, like most guys do,” Kirk Ferentz said. “There’s some give and take and all that thing, but he has a great attitude, works hard, and you hope when you’re a junior or a senior you’re playing your best football, and I think that’s what we’ve seen with him, playing last year and playing this year. He’s clearly playing at his highest level in his career.

“Where you have problems is when a guy is not playing well his senior year, he’s not playing up to his best football in his career, that’s when teams kind of falter and fail a little bit. But he’s done a great job.”