UI cornerback comes out of Hyde-ing

Sept. 25, 2010

Video interview with M. Hyde

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By MICHELE DANNO

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Six seconds turned into an entire afternoon of Hell for Ball State, thanks to the University of Iowa defense Saturday. The 45-0 shutout started with cornerback Micah Hyde’s pass breakup on the Cardinals’ first pass attempt of the afternoon.

Hyde kept the momentum into the second quarter where he made his first career interception on Iowa’s 27-yard line and later forced a Ball State fumble.

In the first two quarters, Hyde doubled his pass breakup total for his career, bringing the number to four at conclusion of Saturday’s game.

For his 2009 freshman season, Hyde recorded four solo tackles and four assists, with no interceptions or pass breakups. Although he played as one of only three true freshmen in all 13 games in 2009, Hawkeye fans didn’t see any breakthrough plays out of Hyde until this weekend.

But UI head coach Kirk Ferentz saw Hyde’s potential from the beginning, noting his impressive ball skills right out of high school.

“It was nice to see him get that interception and be involved with the fumble recovery as well as the fumble on their part,” Ferentz said. “He’s a young guy, and these have been valuable weeks for him.”

Hyde is starting to feel comfortable in his newly-acquired starting position, and he feels he is finally “playing his role” on defense.

Still, the sophomore remains modest, crediting his career-making interception to strong safety Tyler Sash’s precision and ability to read the offense.

“(Ball State) ran a double move, and their receivers actually beat me by a couple steps,” Hyde said in a postgame press conference. “Tyler read it perfectly — he was sitting on it. He actually played the receiver, and (Ball State’s) quarterback under-threw it, so it came right to me.”

Hyde also applauded the efforts of the defensive line, which he said makes his job a lot easier.

“The defensive line was crazy today,” said Hyde, a native of Ohio. “It’s amazing playing behind a defensive line like that. They get into the ball on every snap, and any defensive back in the nation would want to play behind them.”

After the loss to Arizona last weekend, Hyde said the coaches stressed the “six seconds of Hell” mantra more in practice this week. He noted increased intensity and scrimmage-style training leading up to the Ball State contest.

All this hard work seemed to pay off. But Hyde isn’t convinced, and he recognizes that he and his teammates have work to do and improvements to make before kicking off the regular season Oct. 2 against Penn State.

“As a defense, we all made a lot of mistakes, and I made a lot of mistakes myself,” Hyde said. “But I went out tonight and I tried to compete. I think I had a pretty good game, but tomorrow morning I’ll watch the film and see what I need to work on.”

Ball State00000 Iowa Statistical Leaders Passing: Ricky Stanzi 19 of 25, 288 yards, 3 touchdowns
Rushing: Adam Robinson 22 carries, 115 yards, 2 touchdowns Receiving: Allen Reisner 5 catches, 53 yards Tackles: Jeff Tarpinian 9 total tackles, 2 tackles for loss