IOWA CITY - LJ Phillips has a Spider-Man problem, and he’s perfectly fine with that.
The Iowa running back grew up on the superhero after his stepdad introduced him to the character as a kid. He dressed as Spider-Man for Halloween, loved Tobey Maguire’s version best, and even tried to stick to walls when he was younger.
“I think that was really the first superhero I saw, and it just kind of stood out to me,” Phillips said. “It’s always been my thing.
I dressed up as Spider-Man, and shame on my parents, I thought I was really sticking to the wall. Turned out they just flipped the picture upside down.”
That childhood favorite lines up neatly with the way Phillips talks about football. One of Spider-Man’s most famous lessons - “with great power, there must also come great responsibility.” - feels close to the way he sees his job in Iowa’s offense.
And right now, that job carries extra weight.
Iowa’s run game has not found much rhythm against Power Four opponents this season. Through the first two Big Ten games, the Hawkeyes have managed just 97 rushing yards, including 39 against Ohio State last week.
Phillips put some of that on himself. He said he has been too soft as a runner and needs to clean that up.
“You can’t ever pat yourself on the back, this is kind of where the truth hurts,” Phillips said. “You’ve gotta look at yourself and be brutally honest with yourself. Some people say you’re talking down on yourself, I look at it just being brutally honest - and I felt like I ran soft.”
His season has been interrupted by injury, too. Phillips suffered a sprain in the first half against Northern Illinois on Sept. 5 and missed three games.
He was available at Michigan but did not play. Against Ohio State, he finished with 16 yards.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said the Hawkeyes are still trying to sort out the ground game, but he isn’t ready to sound the alarm.
“It's just moving forward. That's one thing typically that's what film shows is how close you're on some things and what have you, but there are a lot of factors that go into everything that happens out there typically,” Ferentz said.
“…Little things are big things, and it's always been that way in football, unless you just have supreme talent or great ability that maybe somebody else doesn't have. It's something we're working on certainly.”
Phillips said the line is fighting up front, and he expects the offense to eventually put it together.
“It's just a matter of when, and we just got to keep putting our head down, keep working,” Phillips said. “The guys up front are blocking their tails off. So we're going to keep working.”
Now he gets another chance to prove it Friday night at Washington. Phillips said he feels like himself again, and he wants to show it by running harder and being there for the guys around him.
“Letting your teammates down, you know, it won’t happen again,” Phillips said.
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