Tony Diaz keeps making his case as Iowa’s most dangerous receiver, and he made sure Jimmy Rogers remembered it after the Hawkeyes handled Iowa State.
Diaz was already generating plenty of buzz coming into the season, thanks to the kind of catches and personality that get people talking fast. He backed that up in Week 1 against Northern Illinois, when Iowa went to him a team-high 13 times. Diaz turned that into 87 receiving yards and a touchdown against an NIU secondary that had no real answer for him.
The attention followed him into Week 2, and so did the production. With Iowa’s running game bottled up for much of the night, the Hawkeyes leaned more on the pass, and Diaz again found himself at the center of it. He finished with 95 receiving yards on eight catches in the win.
Afterward, Diaz wasted no time taking a subtle shot at Rogers, who had called him “Nate Diaz” before the matchup. Asked what the win meant to him, Diaz circled right back to that mistake.
“He knows my name now.”
Diaz also gave Iowa State credit, calling them a “great team,” but he made sure to follow that with the reminder that it’s Tony Diaz, not Nate Diaz. It’s one thing to slip on a name.
It’s another for a head coach to do it when that player is one of the top names on the scouting report. Diaz clearly noticed, and he wasn’t about to let it slide.
The bigger picture for Iowa is just as encouraging. Diaz has already delivered two strong performances and looks like the clear focal point of the passing game.
That doesn’t mean he’s the only threat, either. Iowa has plenty of other options on the outside, including Reece Vander Zee, Jarriett Buie, Evan James, Dayton Howard, Addison Ostrenga, and DJ Vonnahme, even if that group hasn’t fully hit its ceiling yet.
For now, Diaz has firmly established himself as Iowa’s No. 1 outside option. And with the Hawkeyes showing they can throw it more when the run game stalls, the passing attack suddenly has some real life.
Iowa may keep leaning on Diaz, but he knows the offense has other weapons too. That’s part of what makes this group harder to defend, and part of why Iowa doesn’t look stuck if the ground game gets shut down.
Diaz has lived up to the preseason hype through two games, and Iowa appears ready to keep building the passing game around him no matter who’s under center. As for Rogers, Tony Diaz has made one thing clear: he’s not letting the name mistake disappear anytime soon.
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