Wednesday Dots: Iron Lion Zion

Oh, moon of Alabama

We now must say goodbye

We’ve lost our good old mama

And must have Dots, oh, you know why

• The most significant development of Day 5 of fall camp might have come from someone who didn’t take part in practice. Mike Vorel notes that Zion Tupuola-Fetui was jogging around the field without a noticeable limp, only a few months after a torn Achilles. A healthy and productive ZTF would shore up one of the few questionable spots on the defense and raise the Dawgs’ ceiling even higher.

• Speaking of questions on the defense, Christian Caple dives into the contenders for playing time at the two safety positions. Caple seems high on Dom Hampton and Julius Irvin, which definitely appears to be the highest upside combination. Still, I imagine we will see plenty from Cam Williams and Asa Turner.

• Long-time Big 10 commissioner Jim Delany has been in contact with leaders from the Pac-12 and other conferences on the realignment subject. Delany’s approach seems reasonable enough to me: he looks at each conference’s relative strengths and suggests that they build strategies and bargain around those elements.

• DT recruit and football ubermensch Hero Kanu announced that UW will be one of his unofficial visits this fall. While the Dawgs didn’t get an OV designation, Kanu will be in town for the Cal game and it might end up not being very different from an official.

• 247 updated the recruitment of another DT recruit, verbal commit Ben Roberts. Oregon has remained engaged with Roberts after his commitment to UW, and while he remains secure in his commitment, it looks like it’ll be a fight to the finish (that’s a good place to stop).