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IOWA CITY – James Vandenberg got what likely was his last little sniff of anonymity last Saturday night.

Iowa’s redshirt freshman quarterback was in the Bass Pro Shop in Altoona, Iowa, trying on some waders he hopes to use in his next duck hunting foray with teammate Brandon Wegher. A store clerk, not knowing who he was, asked him if he had gone to the Iowa-Northwestern game earlier that day.

Vandenberg nodded.

“Did it look as rough in person as it did on TV?” the clerk asked.

Vandenberg just smiled.

“You have no idea,” he said.

The kid from Keokuk got his first real taste of college football in that game and it was a bit rough. He completed just 9 of 27 passes for 82 yards after replacing injured Ricky Stanzi and the Hawkeyes went down to their first loss of the season, 17-10.

Vandenberg will make the first start of his college career this Saturday in about the most daunting circumstances imaginable. The 15th-ranked Hawkeyes take on No. 10 Ohio State and one of the nation’s elite defenses in front of 102,000 unruly fans and a national television audience with a berth in the Rose Bowl hanging in the balance.

“What more could I ask for?” Vandenberg said. “I’ll never be in this situation again. I plan to make the most of it.”

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz understands how much pressure Vandenberg will be under and he said he thinks the kid understands, too.

“He’s walking into a tough, excellent defense,” Ferentz said. “It might as well be an NFL defense we’re playing. It’s going to be a tough order there. The crowd noise is going to be hard … You couldn’t ask for a tougher starting contest for him.”

Staying calm

If the situation has Vandenberg flustered or nervous, it doesn’t show.

He seems unusually sure of himself for a kid who won’t turn 20 until a week from Monday. (The waders were an early birthday present). He’s calm, confident, bordering on brash.

Teammates say that despite his inexperience, they have no qualms about his toughness or feistiness.

“I’ve beat the heck out of him a few times and he just keeps fighting …” senior linebacker Pat Angerer said. “Every time he comes over to my house he’s running his mouth. I’ve literally choked him unconscious a few times and he always gets up talking trash.”

Angerer refers to Vandenberg as “the little brother I’ve never had,” but Vandenberg said big brother might be exaggerating just a little. He said he, safety Tyler Sash and others have spent a lot of time at Angerer’s house and there have been several impromptu wrestling matches. And Angerer almost always wins.

“But I don’t think he’s ever had me unconscious,” Vandenberg said. “I may have been close a couple times.”

Wait-and-see approach

Despite his success at Keokuk, where he led the Chiefs to the Class 3A state title in 2007 and threw for a state-record 49 touchdowns that season, a scholarship offer from the home-state university took some time to materialize. There is evidence to suggest that Vandenberg was not Iowa’s first choice among quarterback prospects that year.

Ferentz said he and his staff offered a scholarship to Tuscola, Ill., QB John Wienke prior to his senior year but, as with Stanzi two years earlier, they waited to see what Vandenberg did in his senior season.

Vandenberg had offers from Northern Illinois and Nebraska, and Michigan State also showed some interest. Finally, in early December, the Hawkeyes told Vandenberg they had a scholarship for him.

“To me, it was always going to be Iowa,” he said. “If they offered me, I wasn’t going to be able to turn it down.”

Wienke had committed to Michigan, but he became disenchanted with a coaching change there and he also ended up signing with Iowa.

The two players became fast friends as well as rivals. They both redshirted last season and were listed on the same line on the depth chart behind Stanzi until last Saturday.

“They both throw the ball well. They’re both students of the game,” Ferentz said. “The big thing they lack is experience and right now James has a huge edge on John since he got in the game the other day. We really like everything about him.”

Growing into the job

Ferentz said probably his only concern about Vandenberg was his size. He only carried about 170 pounds on his 6-foot-3 frame when he arrived.

“That scared me a little bit the first time I saw him …” Ferentz said. “It was a little hard to envision him playing Division I football … James has worked really hard physically. He’s a whole different guy than he was a few years ago. The biggest issue now is getting him experience, getting him caught up to speed and bringing him along.”

Vandenberg admits there was a certain amount of “shock’’ when he was called upon to replace Stanzi last Saturday and his jitters showed when he threw an interception on his first pass attempt.

“You can’t anticipate injuries,” tight end Tony Moeaki said. “I’m sure he was a little nervous out there. Going into this week, he knows he’s going to be out there and his approach is going to be a little different.”

Ohio State coach Jim Tressel saw enough of Vandenberg on tape to think Iowa’s offensive approach won’t change at all.

“As the youngster went in there in the back half of last week’s game, it didn’t look like they changed what they did,” Tressel said. “They threw it up there a bunch of times and he looked like he knew what he was doing.”

Vandenberg admits that facing a hostile, six-figure crowd will be a new experience.

He probably did not play in front of 102,000 people in all the games in his high school career combined. He said the most pressure he ever felt was in a first-round playoff game with Marion in 2007.

“There was a lot of nerves and there were a lot of people at that game,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s comparable to this.”