{"id":862805,"date":"2026-04-10T03:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T03:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/862805\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T03:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T03:30:18","slug":"iowa-breaking-in-new-defensive-end-duo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/862805\/","title":{"rendered":"Iowa breaking in new defensive end duo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While there is a gap in how long they have been a part of the Hawkeye football program, the expectations for Iowa\u2019s new starting defensive end duo is going to be high. Gone are Max Llewellyn and Ethan Hurkett. Opportunity now knocks for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/iose-epenesa-49069\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iose Epenesa<\/a>, in his redshirt freshman season, and junior <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/kenneth-merrieweather-73148\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kenneth Merrieweather<\/a>, who will likely move into the starting lineup this fall.<\/p>\n<p>Merriweather and Epenesa talk about the work that they have put in this spring, the talent in the room and how that group is coming along, along with what Coach Kelvin Bell is saying about what they need to continue to work on this spring. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While there is a gap in how long they have been a part of the Hawkeye football program,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,113812,4525,117343,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-862805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-iose-epenesa-25-edwardsville","10":"tag-iowa-hawkeyes-football","11":"tag-kenneth-merrieweather-23-martin-luther-king","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116378299608815439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}