Iowa City, Ia. - Go ahead, Iowa football fans. Go as crazy as you want about that Jewel of a runner coach Kirk Ferentz put into the game during mop-up time Saturday against Maine.

Remember this, too, while proclaiming him the second coming of Fred Russell or even Sedrick Shaw:

Maybe by the time Saturday's 11 a.m. game against Florida International rolls around, Jewel Hampton will have his sock thing figured out.

"The guy can't even keep his socks up," Ferentz said of the true freshman who stole Shonn Greene's headlines. "He's the only guy on the team that's got his socks down around his ankles.

"That's the first thing we have to get corrected."

Saturday belonged to Greene, whose comeback from academic exile included 109 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries through three quarters of a 46-3 breeze - until reserves trickled into the game.

"We were just waiting for coach to put in Jewel," receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos said. "I couldn't wait to hear what the crowd's reaction was going to be after they saw him."

That took all of one carry - a 19-yard dash into the end zone on the first collegiate rush of his life.

"Who's he remind me of? He reminds me of Jewel Hampton," Johnson-Koulianos said. "Ever since he's been here, he's been a reckless runner.

"He doesn't say much; he's just a nice kid and he runs hard."

Hampton finished his debut with 68 yards and two touchdowns on nine fourth-quarter carries.

"He's a special back," Greene said. "Fans got to see today what we've been seeing all the time in practice."

At 5-feet-9 and 200 pounds, Hampton is both speed and power. His high school coach, Steve Tutsie, called him a tank when word seeped back to Iowa that Hampton accepted Ferentz's scholarship offer.

"That's what his buddies called him," Tutsie said then. "They said he runs like a tank."

He certainly did that while rushing for 2,095 yards and 27 touchdowns last season as a senior at Indianapolis' Warren Central High School.

"We need to check Ball State's recruiting list," Ferentz said Saturday afternoon.

That's the only other school offering Hampton a scholarship.

"I have no idea why," Ferentz said. "It's funny how recruiting is.

"I kept asking during the wintertime, are we missing something? Is this guy like a commuter bandit?"

Say what?

"He has his head on straight," team leader and defensive tackle Mitch King said. "He's going to be a great back for us."

But he's going to continue as No. 3 - behind Greene and behind Paki O'Meara.

"Jewel has done a lot of good things and I think you can see why he's caught our eye, but there are still some things he hasn't done," Ferentz said. "I'm not 100 percent sure he knows all the protections, so those are things that he's going to have to learn in the next couple weeks.

"The next challenge is that I hope he doesn't think it's this easy all the time."

Hampton also must work on his socks.

"We'll try to help him out there," Ferentz said. "We'll make him wear those socks all week - maybe try to coach him up a little."