Andy & Ari On3 - Iowa THROTTLES Washington, 41-24: Are the Hawkeyes a REAL College Football Playoff contender?

Episode Date: October 10, 2026

Join Andy & Ari HERE tonight following the conclusion of the Iowa-Washington  game from Seattle. As Iowa jumped out to a massive lead in the first half, does Washington have anything up their sleeve for the rest of this game? Andy & Ari react here.Our show is presented by Polymarket!New User Offer: Deposit $10, get $50 upon sign uphttps://app.polymarket.us/S8ac/ON3Trade on College Football games every week on Polymarket. Download the Polymarket App with code ON3 for a $20 bonus upon sign up.18+ only. Restrictions and eligibility requirement apply. Not available in all jurisdictions. Trading is risky. 100% loss can occur.Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/Q8F97jSvvIIHosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River BaileyInterested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to an instant reaction. It's an demanding Ari on 3 presented by Polly Market and Ari. Iowa goes to Seattle and crushes Washington. Jeremy Hekelinsky, the backup to Hank Brown, starting in place of the injured Hank Brown, may not be giving up that job. How do you think Iowa got to Seattle tonight? Was it via wagon? They are a wagon.

They just are. Or Jeremy Hekelinsky flew them up. They're on vibes alone. Like, I know that Kirk Farrant said that what they saw between him and Hank Brown in practice was nearly identical. That's not what we saw in the game. That doesn't seem possible. Yeah. It seems like a quarterback battle gone wrong.

It seems like they looked at heckleskins. They're like, whoa, slow down, son. We need to. We don't want to score that fast. We need a pun. Yeah. That was a really, really good performance from Iowa. and I know that people are fired up in the chat.

You know, I took a visit to the Iowa message boards a few weeks ago to talk about the P word. Yeah. And they're just like, I don't want to talk about the P word. I think they beat Washington on the road. I think you're going to need to talk about it. But now maybe we can talk about it. You know, let's unpack the game first.

Then we can get into the back end of their schedule. But, you know, they played really good defense. They played Iowa football, but they scored a ton of points. Is this stack correct that Hicklinsky didn't have an incomplete pass? for the final three quarters of the game. It's correct. Yeah, he was, and it finished 14 to 19, 202 yards, 10.6 yards per attempt, three TDs, no interceptions, and Kamari Molton, of course, was awesome. 26 carries, 208 yards in two TDs. And maybe one of the most badass attempts at getting another team to jump off sides in the history of college football. Happy jump, jump!

I mean, he was yelling at the defensive line. That was hilarious. But vibes are high. Vives are low in Seattle. But vibes are high in Iowa. City for sure. Yeah, Daman Williams goes out at the end of the first half. Elijah Brown comes in. And I think you also may have this a quarterback controversy in Seattle as well.

But they just, they've looked awful. They've lost now to Minnesota to USC, which was a competitive game, which actually the way Washington got dumped trucked in this game kind of makes me worry about USC against Penn State or makes me understand that

spread a little more. Yeah, the spread of one and a half might come into focus a little bit, if it not tonight, maybe tomorrow. We'll see. Yeah, but Washington has a lot of work to do. Defensively, they were, they just, I mean, they were blowing assignments left and right, miscommunication on the, especially the one touchdown where Bander Z was wide open in the end zone, nobody even bothered to cover him. And you saw the, the DB going over to talk Ryan Walters, the defensive coordinator, after the play, saying, I, you know, I thought we said this.

And, but within they said this. and that's the sort of thing that was happening quite a bit. Yeah. I'm just like kind of in shock because if Iowa can move the ball like that, and I think there's probably a lot to unpack, as one of the comments here just mentioned, is Washington the most disappointing team in college football. The first team in the Big Ten to reach three losses.

Now, of course, give Michigan State and Rutgers some time. There's a whole day coming tomorrow. But they're still first. And if you're not first or last. And I just like, I thought that Washington had a chance with their, their offensive line improvements and the way that Jedfish has done in his career that this season had a chance for them to be a team that made some noise in the Big Ten and frankly they did make a noise. It's just a fart noise.

Exactly. And, you know, DeMond Williams got hurt. So, you know, I don't know how much you think that impact. Offensively, they got better after that. Yeah. So I don't know if that. I did see a tweet that said that Washington is filing a lawsuit to put DeMond Williams back in the portal. I thought that was kind of funny.

Yeah. I don't, I don't know. Yeah. Maybe I joke about that the night he gets hurt. Yeah. But this is not the season they expected to have. This is remember that they started the year, why are we ranked where you guys are ignoring us? What do you do?

No, no, no. This is why. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, Iowa, though. Yes. You were the first to jump on the bandwagon last year. Then you jumped off the bandwagon.

And then this is just they're giving you a middle finger now, I think. When did I jump? off their bandwagon. You've needed them two weeks ago. Oh, I guess I did, didn't I? Against Michigan. Well, and ever since then they played. Yeah, of course, I picked them to cover against Ohio State and they burned me there too. But that's

okay. I did pick Iowa to win this week and I picked Iowa to cover. I think this team has a chance to make the playoff. We said P-word. Let's just say it out loud. This team has a chance. Now, they have an open date. Then they're at Minnesota for the

Floyd of Rosedale, one of the greatest trophies in the world. It's got a giant pig on it. Well, it's not a giant pig. It's a normal size pig. Normal size, medium pig. Yeah, it's a, so, but it's a pig trophy. And then they've got Wisconsin and then they're at Northwestern. Those are all very tough games. Right.

You got to, do you have to win them all, though, is the question. Yes, you do. Yeah, you don't want to be Vanderbilt last year. You want to be Indiana from two years ago. Okay. You know, the thing with Iowa, though, that I think is interesting is, that I kind of pushed back at the notion that they could run the table because when you play low-scoring, tough Iowa games. Right.

But if they're going to come out here and improve this much offensively, then all of a sudden you start to view this team a little bit differently. So, you know, I don't know tonight, Andy, if this was a product of, you know, finding the right quarterback unlocking something on offense or if this is a product of a team that's just down in the dumps in Seattle, I guess we'll see how this game age. I don't know that Washington was just down in the dumps. I think you watched them play against USC. they were very competitive. It's a tough way to lose that game. Right. So like, you know, and then you start off 0 and 2.

I can understand why, you know, vibes weren't high for them coming into it. I'm not saying that's the reason they lost. Maybe Iowa did that to them as well. But, you know, Iowa jumped out to such a big lead. I mean, they had them like, anybody who's losing by 24 or whatever it was to Iowa is just in pure hell. Yes. And Washington was. So, you know, I think that the other thing we have to mention too,

because it's very easy to fall back on the quarterback play was Kamari Bolton's performance, 26 carries for 208 yards, two touchdowns, he broke the game open in the first quarter with that long run up. And they don't think it was 56 yards. And, you know, they're running the ball really hard. And that's always been a tenant of their offense. But if they're going to be able to, like, hit some of these shots that they were taking in the passing game, keep defenses off balance while also playing Iowa defense and special

teams, that's a really hard team to beat. Now, you look at the Minnesota game and the Northwestern game and the Wisconsin game, and those are like Big Ten West games and Spider-Man memes. But, you know, I think in order, if you want to be considered a playoff team or the P-word, then you can't be the same as those. You have to be a little more dynamic. And I think what you saw was a more dynamic version of Iowa that we have not seen all year. You know, if you got this version against Ohio State,

I don't know if they beat Ohio State because Ohio State's defense is probably better than Washington. But there were plays to be made out there in the first half of the Ohio State game that weren't made. That might have been made in this scenario. So not saying they would have won, but it would have been a closer game. So, you know, I, if I'm an Iowa fan right now, I'm cautiously optimistic. You know the Big Ten has a really crappy way of humbling teams sometimes. You know, you enjoy this one tonight. But I think that if Iowa is the team that we saw tonight, there isn't a team that remains on their schedule that they can't or shouldn't be.

This is this is a team that can go 11 and 1. But the next three are going to be hard. Now, you've got that open date. So presumably Hank Brown has a chance to get healthy. If that, you know, if you have to make a choice, I think Hecklinsey made the choice for you. It feels like he made it pretty easy. Yeah.

You know, and I don't know. If I were a coach, I've never been one. You tell me, what do you stock? How much stock do you put in game performance versus practice performance when you have both at your disposal? I'd like to win the games. So if the practices are basically the same and one is much, much better in the games, just go with the game. We go with the guy and the game.

So, by the way, like, okay, I'll give you an example from way back in the day. Terry Dean was a much better practice player than Danny Wherffle. Do you remember Terry Dean? I don't. You do remember Danny Wharfill, though, don't you? Okay. Yeah, he has a nice trophy. Yes, he does. A tremendous looking trophy. Yes, exactly. So that, that's, that's how that works sometimes. But Heckolensky did, it did look different. And maybe that's just a game. Maybe that's just this defense. The three defenses they're about to play are all really salty. And I think Minnesota is probably the best of those three. Andy, you have dared to dream this week that Nebraska shows up on Saturday. Against Indiana. Yeah. Yep. Yep. What if Nebraska shows up on Saturday

or shows up in one of the other big game? Oh, boy. Have a rivalry at the end of the year for a spot at the big kids table. I don't know. I don't want to dream. Black Friday, baby. That would be incredible. There are a lot of Big Ten West fans who are. just high on life right now. So, you know, thank you for the comment there, Tissue. I think it's hilarious because, you know, we do get ahead of ourselves.

But you know what? Part of the joy of this. Is getting fired up. Yeah. And daring to dream on mid-October nights. You know, like I don't know how the, you know, the season's going to play out. But I'll tell you one thing, Andy,

the team that I saw tonight is, is worthy of that discussion. All right. Absolutely. Absolutely. We said the P word. We said it. we're going to keep saying it Iowa the P word it's not punt you barely did that tonight it's

playoff playoffs I said the P word in the look at Kirk Farrant smiling like that picture it's funny that you use that because I did say in the in the forum last week or two weeks ago the P word in the in the thread line headline and the first response was punt question mark not anymore we said the P word isn't punt