Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Ava Bayless is excited to make history, Brody Brecht deals with a heavy work load, and Xavier Nwankpa is a freak of nature!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Who is Ava Bayless and why is she going to be one of the best wrestlers on this year's Iowa women's wrestling team? All that and more coming up on today's episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team, every day. Welcome back, Hawkeye Nation, to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast. Your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked on Podcast Network. Hello and welcome.

Starting point is 00:00:50 As always, I am your host, Ray Hillpiper. And before we get into things today, I want to thank you all for making the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get your podcasts at and also on YouTube by searching Locked on Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get your podcasts at and also on YouTube by searching Locked on Hawkeyes. Before we get into things today, I do want to say that the YouTube side of this podcast is going to be delayed a little bit longer than expected with the Locked on Minnesota and the Locked on Atlanta podcast getting into the swing of things. There is still some issues going on with the transferring on this side of things.

Starting point is 00:01:31 So we are going to get back on YouTube as soon as possible. And I will let you know as soon as I know when we are going to be going back live on YouTube. I cannot wait. We're going to have LaShawn Daniels on. It's going to be absolutely wonderful. Now, let's get into things. Ava Bayless just announced that she is signing with the Iowa women's wrestling team. Why is this important? I'll tell you in just a second. Reese Laramendi, you may know her, also an Iowa women's wrestler who is also from Wyoming Seminary in Pennsylvania, just like Ava Bayless.

Starting point is 00:02:07 She's currently ranked the number one wrestler at the 144-pound weight class, according to USA Wrestling. You also might know Kobe Franklin in the class of 2022 and Gabe Arnold in the class of 2023, who are also from Wyoming Seminary and will also soon be joining the Iowa men's wrestling team. Now, Bayless will stand as the eighth woman to sign with the Iowa women's wrestling team, and she will join her fellow teammates, Ella Schmidt, Nyla Valencia, Kylie Walker, Emily and Brianna Gonzalez, the twins, and Nadia Estrella. Bayless is also a senior from Wyoming Seminary, which once again is in Pennsylvania. She comes into the program as the 12th ranked 112 pounder in the country, according

Starting point is 00:02:53 to the USA Wrestling Program. Obviously a very tough weight class, but she is very, very, very talented. She is a two-time national prep champion, winning those titles back in 2020 and 2021. Following the announcement of her signing, she put out a statement saying, quote, I chose to attend the University of Iowa because of the academic and athletic opportunities. She also said there is no better place to become the best wrestler I can be than under coach Clarissa Chun, excuse me, and the support of the Iowa Hawkeye fans, community, and university,

Starting point is 00:03:29 I am extremely grateful to be a part of this historic team. Personally, I cannot wait to see Bayless get out on the mat as a fellow lightweight wrestler myself. It is absolutely great to see that these talented young men and women are coming into this Iowa program, which is one of the better ones in the country, obviously, taking third at the NCAA Championships this year and taking first this past year. It's one of the best programs in the country right now for wrestling,

Starting point is 00:03:55 and we're really, really hoping to see that the women's program is going to be able to deliver as much as the men's program does on a year-in and year-out basis. Some stats for you. as much as the men's program does on a year in and year out basis. Some stats for you. In 2018, she made the Cadets Women's Freestyle National Finals at the 94-pound weight class. In 2019, she finished sixth at the Cadet National Tournament and third at the UWW Cadet World Team Trials. In 2020, she placed third at the UWW Junior Women's National Championships in the 110-pound weight class. And this past year, she placed fourth at the Junior World Chief Trials and fifth at the Junior World National Championship. Head women's wrestling coach for the Hawkeyes, Claryn, as I mentioned,

Starting point is 00:04:40 who has personally worked with Bayless in the past when she was younger, just starting out in wrestling. So obviously Chun has known Bayless for a very, very long time and has worked with her before. So hopefully this will be a very easy transition for Bayless and Chun. Obviously Chun is very, very excited. In the quote that she said about Bayless signing with the team, she said, Ava is silent, a hard worker who goes about her business. I have been around her at various overseas and

Starting point is 00:05:12 domestic camps at the developmental age groups with USA Wrestling. She is a good student, a great person, and comes from a family of wrestlers. I am excited to get the opportunity to work with Ava again. As I said previously, I am super, super stoked to see what Bayless is going to be able to do on this women's wrestling team for Iowa. As you know, Iowa added the women's wrestling team this past season. As women's wrestling continues to be more and more prominent in the state of Iowa, which personally I think is absolutely fantastic. I have wrestled girls in the past. I've wrestled them in high school. It's absolutely no different. There's people out there that say that it's different and, you know, oh, it's harder to wrestle a girl when you're a guy. It's no different. It makes absolutely no difference, but it is absolutely fantastic to see the University of Iowa is progressing towards getting these young female wrestlers their own team and their own opportunity to compete against other girls who are just as good in their sport.

Starting point is 00:06:16 And these are not girls that are just coming out of high school and being like, oh, you know, I thought that I kind of wanted to wrestle and, you know, I kind of want to go to Iowa, so maybe I should do both. No, these are ranked-in-the-country girls who are coming in pound for pound, some of the best wrestlers in their weight classes. As I mentioned, Lisa Laramendi, number one-ranked wrestler at the 144-pound weight class, according to USA Wrestling. Absolutely phenomenal. And as I said, Ava Bayless coming in, the 12th ranked wrestler at the 112 pound weight class in the country. These are girls who are

Starting point is 00:06:51 not only talented at what they are doing, but that they deserve to have their own team. They deserve to be able to shine in their own side of this sport. Once again, I'm absolutely thrilled to see how this is going to turn out. Now that we've talked about that, I'd like to talk about Brody Breck. Yes, you know him, you love him, the football and baseball dual sporter at the University of Iowa. Before we get into that, I want to talk about Bilt Bar. Yes, Bilt Bar. This is the time of the year that I've pretty much given up on all of my New Year's resolutions. Not this year. This year, I'm sticking to my resolution to eat right thanks to Built Bar.

Starting point is 00:07:32 It almost feels like it's not even a resolution because I actually enjoy it. And you've got to try the puffs. If you haven't, you're missing out on one of Built Bar's best tasting bars. Puffs are the first ever protein infused marshmallow. Yes, you heard that right. Protein infused marshmallows. They're fluffy. They're delicious. They're light.

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Starting point is 00:08:47 You can replace your protein shakes with these after you work out. Cut it out. You don't need them. Eat the built bars. Compare that to a candy bar, which usually has around 240 calories, you know, 30 grams of sugar, excuse me, and dozens of net carbs. You've got to try out these flavors as well. They're absolutely amazing. Mint brownie, coconut, coconut almond, and all new for this

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Starting point is 00:09:55 which obviously, obviously can be immensely, immensely hard. All right? Breck is both a pitcher in Iowa's bullpen and he will be competing for a starting spot at wide receiver in the upcoming football season. Cannot wait to see how he performs come this fall. I've seen him play baseball a little bit so far this season. He's been doing great. I will talk about that here in a little bit. Originally from Ankeny, around the Ankeny area, so same as Riley Moss. They come from around the same area. The University of Iowa freshman was the 77th ranked prospect in last year's MLB draft, which

Starting point is 00:10:32 obviously to somebody who doesn't know, that might not seem that impressive. You know, he's not even in the top 50. He's 77th. You know, why does that matter? It matters because he was ranked 77th as a prospect in the MLB draft right out of high school. Are you kidding me? You hear about guys getting drafted out of high school all the time. Think about Kobe Bryant. Bryant was drafted right out of high school. He turned out to be one of, if not the best, in my opinion, his the best basketball player in the NBA ever in any right whatsoever. Obviously, it may, like I said, it may not seem that impressive to the untrained eye or the untrained ear, but 77th out of high school is absolutely insane. Fellow Iowa wide receiver Arlen Bruce said about Brock

Starting point is 00:11:26 in an interview, quote, hats off to Brody because I sometimes struggle to manage school and football. I can't even imagine doing two sports at the same time. He's doing a great job. He's in the middle of a season and still practicing with us. So that says a lot about his character. Personally, I agree 100% with Arlen Bruce in this statement, because even I, as a high school kid, had to deal with, you know, two sports, school, all at the same time. There was a very specific time in high school. So I was a wrestler and a football player in high school.

Starting point is 00:11:58 So we would be in the midst of wrestling season. So we would go to morning lifting for wrestling. And then right after that, at 7 a.m., we would go into the high school gym for routes for football. So we'd go straight from lifting to going and running routes for an hour and a half. Then we would go to seven hours of school, seven and a half hours of school, whatever it was. And then after school, we would go to a three hour long wrestling practice. I was sitting at the high school from 6 a.m. all the way until like 8 p.m. I was running 14-hour days, you know, back in high school, and trying to focus on school all at the same time is absolutely insane for anybody, and now he's doing it at the college level where he's going, he's

Starting point is 00:12:38 paying for his classes, he's going to get a degree, and he's playing two sports that he absolutely loves, and that he is absolutely a stud at both of them. Tuesday afternoon, Breck answered some questions for the media about how tough the spring season was going to be for him both mentally and physically. Breck seemed pretty confident in his abilities, a little bit shaky, I will admit, but he seemed pretty confident in his abilities saying, quote, I knew it would be tough. I've played a lot of sports in my life, but not at this level, obviously. When I first started, it was really, really tough, but I've gotten the hang of it now. It's gotten a lot better, but it's tough. As you can see, or as you can hear, excuse me, he knows that it's tough. He understands that

Starting point is 00:13:20 he's still willing to come out every single day, go through football practice, go through baseball practice, go to his classes, get his homework done, be a good student, be a good athlete, all at the same time. It's absolutely insane to me. I thought it was insane doing it at the high school level, but now he's doing it not only at the college level, but he's doing it at a college that is consistently good in both football and baseball at the D1 level,

Starting point is 00:13:45 which is crazy to me. I don't understand how anybody would ever be able to do something like that, even at the JUCO level. You know what I mean? I go to a JUCO school and I see kids that are going from baseball to football practice all the time. I've got a couple of friends that do it and they're drained all the time. I have no idea how they make it through school and football and baseball, especially because it's cold outside. I'm here in Iowa up north. It snowed today. I thought we were done with that.

Starting point is 00:14:13 It's April. Come on now. We should be done with this already. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Before the season even started, Brett was the number one rated MLB prospect in the Big Ten in the class of 2024. Which, again, is a lot of specifics.

Starting point is 00:14:31 You know, number one MLB prospect, yes, in the Big Ten, in the class of 2024. None of that matters. Why? Because he started off this season throwing over 100 miles per hour, 100.7 to be exact, which is absolutely insane at the college level. There was a pitcher from Tennessee recently in the past week that was throwing 103.7 or something like that, 103, 104, something like that. You may not know, but last season, the fastest pitch thrown in the MLB all season long was 103 miles per hour. Breck is a freshman in college coming out throwing 100 miles per hour, over 100 miles per hour, at 19 years old. You have guys in the MLB that are going in to their ninth,

Starting point is 00:15:26 tenth season throwing 95, 96 on a good day? This kid is absolutely insane. Now, I will be the first to admit that I am not the biggest college baseball fan, but I watched this kid's film, and I'm flabbergasted. I'm absolutely dumbfounded. I have no idea what to make of this kid because I didn't play a lot of baseball in high school. I played in junior high,

Starting point is 00:15:52 but I know what a good pitcher looks like. His fundamentals are absolutely perfect. Yes, he does have some developing to do, but he's 19 years old, 19 years old throwing over 100 miles per hour. And I know I keep saying that, but I want to stress to you as much as I possibly can that this kid is a marvel. He's absolute, I don't know what to say other than that he's insane. He's a marvel. It's like he's a superhero. It's like he's Superman out there throwing over 100 miles per hour at 19 years old.

Starting point is 00:16:29 Recently, in an article written by Kennington Lloyd Smith for Hawk Central, shout out to Smith, I love your articles, I read them all the time. Smith stated, Breck practices with the football team on non-baseball game days. On game days, he attends football practice but does not participate. In addition, he attends every meeting for both teams. Every meeting for both teams. Are you kidding me? This is an everyday commitment. It's an everyday commitment when you're on one team. When you're on just the football team, you're going to lifts. You're going to install. You're going to routes. You're going to every single thing that you have to do. On top of that,

Starting point is 00:17:01 you're playing baseball. You're going to batting practice. You're going to pitching practice. You're going to these scrimmages and to these games. And he credits both the coaching staff, both coaching staffs, excuse me, for working in harmony to ensure that he's not overextended physically or mentally. And props to both the Iowa football coaching staff and the Iowa baseball coaching staff for being able to coach a player in a way where he is physically putting his body on the line every single day, more than once a day for both of these teams. And they're still able to make sure that he is well rested, well fed, and he's doing well in his classes. I know personally, I've heard that Iowa does, Iowa's athletic teams do an extremely, extremely diligent job at making sure that all of their kids are doing well in their classes, which I love. I love to hear that, especially

Starting point is 00:17:52 from one of my favorite colleges being at the D1 level. They're, they're making sure that these kids are well-rested, well-fed and doing well in class. I was always told in high school, you are a student athlete in that order. you are a student athlete. In that order, you are a student first and then an athlete. So hats off once again to both of these coaching staffs for helping Breck do his classes and making sure that he is able to perform to the best of his abilities when he's at both of these practices. Although he will be competing for a starting spot on the football team this upcoming season at wide receiver, Breck has publicly said, quote, I'm prioritizing baseball right now. Obviously, I'm not going to be able to

Starting point is 00:18:35 be 100% in the football drills, so I'm taking a step back there. Understandable, obviously, from that point of view, but once fall picks up, I'm taking a step back in baseball and focusing on football. So it's just balancing the times and trying to give it my all. I love this kid already. I've never met him once in my entire life. I've never talked to him before. But I love this kid. He has tenacity, he has integrity. He has every single thing that makes up a perfect student athlete. All I've seen is his film and what he can do on the mound and on the field. This kid's insane. He grew up in Ankeny, as I said earlier.

Starting point is 00:19:17 And Ankeny has always been good at football, both Ankeny and Ankeny Centennial. Once again, I said Riley Moss came out of Ankeny Centennial. So they have played nearby each other. Excuse me. They know each other personally. I don't know if they were friends when either of them was in high school, but they played around the same area and both of them were stellar football players in high school. Obviously Riley Moss being a stellar track athlete as well. But personally, I'm super, super excited to see what he will continue to do on the mound as a pitcher in Iowa's bullpen. And I cannot wait to see how he will develop as a freshman football player in this upcoming season. I do not know, I can't personally say right now whether or not I think he will start as a freshman.

Starting point is 00:20:05 say right now whether or not I think he will start as a freshman. It just kind of depends where Iowa's priorities are at on the offensive side of the ball this year. Whether or not they're going to be run heavy or pass heavy, it's all up in the air still. We're still quite a way away from the first game of the year. So as of right now, I'm going to say no, he won't start as a freshman on the Iowa team. Obviously, I could be wrong. I could be completely wrong. There could be plans set in motion already for him to start this upcoming season, but we will just have to wait and see.

Starting point is 00:20:37 All right, it is time for the story of the day. Today, it is about Xavier and Wongpa. But before we get into that, I want to talk about BetOnline. BetOnline.net is your number one source for all your betting needs and sports info. Find all the latest sports developments, including this week's Masters Championship odds, podcasts, and reviews for all different leagues this season. BetOnline is your continued source for all your sporting wagering information, including live betting, esports, and scores.

Starting point is 00:21:09 Head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more about the trends and action. BetOnline, where the game starts. I do want to say you must be 21 years or older to bet on live sports. Keep that in mind before you go to BetOnline.net. Okay, the story of the day. Xavier Nwongpa. I have talked with my uncle Andrew on the podcast before about this kid. He is a freak of nature, and I mean that in the most sincerest, best way possible. This kid's insane. I have personally gotten to see him play at State in the Unidome. So five-star recruit Xavier Nwongpa is impressing Phil Parker

Starting point is 00:21:54 with his approach to the game. Obviously you know that Nwongpa was a five-star recruit right out of high school and one of the best high school players to ever play in the state of Iowa. I stand by that. I will not let anybody argue with me on that subject. He is one of, if not the best player to come right out of high school in the state of Iowa on that defensive secondary where he sits at. Now, he sits as one of the highest rated recruits to ever come into the University of Iowa to play ball for the Hawkeyes

Starting point is 00:22:21 and may be able to contribute heavily to Iowa's defense as a true freshman. Do I think he will start as a true freshman? Maybe. Maybe. I'm going to turn that yes into a maybe. Maybe. It depends on where they want to put him.

Starting point is 00:22:36 Obviously, Moss is going to stay at that defensive back position. I don't think he will be moved to cash. Maybe Nwankwo will be moved to cash. We'll have to see how it goes. Normally, he's typically played safety, so we'll see how that goes. Naturally, with how good Iowa's secondary has been in the last couple of years, though, expectations for Nwankwo are going to be extremely, extremely high right from the get-go. But it doesn't seem like anyone has any doubts on how he will be able to

Starting point is 00:23:06 produce in the upcoming season, which is great to see. Phil Parker said in a statement about Nwankwo, quote, I really like the way he approaches the game. He came into my office, wanted to meet and make sure he had things down. I think there's a lot of pressure on a kid coming in this highly rated with so many expectations. All I have seen from him so far is trying to get better as a player. Absolutely fantastic. And during Parker's time with the Iowa football team, he has coached several NFL, now NFL defensive backs or former, and has had several players win the Big Ten Defensive Back of the Year Award, including Riley Moss, along with Micah Hyde in 2012, Desmond King in 2015, Josh Jackson in 2017, and Imani Hooker in 2018. That is your story of the

Starting point is 00:23:56 day. I am extremely, extremely excited to see what Xavier and Wongpa is going to be able to do on the field as a true freshman. Will he start? Maybe. Will he get playing time? Yes. That is the firm, firm yes. I firmly believe that he will at least get a few snaps on the field this season, if not being a starter. Obviously, we'll have to see how that goes, but I firmly believe that he will be on the field at some point during the year for the Hawkeyes in some capacity. Whether it's at that cash position or at the free safety position or at the defensive back position, we'll have to see how it goes. That's it for today's episode.

Starting point is 00:24:39 Obviously, you can find me on Twitter at ryehill, W-R-I-H-I-L. Make sure you'll follow me on there. You can follow me on Twitter at RyeHill, W-R-I-H-I-L. Make sure you'll follow me on there. You can follow me on Instagram as well. Same, same username, at RyeHill, W-R-I-H-I-L. And make sure you go follow the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast on Twitter and Instagram as well. Make sure you're staying up to date on the daily podcast. Yes, we post every day. Once again, I'd like to thank you for your patience when it

Starting point is 00:25:06 comes to the whole YouTube side of things. For those of you who have been listening on Spotify that came from YouTube, I appreciate you sticking around. Thank you for kind of going through this whole transition process with me. I really appreciate it. And I'm glad that most of you are sticking around to hear what I have to say. I think I have some great opinions about Iowa sports. Hopefully you do too. Thanks for tuning into the episode today, and we'll talk to you later.

Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Ava Bayless is excited to make history, Brody Brecht deals with a heavy work load, and Xavier Nwankpa is a freak of nature!

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