Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Breaking down MTSU's top three players | Why QB Asher O'hara worries us | What we would like to see from Iowa Saturday

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

We break down Middle Tennessee State University for you on today's episode before covering some of the things we would love to see from the Iowa Hawkeyes come Saturday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of the U.S. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off right away! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith!

Oh! He's got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. High on. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.

It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Lockdown Sports Network.

As always, I'm Andrew Wade and I'm with Zach Cohen, my co-host. Zach, it is Thursday morning. Iowa football is two days away. How are you doing today, man? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I'm excited. Another week of college football. I like every week of college football because, you know, whether it's Iowa, the Big Ten or any other conference, every week you learn something. Every week imposters show themselves. The underdogs and the kind of sneaky dark horses, arise a lot of upsets so i'm really excited about that

um i'm excited that every week the big 10 kind of like i said earlier in another episode that the puzzle pieces are start coming together slowly you start kind of seeing hey you know this team is not gonna be able to contend this team's not gonna be able to contend um you know already we've kind of seen the purdue um is not really who we thought they were or not even really competing probably at this point. We saw more Big Ten play, but they don't look good at all. Northwestern looks like crap. They just look terrible. So these teams are kind of separating themselves.

Michigan State actually didn't look great at all. Yeah, they dominated a Northwestern team, but, you know, they're kind of showing that they may be struggling for the Big Ten East. But, yeah, I'm excited. Hawkeye football, regardless if we play Middle Tennessee or if we play Iowa City West, I'm excited for more Iowa football. Absolutely, man. I do want to caution you, man.

Purdue started off 0-3 last year and whooped our butts for, you know, to the tune of 300, 400 passing yards. So, you know, some of these teams might not be looking good after three games, but you're absolutely right. As they get, as we get further into the season, we're going to start seeing more of these teams show their true colors, especially as we get into big 10 football. We're going to be covering all that on tomorrow's episode of the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast,

giving you the rundown of the big 10 slate of games and letting you know who we think are going to win those games on today's show, though, we're going to be breaking down Middle Tennessee State. Being a team that Iowa has never played, there's a lot to cover on Middle Tennessee State. Want to make sure you are prepped and ready for the game on Saturday. Before we jump into that, though, just a few quick housekeeping items. Please make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast app. And also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, or wherever social media you have. We do have those.

And then again, we do have that fantastic giveaway with the Jordan-Kanzari autographed materials. We were a little bit delayed on that. We're going to be doing something special this week on that, letting you know who is going to actually win that. So if you're listening to that today, we should be announcing the winner either today or Friday as well. Zach, do you have any thoughts?

I know I'm throwing you on the spot here, but i forgot we did not do that for our wednesday morning show so i want to make sure we're giving our listeners a little bit of a feedback on what's happening with that yeah so what we're probably going to do is we're probably going to make a video whether that's on instagram live or twitter before the iowa game um probably being on thursday or friday um we do record in. So my head was just in a pretzel and I just realized that, you know, we kind of time traveled. So we are going to be doing a winner from Instagram and a winner from Twitter. We will be doing a video of the drawing. Either me or Andrew will be doing it. You may be seeing my pretty face or Andrew's pretty face. So stay

tuned. It'll be a surprise. And then we'll kind of just be going from there. We may go live on Twitter probably. Actually, no, we probably will go live on Twitter. I forgot you can do that, so we'll probably go live, do the raffle. Instagram winner will generate random generator, and then Twitter random generator. And then we have the prizes, and we will DM you more details. So just stay tuned for that.

And, yeah. I love it, man. Let's jump into the Middle Tennessee State game. Obviously, again, we have not played Middle Tennessee State before. This is our first matchup. I believe it's the 93rd different team the Iowa Hawkeyes have faced in their history. So it'll be interesting.

It'll be the first time the Blue Raiders show up in Kinnick Stadium, and hopefully it's the last time they show up in Kinnick Stadium after we kick their butts out of the stadium. They do a pretty decent team don't look at the record they're one and two um but they played michigan pretty strong um they are a relatively decent team that i think we should actually be uh maybe you even talked about this maybe not looking ahead to the mission game but very much focused on this game because this is the team that could come in and upset us, man. Yeah, I mean, I think that they're kind of a frisky team. I think that these are interesting word.

I'm interested to see where you go with this one. Yeah, so I think this is the type of team that will hang around. I think that if you don't assert dominance, if you don't, you know, kind of both sides of the ball, offense and defense, and you kind of have that lackluster kind of just playing athleticism instead of, you know, playing the schemes, playing the matchups, you know, playing this type of football that is more, you know, cognitive and not just, oh, we're Iowa, they're Middle Tennessee, we're more athletic, we have better players that we're just going to go based on that. You know, I think this is a good game also for the Michigan game.

You want to make sure that you're fine-tuning all your skills. You want to make sure that the offense is working synonymously as one. Not synonymously. I don't even know how to say it. Wow. They're just working as one. You want to make sure that all the cogs are in the right places. Everything's working together.

We're moving the train. You just want to make sure everything is in the right position. Everyone's working well as a unit. So, yeah, I mean, mean i think that like i said these games are really kind of nerve-wracking to me because if you don't play them with respect they are still a you know fcs team fbs fbs team um you know these games are important like these are the type of games that you know these big time games will lose or these teams will lose you know, these games are important. Like these are the type of games that, you know, these big time games will lose or these teams will lose. You know, these are how upsets happen. So Iowa has to, you know, put on their, have the thinking that these games are important because

like I said, too many times I've seen teams look ahead. Oh, we're going to be playing Michigan next week. You know, we should just kick the crap out of middle Tennessee and we'll be good no that's not always the case this game is almost more important because it's basically a live practice for Michigan yes we should beat them we should beat them by 20 plus but this is like I said a practice make sure everything's working well have our offense be working great have our defense be going good have our special teams whether it's a punting or kicking be working well because i'll tell you what if we look like crap and still win this game i'm gonna have not very much confidence going into uh the big house because if we can come out of here and you know prove our you know

team improve our offense prove our defense and like i said i just think how we come into this game how we uh win this game is going to say a lot for Michigan week, because if we can come out flying, have our offense clamped down, give up no points on our offense, put up, you know, 30 plus points on the board, then Michigan is going to be in a lot of trouble. Absolutely, man. We're going to be covering the players from Middle Tennessee State,

talking a little bit, as you talked about, I mean, the fact that Middle Tennessee State is a team that we do not want to underestimate. There's a few players I think we really want to be aware of, and Kirk Behrens had some great comments, I mean, the fact that middle Tennessee state is a team that we do not want to, or, you know, underestimate. And there's a few players I think we really want to be aware of. And Kirk Barron's had some great comments, you know, specifically geared towards a couple of those players that we want to cover here in a few moments before we do that though, make a memory that lasts a lifetime and let the vivid seats app help you get

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the team in passing. He's also leading the team in rushing. He's a JUCO transfer, a big-time player who just started this year after they had to replace actually the coach's kid, Rick Stockstill's kid. Yeah, who's actually pretty good. How I know about him last year, don't ask, but that kid was actually pretty dang good. He could kind of throw the ball around the field, so it's kind of weird actually seeing this kind of a dual threat quarterback after they kind of had a pocket passer quarterback, so I'm sure their offense is kind of in a shock. Absolutely, man. It's a little bit unique of an offense, and Kirk even said to himself, here's the quote from Kirk, a leading passer, leading rusher, he's really doing it all, so it all really starts with him, and he's a little bit of a wildcat, leading rusher. He's really doing it all. So it all really starts with

him. And he's a little bit of a wildcat, not there in the wildcat formation. I'm not starting rumors, but he's a little bit of a wild card. Maybe that's a better word to use. He'll pull it down, break, contain those kinds of things. I think that quote really stands out because Iowa's defensive line has not done a great job of getting to the quarterback. They've done a good job of getting pressures, but they haven't really taken down the quarterback yet, and they haven't really had to face a quarterback like him yet. Brock Purdy can get out of the pocket, but Brock Purdy is not going to be pulling it down and leading the team in rushing every single week as Asher O'Hara has.

So that'll be an interesting matchup to see how they handle a dual-threat quarterback like O'Hara. Yeah, I mean, I think that Brock Purdy wasn't running the ball like a Kyler Murray type or, you know, oh my gosh, Jaden Hurts. Is that right, Jaden Hurts? Wow. I'm having a big brain fart. But anyways, he's not going to be this kind of dynamic, like running quarterback. how we kind of worked with Brock Purdy because even during that game you could kind of see that kind of left off him and kind of left him alone in the pocket and that they're kind of just focusing more on the receivers and things like that but when you kind of give the quarterback that space and let them have that option to move I mean you even saw teams will kind of get off of Nate Stanley and kind of not expect him to run at all and be more focused on the pass and things like that.

And then what happens is these guys get a little bit of space and they run for 10 yards easy. So I think that Iowa's going to have to do a good job, you know, putting a spy on this quarterback, making sure that if he's rolling out, if he's doing these things, if he's doing RPOs or things like that, to always keep an eye on him because I'll tell you what, I can already see right now this kid, know putting up you know 50 or 40 rushing yards because Iowa just has to when they blitz and things like that on a running quarterback and he gets out in space he's gonna

be able to pick up five to six seven yards pretty easily so Iowa needs to do a good job especially the dns at containing uh so it'll be kind of interesting this week uh be a more of a – it'll be an interesting game in the fact that, you know, you're not just blitzing the quarterback. They're not staying in the pocket. They're not rolling out a little, and you're just kind of getting in the backfield. You're having a guy that can make little plays with his legs, so you have to contain. And you also have to emphasize tackling too. You have to make sure you're taking this guy down,

you're getting to him in the backfield, that you're not arm tackling him so he can run back out in the pocket and keep plays live with his feet. So I think it's going to be interesting. Traditionally, I don't really know. Iowa hasn't really experienced a whole lot of running quarterbacks like this, especially a dual threat. We've had quarterbacks who can run a little bit like Trace McSorley, but not a guy who's leading their team in rushing.

So it will definitely be an interesting facet of this game. And just the fact that, like like i said this isn't you know this isn't a rutgers quarterback this isn't gabbert from miami of ohio this is this guy is competent and he's played a big time obviously they're not a powerhouse but they played michigan they played duke they played um two fbs teams who um aren't complete garbage dukes you know not great but they still played michigan They kept it close. And I still think that I'm just nervous. I don't like running quarterbacks against Iowa because I think Iowa is great

against pocket passers. I think they can force the pressure and things like that, but I'm a little nervous on how they can contain. Absolutely, man. So, I mean, I think the nice thing is, fortunately, they don't have to worry as much about the running game outside of O'Hara. The other guy, Shatton Mobley, only has 18 carries on the year. So at least they don't have to worry as much about that from that aspect.

But I do think, like you said, I mean, they do need to make sure that they are containing O'Hara, keeping him in the pocket, not letting him get out and burn them with their legs. A couple other guys I think are really going to be interesting matchups for Middle Tennessee State against Iowa. You know, their cornerback, Reed Blankenship, he is a two-time all-conference player, preseason, you know, Conference USA player this year as well. He has two picks already throughout three games and leads the team in tackles.

Former three-star recruit, so not just, you know, not some scrub, not some two-star, not some walk-on, and none of those guys are scrubs, but just, you know, a talented player who somehow ended up at middle Tennessee state. He's a guy that'll think it'll be really interesting. He'll be kind of manning the secondary. It'll be interesting to see if Nate Stanley tries to attack him or if they try to avoid one of the only players in that secondary who has the talent to stop the Iowa passing game.

Yeah. I think that it's going to be important. It's kind of rare that you see a safety leading the team in tackles, which Reid is doing. So I think that it's going to be weird how they do attack him. Are they going to kind of leave him out there by himself? Are they going to try and keep it low? Are they going to try and go to the deep ball against him? Are they going gonna try to

get him one-on-one with uh smith marsup or are they gonna kind of do the more short routes the more the hitches the drag routes things like that you know working the slot more this week so it'll be kind of interesting to see obviously he's not you know he's not in uh uh oh my gosh i can't think of it he's not uh you know al Alabama safety, or he's not a Clemson safety, or things like that. He's still a very good safety, but, you know, there are tiers of safety. So maybe Nate Stanley's not going to be scared of him. You know, he's faced good safeties back in the day with even like Malik Hooker

with Ohio State. We still attacked it. He threw for, you know, however many touchdowns he had. I think he had like four or five. So at the end of the day, he's their best player in defense. But, you know, however many touchdowns he had. I think he had like four or five. So at the end of the day, he's their best player in defense. But, you know, this isn't Alabama. This isn't Michigan or Ohio State. So maybe their best player, you know, could be a middle tier Big Ten player, you know.

So it just depends kind of how you think about it. Obviously, he's a ball hawk. Obviously, he's hitting. He's a hitting safety. He's leading the team in tackles. So I'm also going to be interested maybe on how they blitz him or use him kind of as a cash position like Iowa does. So maybe he kind of goes down there as almost like a linebacker. Maybe they send him out on blitzes because it doesn't really seem like he's a traditional,

just sit back and read the quarterback guy's safety. Yeah, man. I mean, I think there's also another guy they have that is kind of someone who they deploy very much as a blitzer. So I'm not sure if Blankenship will be the guy who's up front, but I do agree. Maybe they're going to have him try to actually cover a few guys. He was a corner on his freshman year and then moved to safety. So, you know, depending on what Iowa brings out in terms of formations, they might bring him down into the slot and cover a guy like, you know, Nico Regine or, you know, Tyrone Tracer,

or even Oliver Martin if he does get playing time. But we're going to cover the final guy that I really want to talk about. There's a guy who I think I've watched some tape on him and I thought it was, you know, he was a great player. So I really want to talk to him or talk about him on segment number three. So we're going to take a quick break and jump to a few messages from our sponsors and then jump into that. We are back with segment number three. As we talked about before, you know,

read Blankenship, Asher O'Hara, two guys to really watch out for from Middle Tennessee State. The final guy that I really want to talk about is Khalil Brooks. He is a guy who is an absolute terror as a linebacker position against Michigan. He primarily as an outside linebacker, he does blitz a lot. He is fifth in career sacks or fifth on the leaderboard in career sacks at Middle Tennessee State, fifth in tackles for loss. So he is a blitzing linebacker.

Against Michigan, though, he just obliterated their running back who tried picking him up in the passing game, in the pass blocking game, and just got annihilated. He almost got to Shea Patterson still, but Patterson was able to complete a deep ball. That'll be really interesting to see how Iowa handles that because they do run a traditional 4-3 defense. But having that fifth outside linebacker blitzing,

it'll be interesting to see how the linemen pick that up, how Nate Stanley handles the pass protection, and what running backs they have in the game. Makai Sargent is, without a doubt, the best pass-blocking back. So I have a feeling that we're going to see a little bit more Sargent in this game throughout, as opposed to going with the hot hand at running back. Yeah. I was going to say, he is definitely one guy to keep an eye on, especially coming from the pass rush, coming from the outside,

working on the inside, working, you know, the multiple stunts they're going to do on the defensive line with the linebackers. I think that, like you said, I think we are going to see a ton of Makai Sargent, depending on how much they blitz. And you know what, if they are blitzing and they kind of are aggressive, then you have to kind of use the aggression against them. So, you know, if they're blitzing and they're coming down,

maybe throw a little more screens, more quick passes, get the ball out of Nate's hand. And then that kind of puts the defense in their place and kind of makes them kind of take a step back a little bit and play a little more zone so it'll be kind of interesting to see are we kind of are they game planning for them to be blitzing a lot to be sending some guys at nate um or they're going to be focusing on the quick pass getting it out of his hands or are we going to kind of have this confidence that um our tackles and mckay sergeant be able to stop this guy so it'll be interesting kind of see how they game plan against him. So it definitely would be something to keep an eye on. So, like I said,

I do agree. I think Kahlil Briggs is someone to keep an eye on. Cause if you kind of play him lightly or don't put the right personnel on him, he can be a terror. Absolutely, man. Any other guys, are there any guys that you want to cover on middle Tennessee state before we jump into a few kind of things that we would like to see from the Iowa football team in you know Saturday's matchup I mean one interesting fact is they don't really have a receiver that's going too crazy I mean they have Ty Lee but it doesn't

look like who's 12 for 135 by the way but they have one two three four they have five guys over 100 yards though but no one over 12 catches. So Ty Lee and Jaron Pierce are their main receivers, but it kind of shows that they kind of spread the ball around a lot. They may be running a lot of spread offense and things like that. So, I mean, it's just up to the secondary and defense. And I know we're kind of thin on the secondary aspect, but just kind of being able to guard all of them

because it looks like he does spread the ball around a lot. Yeah, and they do have some really quick wide receivers, so it'll be interesting to see how the Iowa football team does handle that, especially in the secondary, like you said. We're not sure if we're going to get any of the guys back or not. Kirk was kind of, you know, mum is the word on a couple of the guys, especially Hankins and Brents, guys that we thought might be coming back, even Merriweather. So we'll see if those guys do come back.

It'll definitely help out the secondary. As far as anything you want to see from the Iowa football team, I'll kind of start – I mean, the big thing I would love to see is I would just like to see some of the injured guys get some rotation in. If they're ready to go, Larrick Jackson, maybe get 10 to 15 plays. I would like to see Merriweather get back in there, or even Brents and Matt Hankins. Those are guys who haven't played a lot of games yet because of injuries.

It'd be great to get them back into that rhythm before the Michigan game. Yeah, I mean, I think that, like I said, this game is almost like a live practice. This is almost like the walkthrough for Michigan. We want to make sure that we're all playing great on both sides, on the ball, offense, defense, and special teams. And what I'm looking for is I'm looking for our defense. I have this faith that Nate Stanley will do well. I have faith that Makai Sargent and Goodson and that other trio of running backs will get theirs and they'll be able to run the ball. I just hope that our defense and pass rush can get back there.

I'm hoping AJ can have a sack or two or those guys in the defensive line or linebackers. I'm just trying to see if we can get pressure on them because I know that next week we're going to be facing Shea Patterson. He is mobile. I know he's not having a great year, but he still is huge D1 talent. Obviously, he was at Ole Miss to Michigan. He's not some type of schmuck. He can go out there. He can ball. So I want our defensive line and pass rush to be able to force the issue against Middle Tennessee State. I want to see them getting in the backfield, sacking the quarterback, making the sure hand to tackle, not letting him go or untackling him.

Because at the end of the day, even as you guys saw during the Wisconsin game, Michigan couldn't really run the ball. Shea Patterson wasn't getting a ton of time in the backfield. And when he did have time, he did complete the passes. So I think just showing that our defense can get our pass rush can get down there. They can force some pressure is kind of going to be a sure tell of what they're going to be able to do for next week against Michigan, because this is kind of a week to get everyone's confidence. You want Nate to feel good. You want the running backs to be running well. You want our defense to be suffocating. So

you do need this type of confidence. It's going to lead them to go into the Michigan game that um they can have that attitude of you know we can beat you and we are going to beat you yeah man I think another guy who I would like to see get some confidence is Amir Smith-Marset in the return game um we haven't really seen him break anything yet he only has three returns he's averaging just around 18 yards per return um which is you know 10 yards off his pace last year is you know, his yard per return last year average. So I would love to see maybe Amir Smith-Marset as well, maybe get an opportunity to break one. Even if it's 30 or 40 yards, just get an opportunity to get in the open field

and get some of that confidence back, something we haven't seen yet from him. And he's going to get more opportunities when they're playing teams that actually score occasionally, but I would love to see that as well. And, you know, speaking of confidence, I would like to see Tyler Goodson get the ball even more. Maybe, you know, if we get an opportunity,

if we're up by 21 or 28 in the third quarter, maybe get Goodson the ball and just start riding him. I would love to see him with the ball in his hands for eight, nine, 10 carries, just see what he can bring to the table as a workhorse running back. Yeah, speaking of Goodson, this is also going to be an interesting game because this could be the last game he can play in and still redshirt. So I'm going to be interested to see what their game plans

are going to be going into Michigan. Have you heard any rumblings about what they're planning on doing with Goodson for the rest of the year? I have not. I mean, we talked about this last week. I just – I can't imagine them not playing him. He's just too good to keep on the bench. Kirk hasn't really said much about it. I He's just too good to keep on the bench.

Kirk hasn't really said much about it. I do think their plan is to keep Goodson in, though. But you're absolutely right, man. If he plays against Middle Tennessee State, that's four games. That's it. I mean, if they want to redshirt him and preserve eligibility, that's the last time we see him. But I really don't think that's going to be the case. I mean, it'll be – I'm curious to see what we see from Kirk after the game and see if if Goodson does get that red shirt

yeah I love Makai Sargent I think that he is a very hard-working guy he has a lot of grit a lot of determination he's our best blocker out of the backfield even though he's basically a hobbit he's awesome I love him but there's something about Tyler Goodson. He's kind of like the new toys, like the brand new thing, the shiny toy you have. And you're kind of interested. You've seen flashes, but not the full thing. And I just kind of wonder, I mean, I hope he gets more playing time. I love Sargent, but I know that everyone loves Torn Young. He's a good downhill runner, but I'm wondering to kind of see what happens with Goodson if he starts playing well and kind of outperforming Torin Young.

Maybe does he get more snaps than Young? Is he kind of submitting himself almost as the number two? And I'm just excited. I hope Goodson plays against Michigan because that's going to be a nationally televised game, and I think it would be pretty awesome to see a Goodson coming out party as a true freshman against Michigan while all eyes are on them. It would be kind of cool.

Yeah, I mean, we do need those explosive playmakers. That's the difference in this Iowa team. We have an Amir Smith-Marset, an absolute burner. Goodson is a dynamic running back. And Nate Stanley is looking like one of the best quarterbacks in the Big Ten. So it will be a lot of fun to see. Lots of stuff to take away from the Middle Tennessee State game. A lot of information we're going to really gather from that game and see how

this Iowa team looks after a bye week, after the emotional rollercoaster of the Iowa State game and heading into the Michigan game. But that'll do it for today's episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Make sure to be on the lookout for our Twitter stream where we announce the winners of the Jordan Kansari autograph memorabilia. And we'll be doing that later this week, if not today. So stay tuned for that. We'll be DMing whoever does win, though.

I'm letting you know that you are the winner of this great giveaway. Again, thank you all for tuning into this episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. If you did like what you heard today, make sure to like, review and subscribe subscribe wherever you download this podcast at, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Again, thank you so much for tuning in on this Thursday morning's episode. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and go Hawks! We'll see you next time.