Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Can Iowa beat Michigan? | Why Fran deserves to stay | Ranking DBs in Kirk Ferentz era

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

The men's basketball team takes on #5 Michigan tonight, and it could be a good game if (and that's a big IF) the Hawks can play better defense then they have. They will also need to bring their A game offensively as the Wolverines are the second best team in the nation defensively. Segment two has us diving into whether or not we believe Fran McCaffery should stay as the head coach of the Hawks after this season, and then finally on segment three we rank our top defensive backs of the Kirk Ferentz era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering the University of Iowa Hawkeyes. I am your host, Andrew Wade. As you may know or may not know, if you're just joining us for the very first time, I am your host of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast today and every single day. If you've been listening to it, obviously you've been getting familiarized with my voice. I hope you're enjoying it. I personally enjoy it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing this. So thank you again for joining us on this lovely Friday. If you are in the Midwest, I hope you are

good and survived the polar vortex. Those temperatures looked absolutely terrible. So hopefully everyone's safe, having a good time and ready to talk about the Iowa Hawkeyes because we have some fantastic content to give you today. We're going to be covering tonight's big basketball game, Iowa versus Michigan, and tell you what you need to know going into that basketball game. On segment number two, we're going to talk about Fran McCaffrey. He's been the subject of a lot of concern and not hatred, but just discontent. And Fran McCaffrey, I personally think he's a good coach, and we're going to talk about whether or not he really is a good or bad fit

for the Iowa Hawkeyes and whether they should look at firing him and moving on from him. So we'll be talking about that on segment number two. And then finally on segment number three, we're going to be talking about the top five defensive backs in the Kirk Ferentz era. Obviously, there's a ton of great defensive backs. I want to make sure we're giving you the most appropriate top five defensive backs in the Kirk Ferentz era. Obviously, there's a ton of great defensive backs. I want to make sure we're giving you the most appropriate top five

that we personally think of as we're going through that. Make sure you know that you can let us know what your thoughts are. Just tweet back at us at LockedOnIowa, email us at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com, or tweet at me, AndrewWade at Wade underscore Andrew, where you can find all of my stuff on there as well. We love to hear from you. Love to get what your thoughts are on the show and the content.

Before we jump in, though, make sure you are subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at. And if you have a smart speaker at home, all you need to do is tell Siri, Google, or Alexa to play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. It's that easy to listen to every show of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. And as a reminder, if you're tuning in with us for the very first time, we did a fantastic five episode series about the NFL draft and all the Iowa Hawkeyes who are available this year and who could potentially be available next year for the NFL draft.

So we had Nick Kendall, NFL draft analyst for 24-7 sports. He came on, talked a lot about the Iowa Hawkeyes, talking about Anthony Nelson and TJ Hawkinson, Noah Pham, those kind of guys. We're talking about them. We're also talking about AJ Vanessa and Nate Stanley for next year. So if you're just tuning in with us and you love the NFL draft, make sure you're checking out our previous five episodes where we covered all the NFL draft content you could possibly want on your Iowa Hawkeyes. That being said, though, let's jump right into it. We have a big game tonight. Very big game tonight. Iowa is taking on Michigan. They are in the midst of a two-game losing streak. You know, we looked at this schedule, these four games, right, playing Michigan State, going at Minnesota,

playing Michigan and going at Indiana. This is arguably their toughest stretch of the season. If they were able to come out of this 2-2, I consider that a success. That being said, I thought those two wins would come against Minnesota and Indiana. So they're facing an uphill battle now. They need to take on No. 5 Michigan tonight and come away with a win. And it's not do or die. Iowa is still firmly in the NCAA tournament conversation. A loss here wouldn't hurt them very bad, but it's just

the idea of getting into that trend of losing. And I want to see the Hawks pick it up because against Minnesota, their defense was absolutely atrocious. Not a fan of watching that game and they really need to get it going as they're playing Michigan and see how they can do defensively against a team like Michigan. It'll be interesting though, Michigan's offense is not super strong. They're a decent offensive team, but they're averaging around 71.4 points per game, 233rd in the nation, and they're about in the middle point of the Big Ten in terms of shooting percentages from the field and also from three-point land. So they're not exactly an offensive juggernaut, but defensively, they are very stout. They are the number one ranked team defensively, according to Ken Palm, and they are the second

ranked team in terms of points allowed per game in the NCAA. So that's going to be a tough battle for the Iowa Hawkeyes. One of the other things that the Michigan Wolverines are really good at is they're really good at defending the three-pointer. And for a team that plays mostly man, they don't really commit a ton of fouls. So this will be an interesting kind of thing for the Hawks. Last year, you consider Iowa a three-point shooting team, a team that's going to pop a three-point a lot. I think there's a lot of guys on the Hawks who can shoot the three-point well. I think this year, though, they've really started to emphasize the postgame with Tyler Cook and Luka Garza, and that's really where they're finding a lot more of their offensive success.

There's still, though, some guys who can really shoot it from three, or like Jordan Bohannon, just want to shoot it from three all the time. In fact, Bohannon's averaging five three-point attempts for every two regular shots, and that's a little bit—I would like to see him drive a little more regular shots and that's a little bit I would like to see him drive a little more get to the paint a little bit and against Michigan he's going to need to do that because they're not going to let him get his shot off and I can't stand to see him step 10 feet back and pop threes consistently all day and banking him off the rim so that'll be an interesting battle for them also who's going to win that free throw battle? We've seen numerous times that Iowa is able to get even the best of teams and, you know, foul trouble with their, you know,

constant aggression and down low and attacking players and whatnot. So let's see how that kind of plays out. The interesting thing here is while Michigan is very good at not fouling people, they don't really have a very deep bench. So if they were to get in foul trouble, their bench only goes seven people deep. They have a few guys that played a couple minutes each game, but for the most part, it's just seven guys who are kind of rounding out that entire lineup. So if Iowa can get any of those guys in foul trouble, that will really put a lot of pressure on their bench.

As can be expected, though, Iowa is not favored in this game. No, I would not expect them to be favored in this game, I guess, especially coming off a game like they did against Minnesota. But I think there's obviously a chance. I'm not going to go out on a limb and predict they're going to win, but I think if you can get Moss, you know, Isaiah Moss and Joe Wieskamp going offensively and have them drive into the lane,

obviously we need big gains from Luka Garza and Tyler Cook. I think the biggest thing, though, is we just need to play better team defense and maybe not rely on man defense as much. Iowa doesn't have the players to match up man to man, especially, especially Jordan Mohannon. And I think Luka Garza is not a very strong defensive player as well. So, you know, the zone is really benefit or really helps Iowa lock in defensively. And that's what they really need to do more often against Michigan, against Michigan state of Minnesota when they were in man, that's really when they got burnt so we'll have a full recap of the game though on either tomorrow's episode if we do one tomorrow or on Monday's

episode so stay tuned for that we have a few messages from our sponsors though so we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back all right we are back after those messages from our sponsors. On segment number two, we're going to be covering Fran McCaffrey. Is he a good coach? Is he someone that Iowa can rely on consistently over the next coming decade? Is he going to have a Kirk Ferens tenure? Or is he going to have a Steve Alford tenure? Is he gone soon?

Or is he going to be here forever? And then just a reminder that on segment number three, we're going to be giving you our top five defensive backs in the Kirk Ferentz era so Fran McCaffrey I think this is a very contentious topic a lot of people have a lot of thoughts on this and I'm very curious to hear what your thoughts are for me personally I like a lot of what Fran stands for one of the big things that stuck out to me is that he will support his players to the death. I mean, he's hard on them. Don't get me wrong, but he will absolutely go to bat for his players. I think obviously the little issue in the earlier season about, you know, Macy Daly and dribbling with the head down and stuff. I think Fran McCaffrey overreacted, but just like that, he treats the

players like they're his kids. So I love that about him. And one of the things is, you know, people look at his conference record. They say, you know, he has a losing conference record. His winning percentage isn't that great. But what people don't realize is that he kind of came into a pretty bad situation. He was taking over for a team from, you know, Licklider that was absolutely terrible. And he, you know, it took him two seasons to turn the program around, but he's getting there. And if you take away those two seasons, he's actually doing pretty okay. In terms of conference wins and losses, he's 61-57, which is a 52% winning percentage. That's pretty good considering how solid the Big Ten is. And his overall winning percentage is 61%, 138 wins to 88 losses.

Reminder, that is only for every season but the first two where he was really trying to improve that program. Now, I've mentioned that a lot, you know, when talking about Fran McCaffrey. I think a big thing is how do you separate those first two years, and personally, I think it's okay to exclude those, but in talking and conversing with some Iowa State fans on Twitter, they made some good points. You know, Iowa State was, you know, not in a good spot. Hoiberg joined them. And holy crap, they turned around immediately. He went out, he got transfers.

He got a lot of random guys that brought in there and made that team good right away. And it took three years for Fran. So is that a testament to Fran or is that a testament to Hoiberg? Is Fred Hoiberg the kind of guy who can do that? Is he just that, you know that amazing as a head coach? Or is this kind of a negative on Fran for not being able to do that as quickly? Interested to get your thoughts. Definitely tweet at us at LockedOnIowa what your thoughts are on that.

Another thing, though, too, I think for me, obviously the big knock on Fran is his postseason success. He hasn't had a lot. The Hawks have been to three NCAA tournaments. That is not ideal. I think they're likely going to go to a fourth this year. I also think there's an opportunity for them to go for the next couple of years. They have a really strong core. But when he's been there, they haven't been successful.

They're one in three. So, I'm sorry, two in three. They're two in three and not exactly ideal. I think this team has the talent if they can put it together to go, you know, two, three, four games into the NCAA tournament this year. But it's just a matter of them being consistent and putting it all together. And the one knock I think for Fran, at least, is that defensively, he plays a very complex defensive scheme.

And it takes players years to learn his defensive scheme. And, dude, you've got to simplify it, man. It's college basketball. Your defensive scheme shouldn't be that bad. I mean, Iowa has athletes. Teach them the fundamentals. Play a few different types of zone and stick with that. I think don't get too fancy here,

and that's one of the things I think I'm a little bit frustrated about with Fran as of right now. That being said, though, the big thing, the reason why I think they really should keep Fran is his recruiting has gotten better. I mean, Iowa is not going to be the team that gets five star recruits. I understand that. They're not Kentucky, right? They're not Kansas. But they're starting to pick up some pretty solid players.

They had Tyler Cook a few years ago. Luka Garza, another four star. They got Joe Wieskamp. Connor McCaffrey was almost a four-star. And then you have Patrick McCaffrey coming in next year, the son of Fran. Do you think Connor and Patrick are going to stay if Fran's fired? I doubt it. And they're very instrumental to the success of this team.

I mean, we're seeing it right now. Jordan Bohannon is not a point guard. He is a shooting guard and a point guard's body. When the ball gets to him, it dies. The offense just doesn't run very well through him. And Connor McCaffrey is really that point guard, the leader of the team from that perspective. And Patrick brings even more dynamic abilities. I mean, he's arguably a better player than Connor is. I saw him play in the state tournament a few years

ago and the kid's fantastic. Even as a young player, he was great. So I think that's a huge reason why we should keep Fran. And also give him a chance. I mean, Iowa wasn't expected to win that game against Michigan State. Yes, did it suck to see them blow it? Absolutely. But they weren't expected to win that game and they were in it for most of the game. The Minnesota game, disappointing. Shouldn't have lost that.

But it also is the Big Ten. The Big Ten is freaking tough. It is not an easy conference to play in each game. So give them some slack. Let's see how the next couple games go. And then I think reevaluate how we feel about Fran as the head coach of the Iowa basketball team. That'll do it, though, for segment number two. Just a reminder that on segment number three, we are going to be talking about the top five defensive backs in Iowa football history.

All right. we are back with the top five defensive backs in Iowa football history. Thank you again for tuning in to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. You can find us on Twitter at Locked on Iowa, and you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or Spotify. So we, obviously it's not football season, but we love talking about football here on

the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. I thought it'd be a fun adventure to look through the defensive backs in the Kirk Ferens tenure. And there have been a ton of good defensive backs, so it made it difficult. But I think I was able to narrow it down to my top five in the Kirk Ferens tenure. It's very important, though. This is an opinion, right? So let me know if you think anyone else should be in here. There's a lot of great Iowa defensive

backs that, you know, deserve some consideration. I think of Tyler Sash, Brent Greenwood, Amari Spivey. There's a lot of good guys that could have been on this list. So that being said, let me know what your thoughts are. We're going to jump, though, to number five. And the fifth guy on this list is Josh Jackson. And he only played really one year of playing Iowa football. Obviously, he played a few times in his freshman and sophomore season, but not extensively. So he kind of came out of nowhere when Desmond King left for the NFL. And what a season did he have.

In his one season as a starter, he totaled 48 tackles and eight interceptions along with 18 passes defensed. That's absolutely outstanding and that allowed him to take home a ton of awards. The first team all-time Big Ten, he won the Tatum Woodson Defensive Back of the Year. He also won, you know, got All-American honors and received the Jack Tatum Award for the nation's best defensive back. So Josh Jackson coming in at fifth, obviously, I think the all-American thing really kind of did it for me. That really separated him from a few of the other guys that were in consideration for this list. Item number four on this list, or no, player number four is Amani Hooker. I think the stats don't really show what he could do, but I'm glad he got the recognition that he deserved this season.

He was such an invaluable member of the football team and really allowed the Hawks to transition to a more modern 4-2-5. Despite, though, not racking up a ton of sacks, he got a lot of love from the media this year. He won the Tatum-Woodson Defensive Back of the Year. Four Iowa Hawkeyes have won that award out of eight seasons. He also was first team All-Big Ten and was named an All-American. We're going to see how far he goes or where he goes in the NFL draft coming up in April. Just a reminder that we did talk about Monty Hooker and his draft prospects on Thursday's episode a week and a half ago. So make sure you're checking out

a few episodes back. You can talk about Monty Hooker or hear us talk about Imani Hooker and what he's going to bring to an NFL team. So the person, you know, number three on our list is Micah Hyde. And Micah Hyde had a fantastic career at Iowa, played a lot. All right. So he came there as a dual threat quarterback, quickly switched to defensive back and started three years alternating between corner and safety. He took home all Big Ten three times, twice being honorable mention, once being first team, and he also received the Tatum-Woodson Defensive Back of the Year Award. He was the first Hawkeye to actually receive that award. In his career, we know he played for a while,

so he totaled 240 tackles, 8 interceptions, and 15 passes defensed, along with two forced fumbles, and he had three defensive touchdowns so pretty outstanding career obviously we're seeing the kind of talent he has although he went in the fifth round he's carved out an incredible career so far in the NFL and was named top one of the top 100 players 2018 by his peers this past season so fantastic job by Micah Hyde of continuing his excellence from Iowa on the NFL. He comes in at number three on our top five defensive backs in the Kirk Ferentz era. At number two is none other than Desmond King. And this guy really, really made that Iowa defense go. I mean, absolutely incredible.

He was a large, a big catalyst to the Hawks undefeated season in 2015, undefeated regular season, mind you, but just incredible. I mean, it's pretty impressive that he was so good his junior year that when he came back, teams just stopped throwing his way and his, his stock actually dropped because he did not have, he had no production. So pretty impressive all around his junior year was, was obviously his best year though. He had 72 tackles, eight interceptions, 13 passes defense, and he took home first team all big 10, all American honors, and the 2016 Tatum Woodson defensive back of the year, along with the Jack Tatum defensive back of the year award. So pretty incredible. And don't forget, he also grabbed the

Jim Thorpe award. This guy was outstanding and I'm so glad we were able to see him play for another season. It's pretty remarkable that he actually did come back, but love Desmond King. He plays for the Chargers now, and even though I'm a Broncos fan, I still root for him because I love what he stood for as an Iowa Hawkeye. So who do you think at this point is number one? If this is a surprise, that's bad because this guy was the easiest one to slot at number one. And that is none other than the hitman, Bob Sanders.

Bob Sanders is a legend in the Iowa football program. Diminutive guy, five foot eight, 200 pounds. He was an incredible safety, maybe the best safety ever to play at Iowa. And there was a few good safeties. Paul Kraus is what I'm thinking of off the top of my head. But Bob Sanders, what really stands out about Bob Sanders is the fact that he was one of the guys who helped put the Iowa football program back on the map. Kirk Ferens started out a couple of decent, you know, bad seasons.

And then Bob Sanders was really one of the catalysts to help Iowa move forward. And he was a part of the first three bowl games in the Kirk Ferentz era, including the Alamo Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Outback Bowl. So left Iowa City with two bowl wins, big one in the Outback Bowl, and that was a real good team. He also was named All-Big Ten three times and named All-American his senior year. He is seventh in team history with 348 tackles. and this guy had 25 tackles in one game against Indiana so pretty freaking incredible and as you can imagine his name being the hitman this guy caused a lot of

fumbles and you did not want to go over the middle again Tim he continued that on to the next level he actually was named NFL defensive player of the year for the Colts one season. But obviously the size kind of caught up to him. He started dealing with injuries and nagging injuries and whatnot. So he wasn't able to have a lot of sustained success. But overall, a fantastic Iowa football career and an NFL career for Bob Sanders. And that will wrap it up for our top five defensive backs. Let me know what you think. I'm interested to see if you agree with our one through five or if you would put any of

the other guys up there. A lot of good defensive backs to Let me know what you think. I'm interested to see if you agree with our one through five or if you would put any of the other guys up there. A lot of good defensive backs to pick from. It was actually very difficult to say who was top five. It ultimately came down to what kind of awards did they receive? And I think that obviously is biased too, because I was getting a lot more love now than they did back then. So either way, let me know what your thoughts are on that, but that'll wrap it up for segment number three, and that'll wrap it up for our Friday morning show. So you're probably listening to this on your way to work or maybe on the way home from work.

Either way, I hope you have a fantastic weekend. Make sure you're tuning into the basketball game tonight. A lot of other great Iowa sports that we will give you the recaps on at the end of this weekend as well. We'll be hopefully giving you a podcast tomorrow morning about Iowa versus Michigan's performance, see kind of what happened there, and talk about our incident analysis of that game. Hopefully we'll be able to get to that.

If not, it'll be airing on Monday morning. Just a reminder, if you're still listening to the show, make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts at. And please leave us a review. Let us know what you think. You can also reach out to us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. And you can reach out to me at Wade underscore Andrew.

So make sure you're following us. You can get all the latest happenings of the LockedOnHawkeyes podcast. Thank you again for joining us on the LockedOnHawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic Friday, a fantastic weekend. So glad you're tuning into the show, but have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation,

and we'll be back tomorrow.