Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Could Iowa bring in a transfer punter? | QB Peyton Mansell is leaving the program | Why Iowa's offensive line could be real good in 2020

Episode Date: January 9, 2020

Backup QB Peyton Mansell has entered the transfer portal and is planning to be enrolled by Monday. Here's where he may go and what it means for the Hawks QB room going forward. Lots of other transfer news that we discuss on today's show before we wrap up with some offensive line talk and more specifically, why next year's offensive line could be one of the best in the last 5 years. 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 Locked On Sports Network.

As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade. Excited to be back with another episode on this beautiful Thursday morning. We've got some news to cover for you. A lot of transfer portal news, something that Iowa fans don't really deal with in the positive, mostly in the negative, because oftentimes the Iowa football team is seeing people leave the program to go to the transfer portal, whether that is from a lack of playing time or whatever it may be. And oftentimes, except for last year, Iowa is typically not bringing in recruits from

the transfer portal, and that's a lot of a, it's more of kind of a program strategy with how they handle that. So we're going to be talking about that a lot today. We're also going to be talking about the Iowa football team's offensive line and kind of where, kind of what it did this year and where it's heading going forward. So obviously a big concern from earlier in this season and definitely they played well later in the year. And what does that mean for next year? The offensive line really is the crucial piece to Iowa's offense. As this offensive line goes, that's how the

offense goes. And we saw that against USC, the offensive line was giving Nate Stanley all sorts of time to drop back and throw the ball and place it wherever he wanted to. And with a clean pocket, Nate Stanley is one of the best quarterbacks in the nation. So I want to cover that as well on today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. If you are tuning in for the first time today and you do like what you hear, you like listening to my voice, you think it's fantastic, please make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast that give us that five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or the brand new Himalaya Podcast app. And if you are on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, make sure to

follow us there as well. We do post content pretty regularly, letting you know when we have episodes coming out and just in general posting whatever news that might be coming out in Hawkeye Nation and giving our opinion on that. Also, if you are able to, make sure to tune into tonight's game, Iowa versus Maryland women's basketball. Maryland is a top 25 ranked team. Last year at Carver, Iowa, got a big win over them to claim the Big Ten title. Big opportunity for the women's team to show what they can do in this season. Off to a pretty good start so far, but obviously losing Megan Gustafson has kind of given national media an opportunity to not respect the women's basketball team. So a big win over Maryland tonight would go a long ways in showing that they have the ability to contend under Kathleen Doyle

as kind of the star of the team this season. But let's jump into it. The big news for Iowa Hawkeye football is that Peyton Manziel has entered the transfer portal. For those of you who aren't aware, who have been living under a rock, Peyton Manziel was the number two quarterback under Nate Stanley back in 2018, a recruit out of Texas, three-star quarterback, good quarterback. I mean, clearly athletic. I think when he, this season, lost his number two job to Spencer Petras, he kind of moved over and played a little bit of wide receiver as well. So, clearly a good athlete. Personally, I think it was just never a very good fit for the Hawks. And that's

what I find interesting about this recruiting process in general is that you look at the four or five quarterbacks that Kirk Ferentz has recruited over the last six seasons. Tyler Wiegers, Nate Stanley, Alex Padilla, Deuce Hogan, and Peyton Manziel. All right, which one of those doesn't make sense? And unfortunately, it's Peyton Manziel. He's a little bit shorter of a quarterback, not as big of a build. I believe he's listed at 6'1 or 6'2, and I can confirm that quickly, but he's definitely more of a running quarterback. And we've seen him show off that athleticism, and it's fantastic but that's just not really what Iowa needs in a quarterback that's not really typically what they want in a

quarterback and I just confirmed 6'2 207 pounds not bad size that's just not your typical Iowa quarterback so definitely definitely kind of expected that to happen especially when Spencer Petras took over the number two rule I thought there was going to be an opportunity to see a quarterback battle next season between Spencer Petras, Alex Padilla, and Peyton Manziel. And then obviously Deuce Hogan sprinkled in there a little bit too. Although with Hogan enrolling late, you know, not late, just enrolling at the regular time as opposed to coming in early I thought there was probably an opportunity for Hogan to redshirt and see some playing time in the future and kind of bow out of this initial quarterback competition although never count out Deuce Hogan in my conversation with him the kid's a beast he's a competitor and if anyone could come in and and

take the reins as a freshman I think it him, especially even in this Iowa offense that's pretty complex and has a lot of different components to it that makes it a little bit more difficult than your standard college football offense. That being said, the frontrunner for the competition was clearly Spencer Petras. He just makes a lot more sense. His size is very similar to Nate Stanley's, has an incredible arm. I believe one of the scouts was saying that his arm is better, the best arm he's ever seen at that quarterback, or maybe his head coach. And he went to the same high school as Jared Goff. So obviously,

big praise there. Not as thick of a frame as Nate Stanley, but it sounds like he has the mental piece down pat a little bit better than Nate Stanley even did as Nate Stanley, but it sounds like he has the mental piece down pat a little bit better than Nate Stanley even did. Nate Stanley was a competitor, a hard worker, a guy who did a lot of film work. So I'd love to hear that praise coming out of the Iowa Hawkeye locker room. I think this also has something to do with Alex Padilla, though, as well. I believe Padilla was an early enrollee, had an opportunity to be a part of spring practice last year.

I think he's probably, you know, potentially has passed up Peyton Manziel in the quarterback room as well. It might have been a conversation that Kirk Ferentz had with Peyton just to kind of let him know there's, you know, an opportunity to maybe go explore another program. So I think this also kind of talks a little bit about Alex Padilla. And shout out to Nick Kendall, a guy who I really enjoy talking to from the Twitter sphere. You know, he's a guy who kind of brought this up as another possibility as well that maybe it's Padilla and his emergence that has also sparked this transfer news. Padilla, a son of a coach, you know, a guy who has gotten a lot of praise internally, but not a lot of looks externally, right?

Iowa Hawkeye Nation hasn't given him a fair shake at this point. And obviously it makes sense, right? You have Deuce Hogan coming in. People are very excited about him. People are very excited about Spencer Petras. Padilla kind of gets lost in the shovel, but definitely do not count this kid out. Could be a really good player for the Iowa Hawkeyes. So what's next, though, for Peyton Manziel? We're

going to cover that coming up in just a few seconds. Want to make sure we kind of break that down as well. And also some additional news related to his transfer before jumping into a few other pieces of transfer information in college football. so the other piece of news we wanted to kind of talk about with the Peyton Manziel transfer information is simply the fact that people don't maybe don't realize this but I believe he's actually married already to a Baylor softball player so Texas, married to a Texas girl living in Iowa, not exactly the easiest relationship. So I could foresee him moving back down to Texas. There's a ton of college programs in Texas. He could operate a run and gone pretty well. I think in a system that allows him to utilize his athleticism, he would be very effective. So it sounds like he wants to be out of Iowa and in a school by Monday.

So very quick turnaround. Hopefully he can find a really good program to go to that can utilize his skill set a little bit better than Iowa may have. So I'm looking forward to seeing his career progress. Obviously no bad will towards Peyton. I think he did an outstanding job know playing that backup quarterback role for the Iowa Hawkeyes the last few years and wish him absolutely nothing but the best in addition to that transfer news for Iowa expect a few more transfers to come from the Iowa Hawkeyes obviously every

year we have a couple that decide to leave the program more often than not it's because they're just not in the future plans. They're not going to get playing time. People don't come to college football to just sit on the bench. People want to play, whether that is because they want to get exposure for the NFL or they just want to be on the field. So can't blame those kids, but definitely expect to see a few more players heading to the transfer portal over the coming weeks as they kind of figure out what the heck they want to do. Obviously with school

starting up though, you would like to see that kind of happen sooner rather than later. So that way they can get into their program or school of choice and start working with that program on the football team. Other news though, as far as like transfer news and draft news, Anton Winfield, senior from, or junior, excuse Jr. from Minnesota has declared for the NFL draft. That is a huge blow to the Minnesota defense and a huge win for Iowa not having to play him. On the Wisconsin front, definitely if you guys are leaving, Tyler Baez, I butcher his name every time, the center from Wisconsin has declared officially.

He's expected to be a day two draft pick I guess potentially slide into the end of round one but I'm thinking more day two round three ish and Quintez Cephas is also declared he is the kind of the guy who Jack Cone really relied on to be that kind of big play guy for Wisconsin the guy who moved the chains we saw that happen against Iowa as well so So he has declared, which is good for Iowa's defense and bad for the Wisconsin offense, who has also lost Aaron Cruikshanks, the guy who returned the kickoff return for a touchdown against Oregon. He has also entered the transfer portal. So lots of big blows coming out of Wisconsin. It'll be interesting to see if there's any news on the quarterback front as well. I know Wisconsin fans are really excited about Graham Mertz and not excited about Jack Cone.

So do we see a situation like last year with Alex Hornibrook leaving? Do we see that with Jack Cone? It'll be interesting to see how that situation plays out, if that even is a situation that could play out. And in Michigan, Tariq Black, one of their wide receivers has entered the transfer portal as well. I think just overall not super happy about the offense. It was a pretty disappointing offense. You have a five-star quarterback in Shea Patterson. You have really four very good wide receivers and you suck offensively. To me, that's unacceptable.

That offense was just atrocious. So I don't blame him for getting the hell out of there and wanting to move on from Michigan. So nice to see another wide receiver not have to take on Iowa. I'm definitely excited about that. We'll try to cover some other transfer news as it comes up. The other big piece of news in Iowa Nation, and this is kind of funny just because only Iowa fans could get really excited about a punter. But we saw last year how it worked out well, right?

So there's not a punter, as far as I'm aware, kind of in line. No one has taken the reins so far to punt for the Iowa Hawkeyes on this team currently. Colton Rastetter, not exactly the best punting performance when he was punting for the Hawks. A fantastic holder, really crucial piece to Keith Duncan's success, but not exactly the nation's best punter. Didn't light the world on fire by any means. So Iowa brought in Michael Sleep Dalton, who had a fan. I mean, I thought he did really, really well for the Hawks this season. Obviously punting in kind of unique weather situations, did a good job of flipping the field most of the time for the Hawks this season,

hoping to maybe get him on the show as well to talk about his time in Iowa City and his time with Arizona State and kind of what led him to transferring and just his experience as a person. I mean, what an interesting story. If you are not aware of Michael Sleep Dalton's story, make sure to check that out. But I digress a little bit. Now that both those guys are gone, though,

interesting news to kind of watch. Joe Doyle, the Tennessee punter, has entered the transfer portal. And that news is relevant for a couple of reasons, mainly because Joe Doyle was a guy who Iowa recruited prior to him going to Tennessee. So there's a little bit of familiarity there and Iowa needs a punter. So what do they do next? That kind of remains to be seen. But just to give a little bit of a background on Joe Doyle, as he took over the punting position for Tennessee, he actually earned freshman All-American honors back in 2018.

He led the SEC in total punting yards. He averaged 41.1 yards per punt and had 23 punts down inside the 20-yard line, which is the second most in the SEC back in 2018. And then this past season, he actually punted in the first six games and averaged 41.1 yards again, but was surpassed by another punter for Tennessee who actually was a scholarship addition, which is, for those who don't know, not exactly the most common thing to have scholarship punters and kickers initially, right? You don't typically bring them in from high school with a scholarship, although Iowa has extended a scholarship offer to a kicker punter in a future class. It's just not a super common situation. So it would be interesting to see him come along and play for the Iowa Hawks, maybe take a look at Iowa.

They obviously need a punter. The 41.1 yards would be an upgrade over what Colton Rassetter did. It's slightly lower than what Michael Sleep Dalton did this past season with a 41.7 yard average, but nonetheless, Iowa does need to have a punter. It's a very important piece of their game, more so than a lot of college football programs. I think it's just funny that Iowa football fans, they see a puner enter the transfer portal and they immediately get excited. I know I did.

So that just means we're your typical Iowa fans. More to come on that though. As the news kind of comes out, if he's interested in Iowa, I'll be sure to be talking about that here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Coming up though on our final segment of the day, we're gonna be talking about the offensive line where it started where it ended up and then ultimately what it was ranked by pro football focus and kind of what that means for the future all right we are back with our

final segment of the day of the lockdown hawkeyeskeyes podcast. And like I said before, we're going to be talking about the Iowa offensive line. A report came out by Pro Football Focus, PFF underscore Cam, the guy who kind of broke some of that news for the PFF underscore college Twitter account. If you haven't heard of Cam, he did come on the show, Cam Miller, a few weeks ago and talked to us about what Pro football focus is grading is like, how we kind of got involved with it and why there's going to typically be some discrepancies sometimes between production and a grade, right? If AJ Epineza gets four sacks, why could there be an opportunity for him to get a low grade? He talked a lot about that in our conversation.

So make sure to tune into that. If you haven't listened to it and you have questions ever about Pro Football Focus. That would be a really great interview to take a look at and see. But one of the things they did is they put together a listing of the top offensive lines in the nation. They ranked 1 through 130th based off the grades from this season. So what we saw was the Iowa Hawkeyes football team was ranked sixth in the nation. And at first glance, you might be wondering, how in the hell did that happen? And I want to talk about that. There's a couple of reasons why that could have happened or why that did happen. First of all, Tristan Wirfs was an animal this year, just destroying edge defenders. I believe he was the highest graded tackle in the

Big Ten, only allowed more than two pressures in a game, I believe twice. So had a fantastic and outstanding season. That was a large reason why that grade was huge. Alaric Jackson, despite having some injury issues and not being fully healthy and not really being as effective as he could have been had he been healthy. He also put together an outstanding grade. And then you have to assume that based on the fact that Tyler Linderbaum got very high grades throughout the season for PFF, that he was also a big component of that offensive line being ranked so highly, which means it's kind of impressive considering how poorly the interior offensive line did through the middle part of the season as they were kind of going through some switches,

lots of different movements there. We had Landon, Paulson, Levi Paulson, Mark Kallenberger, Kyler Schott, Justin Britt, and gosh, I'm blanking on his name, Cole Banwert. Sorry, excuse me. So as we had kind of a mix of guys going in there, obviously some young guys that haven't been in that position before, they're going to learn and grow. Some older guys who just weren't as effective as we would have liked to see them. But over the course of the season, after we got past kind of that rough stretch of games,

Michigan, Penn State, and even a couple games after that, they started really to gel. And I thought the interior offensive line did a pretty good job. And a lot of it wasn't necessarily the athleticism or the natural abilities that was causing them issues. A lot of it was communication and understanding of where the pressure was coming from. You would see times where a guard would go to help out a

Larrick Jackson on a defensive end and a linebacker who was coming on delay blitz or just coming around with a stunt would run freely towards Nate Stanley. And that often breaks down to communication and do they know kind of what to expect from the pressure coming. So you saw a lot of that get better over the course of the season and towards the end of the season. And you saw, obviously, the USC game. Their defensive line isn't necessarily the best or even really that good. Lots of five-star players, but not exactly a great defensive line.

But Nate Stanley had all sorts of time, and a lot of that was because the entire offensive line gelled. And so going into this next season, I think we have an opportunity to have one of the better offensive lines, especially if Tristan Wirfs comes back, which we do not know either way. I would expect him to go to the NFL, but if he comes back, that would be absolutely huge. You're bringing back two potential first-round tackles, Alaric Jackson and Tristan Wirfs. You have Tyler Linderbaum, who's going to be a redshirt sophomore. And you have a few guys who have gotten some really good experience. If Cole Banwork comes back healthy, he's a guy who could be a veteran leader on that offensive

line. You also have Mark Kallenberger, who got a lot of playing time, a former four-star recruit out of Bettendorf. Justin Britt, a guy who played as a true freshman, was able to preserve his redshirt, I believe. And then Kyler Schott, a former walk-on guard who I thought played pretty darn well. Obviously had some of those communication issues as well, but played pretty darn well. Another nice story coming out of the Iowa Hawkeye football program from a walk-on perspective. So there is some hope next year for that team. And we're going to need a good offensive line. Tyler Goodson needs some room to run as any running back does. He is a fantastic playmaker and great in the open field, but if he can't get the ball without getting hit, he's going to have some issues.

And also, as we're breaking in a brand-new quarterback, it would be fantastic if we can give them a little bit more time than we gave Nate Stanley partway through the season so he can make the appropriate reads and get the ball to one of his playmakers at wide receiver or at tight end. Brandon Smith, Amir Smith-Marset, Nico Reganey, Oliver Martin, Tyrone Tracy, and Sam Laporta. An offensive line would be huge, as we already know, and I think there's some really great potential for Iowa to have one of its better offensive lines in the past four or five seasons,

especially if Tristan Wirth returns. But obviously a lot more to come on that as we get more of that draft news. We'll make sure to break that down here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. That'll do it, though, for our show today. I appreciate you all tuning into this Thursday morning episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Again, I appreciate all the support and the love. And if you like what you heard today, make sure to go like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast app.

Also, make sure to go follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Feel free to interact with me. If you have any concerns, questions, rebuttals to what I'm saying, I would love to talk to you all. I'd love to debate. I'm not saying my opinion is 100% right, but it is my opinion and it's what I believe. And so I'd love to have some conversations with you all if you have have any thoughts on what I'm saying and let's kind of have a, let's have a nice little debate. Let's have a fun, friendly, clean debate. Happy to do that.

So feel free to tweet at me at locked on Iowa or wait underscore Andrew to have those conversations as well. Again, thank you all for tuning into this morning's episode of the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. I hope you all have a fantastic day, Hawkeye nation, and make sure to go check out that women's basketball game tonight. And we'll be back tomorrow morning. Go Hawks!