Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Crossover episode covering tomorrow's Heroes Game between Nebraska and Iowa with Connor Happer

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

We are back with our traditional Thursday morning crossover episode. We are joined by Connor Happer, host of The Drive 93.7 to discuss tomorrow's matchup between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Iowa Hawkeyes.Happy Thanksgiving ya'll!Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.BuiltGoVisit BuiltGO.com and use promo code “LOCKED,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are 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 a very special Thanksgiving episode of the Locked On 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 for another episode of the show. And you might notice I'm not talking about the men's basketball game or the women's basketball game. I have pre-recorded this on Tuesday evening because I wanted to drop this content, but I'm not going to be able to do any real-time stuff, obviously. Given that it is a holiday, I want to spend some time with my wife, so I apologize for that.

But on today's show, we do have our special Thursday morning crossover episode with Connor Happer, one of the hosts of The Drive over in Nebraska. He covers the Nebraska Cornhuskers quite extensively, and I thought he did a really great job of talking through what to expect from this Cornhuskers offense and defense and Scott Frost. So with that being said, I hope you have a fantastic holidays. Let's hop into that conversation with Connor right now as we break down tomorrow's hero game rivalry game between Iowa and Nebraska. I'm honored to be joined here by Connor Happer. Connor, you are the co-host of the Drive weekdays from 3 to 6 on 93.7 The Ticket. How are you doing today, man?

Good, good. Thanks for having me. How are you? I'm doing well, man. Great to be here. Great to be talking Iowa-Nebraska football. I'll be honest, I usually hate this week. As an Iowa fan, I feel like you only see a lot of people on Twitter chirping about Nebraska, and I get a lot of random mean tweets at me throughout the week, and obviously throughout the year about anything I say at Nebraska. So I kind of just want this week to be over, but I'm honored to have you here to talk Nebraska heard. You are an awesome proponent of Nebraska football,

able to talk both the good and the bad, which is, which is fantastic. I'm excited to have you on the show, man. Yeah, no, I think it's a fun week. I I've enjoyed the rivalry. You know, although it's been awfully one-sided, at least for the last few years, but I enjoy the banter between the states. I think it's pretty natural. So it's coming at a weird time this year because there's still a couple games left.

But I guess we just live with that. Yeah, I got to ask you, though. So I would also consider it a rivalry. When you have two fan bases that clearly don't like each other, it's pretty obvious in the field as well that these teams are not big fans of each other yet. The common comeback from both sides is this isn't a rivalry. We haven't really played that many games, but I mean,

I feel like just natural. I mean, they tried forcing it. The big 10 tried forcing it to be a rivalry, but through that, these teams don't like each other and neither do the fan bases. Yeah, no, I mean, I, like like i said i think it's pretty natural like i you know the big 10 making that the black friday game it's something that nebraska really cares about a lot um it's in their history they've played colorado and oklahoma uh most black fridays since the the 70s so it's important to them that they play on black friday um but and i think iowa was the natural fit if they were going to be in the Big Ten so I think

it makes a lot of sense people who people who are not you know people who are not admitting that it's a rivalry they're just lying to themselves they they they like it makes so much sense the the people like there's so many Nebraska fans in Iowa there's so many Iowa fans in Nebraska they get to you know talk trash every day to each other. I think it's a really good fit for a rivalry. Now Nebraska just needs to start winning some games. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. I don't want them to win games, obviously, but I couldn't agree more. The first part, and even the recruiting aspect, I mean, these teams are recruiting a lot of the same players across the Midwest. I mean, the Midwest is not a haven for talent by any means,

and so you're going to get a lot of those same Big Ten schools going for a lot of those same players. And we've seen it happen. Obviously, Nebraska getting Thomas Fedone, which was a huge grab by any means, also got another tight end. I can't remember his name now, but they just signed or they just he just committed a couple of weeks ago. He was also looking at Iowa as well.

I mean, James Carney, I think. Yep. James Carney. Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, you get a lot of the same recruiting players as well, which makes this game a lot of fun. It wasn't going to be on Friday this year, but we are back, given the Big Ten

and their proponent for messing up literally everything with coronavirus this year and the scheduling. But regardless, we have a Black Friday game. And my first question to you, man, is who's going to be under center? Who's actually playing quarterback for this team? Well, that's a good question. So Nebraska has played four games so far this year. Adrian Martinez has been the starting quarterback for two of them,

the Ohio State game and the Northwestern game. After the Northwestern game, they went back and started Luke McCaffrey, the redshirt freshman at quarterback, and he gave him a pretty good spark against Penn State. He could do a lot of stuff with his legs and you could really see that kind of on the field just what he gives them energy wise and that was really important and got Nebraska out to a 27-6 lead against Penn State before they ultimately held on in the second half. But last week was Saturday was bad for, for Luke. Both, both quarterbacks are, you know,

they have a tough time throwing the football right now. And it's something that's so important to Nebraska's offense. I think Luke with him, it's a matter of can he actually make the throws with his arm strength and just kind of how young he is. With Adrian, it's been not so much is he capable of making the throws, it's just where's the mind at and can he make the reads quick enough to throw to an open receiver. So I think they got a really weird

and probably a really bad situation on their hands this week. If I, they put in Adrian Martinez for the last series against Illinois, it was garbage time. Nebraska was getting killed, which is a crazy thing to say. But so my guess is that they go back to Adrian at this point, but I think it's like 60, 40. I mean, I'm not really confident on that. Maybe, maybe we'll hear more from Frost this week and get a better sense into that. But I think Adrian probably

gives them a little better shot to win the football game, but it's not by much. Both quarterbacks have really struggled. Yeah. It's been interesting. So I've watched a couple of the Nebraska games, as I mentioned before we hop on the show, you know, my, my best friend is a Nebraska fan. And so naturally I'm watching all these Nebraska games too even if I don't want to but that being said Northwestern I thought had Adrian had Luke McCaffrey been in the game longer I think they win that game at Northwestern um I mean Adrian Martinez couldn't hit water if he fell out of it from a boat he couldn't if he was an ocean with the boat he would literally not have hit water given that I mean everything was just off um I thought, you know, Luke McCaffrey,

for part of a spark there, I didn't watch the Penn state game, but obviously the Illinois game I watched as well. And Luke McCaffrey just looked, looked bad there too. So it is, it is interesting. I will say the fact that both of those guys can run the ball does provide an interesting element that Iowa can sometimes struggle to stop defensively. Iowa has done a better job of mixing it up and switching up defensively to be able to handle some of those

runs. But Penn State was gashing Iowa pretty early on this past weekend from a quarterback running perspective till Iowa kind of made some switches. So that'll be an interesting thing to watch as well. Well, the problem for Nebraska is that they have been one-dimensional in that category. Their only source of offense so far this year has come from the quarterback run and that's not that's not a good thing that's not what you want they got to be able to connect on on short passes to get the offense moving and get some first downs it's been they've had i don't know probably a handful of drives this year where it's looked really good and exactly how kind of Scott Frost wants it, I think.

But there have been, I mean, everything in between has been pretty rough and clunky and everything's kind of based on the quarterback run right now. We'll see if they kind of shy away from that. My guess would be no this week because it's kind of the only thing they have going for them. They have injury problems at the running back position. The wide receivers are extremely young they're they're really counting on three freshmen right

now plus wandell robinson the sophomore um so the offense has a lot of stuff on its plate right now yeah and it's interesting to me because it's not like nebraska doesn't have talented athletes you just talked about wandell i mean he's a fantastic athlete. I would say when Rondell Moore leaves, you know, he becomes probably a top two or top three athlete in the conference. I mean, that's how good and how talented he is. Dedrick Mills. I thought he played pretty well last year, but he's only gotten 31 carries this year, averaging 3.9 yards per carry. I mean, are they trying to get these guys the ball and there's failing,

or are they not skiing? I mean, because Wanda Robinson needs to have the ball in his hands as much as possible and it seems like they're trying to 22 23 runs 22 catches but um not able to really create a lot with him the the first two games for nebraska they weren't he had 10 wandell had 10 touches through two two games against ohio state and northwestern and everyone's like what are we doing here and then they really they really fed them against Penn State. They gave it to him a lot, and it was mostly at the running back position

because Dedrick Mills left that game early with an injury. He missed last week's game against Illinois with a foot injury. But even with Mills, you know, they haven't been able to consistently get him going either. So they just have so much on their plate right now that I don't know where they kind of start I think it starts at at improved quarterback play but I don't know where they're going to find that going into this week against Iowa they got to get the run game going it's something that Nebraska fans thought was going to be a really strong part of their team this year, given the way that they finished 2019.

They really ran it pretty well at the end of last year. You know, Iowa, the Iowa game was pretty good, I think, for Nebraska, but they ran for like 300 yards against Wisconsin, which is something that doesn't really happen all that often. We're like, all right, this is really coming along here, and they just haven't been able to figure it out. The interior offensive line has been tough. The snaps have been bad again this year.

We're talking about figuring out the snaps to the quarterback. It's really bare-bones level stuff here in Lincoln. I need to quickly pause the conversation with Connor because I do have a very important announcement for you. You might be cooking a turkey today. You might be cooking a ham. You might be doing a lot cleaning, just getting ready to kind of have your Thanksgiving celebration with your immediate family. And sometimes you need to just take a second though

and just chill, enjoy your surroundings, enjoy your family, be thankful for them. And when you're ready to take that second and chill, grab yourself an ice cold Coors Light because it's literally the only beer out there that is made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold-packaged. It's literally made to chill, especially after a hard morning of cooking and cleaning and getting ready. Now you just want to sit down and watch some football. Grab yourself a Coors Light because it is as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies, which is, again, perfect when you want to just take a second and relax.

Coors Light is the one I choose and the one I'm going to be choosing all day today when I need to unwind after cooking our ham and our mac and cheese. My wife's doing some of the other cooking. But when I want to watch some football today, I'm grabbing myself some ice cold Coors Lights. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light in the new look delivered

straight to your door at get.coorslight.com. As always, remember folks, celebrate responsibly out there. This message is brought to you by Coors Light, a part of the Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. Before we get back into the conversation with Connor, just a reminder that we are going to be having a Monday morning recap with Matt Vandenberg, likely dropping Saturday afternoon,

maybe Sunday morning. I'll keep you posted all on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram account about when we're going to be dropping that recap of the Iowa-Nebraska game. But you can be assured, despite it being a holiday season, Matt and I are back on the grind. We're going to be breaking down the Iowa-Nebraska game this weekend, so stay tuned for that. Let's hop back into the conversation with Connor, though, right now.

Yeah, I mean, when you have to worry about whether or not the ball is going to get there correctly, you have some big issues there. I'm looking at some of the overall stats for Nebraska, and you mentioned the rushing game being a big component of it. Right now, Nebraska 34th in the nation in rushing yards per game, passing yards per game 109th. You look at Iowa, pretty similar concepts. Iowa is, let me see, 47th in rushing yards per game and 101st in passing yards per game.

So on paper this should be a pretty run dominant game that being said I was rushing defense is usually pretty good and so that is going to be a concern I feel like if you're Nebraska you need to get the ball going through the air to be able to make a difference but one of the things I've noticed with Nebraska and you kind of alluded to this with not even being able to get the ball back to the center or the quarterback correctly is turnovers. And turnovers can really kill you. And we saw that Northwestern.

They had two turnovers in the red zone. They don't have those turnovers. They win that ball game. They beat Northwestern, which obviously helps Iowa. That was the one time I was rooting for Nebraska this entire year. Turnovers-wise, Nebraska is doing terribly. 121st in the nation in giveaways per game. They're facing an Iowa team that's fifth in the nation in takeaways per game. Is that a concern coming into this game as well, just ball security in general?

Yeah, yeah. They were minus five against Illinois, minus five. I mean, there's just no way you can win that game. There was a game for Nebraska back in 2009. They played Iowa State, and they lost nine to seven, and they were minus 7 in turnovers. So it's been a thing at Nebraska for a really long time. This year, it's obviously important.

They've tried, and really I think it's because of poor quarterback play and not trusting those guys as well as young wide receivers. But they've tried to keep it out of the air as much as they can but still there have been interceptions and then the the fumble bug gets them every once in a while as well so uh yeah they whenever it feels like they have something going they shoot themselves in the foot and that's been kind of the the scott frost era here for the last three years yeah and i have a couple other offensive questions before we move to the defensive side of the ball. Specifically, though, with Nebraska, Oliver Martin is a former Iowa guy.

He went to Michigan. He then went to Iowa. Now he transferred to Nebraska. I saw he got on the field against Illinois last week. Is he expected to be a big, you know, big key, you know, key person going forward in this Nebraska Iowa game? I think it'd be very, I mean, if it's a very, if I'm Scott Frost and I want to stick it to Iowa at any way, I'm trying to get Oliver Martin the ball, maybe give him a touchdown.

Yeah, no, I think so. And I don't know if that so much as a thought, but he had, I think two or three catches in the, in the Illinois game. And a couple of them them for first downs. He just got eligible this past week and he moved. I mean, so I assume he was practicing, you know, with the top unit kind of that whole time and moved right into some playing time where there's been a lot of young guys who they've recruited who, you know, can't quite get up the board that fast.

So they obviously think pretty highly of Oliver Martin. Yeah, my guess is they keep rolling with it. They need playmakers anywhere they can find them. And if they can trust Oliver Martin to be in the right spots, I think they'll continue to use them. So that was one of the very few bright spots, I think, from the Illinois game that he kind of showed up. Absolutely.

And then offensive line play hasn't been the best. I watched the game against Ohio State, and I actually thought, especially that first drive, Nebraska looked pretty darn good. And I thought their offensive line looked hasn't been the best I watched the game against Ohio State and I actually thought especially that first drive Nebraska looked pretty darn good and I thought their offensive line looked pretty good as well again since then though it seemed to be kind of going downhill when you look at PFF grades and PFF is not the end-all be-all I think PFF is always a great supplemental tool but it does help you paint somewhat of a picture they only have one offensive lineman with over 151 snaps grading out above 65 in any category that's center Brendan James in pass blocking has offensive line been

an issue for this Nebraska team yeah yeah and and most most specifically I think on the on the interior they've they've mixed in a couple guys guys. They're, they're starting to trust. They're starting to give more snaps to young guys. They're going to be starting a redshirt freshman in our, sorry, a redshirt sophomore, I guess, in Kim Juergens. He stepped in last year to be the center. Ethan Piper, who is a redshirt freshman has got a lot of run at left guard this year. And they're kind of moving in guys at right guard.

Sometimes the right guard comes out and becomes the center whenever, you know, Juergens is, you know, he tends to be hurt sometimes. That happened a little bit on Saturday as well. He's a senior, Matt Farniak. You might know that name. They, Iowa recruited him pretty heavily a few years ago. Hymus, the left tackle, has been really the only steady part, I think, of the offensive line.

They're starting a redshirt freshman right tackle as well, highly recruited guy in Bryce Benhart, but still a redshirt freshman. So the offensive line is pretty young, but they expected a lot out of that group this year, and they just haven't quite got the, you know, the gelling or whatever needs to happen there to get stuff going on the offensive line. I think there's a lot of other stuff, but that's been a big deal this year. Yeah, offensive line plays is one of their many problems.

Yeah, and then last thing before we get to the defense, because I actually feel like Nebraska's defense has been holding up pretty well this year, all things considered. But I've heard some concerns about the play calling in the red zone for Scott Frost. Has that been an issue that you've been aware of or that you feel like is something to be aware of for Iowa fans going into this game? Absolutely. Yeah. No, I mean, it's it's been really difficult for them. I think part of the part of the issue is they have just so limited things that they feel like they can do well. And when the field really shortens up like that, okay, what do you go to? What do we do well? Well, we do quarterback run well. Okay, well, the other team knows it's coming. So they're going to have

an easy time stopping it. They don't really feel comfortable putting the ball in the air. They go, something that Husker fans really, really get angry about is a lot of times they're in first and goal or second and goal on the three-yard line, and they're in the shotgun, you know, and they're running, you know, weird gadget plays and stuff like that. Yeah, it's been a frost thing in terms of play calling. It's been an execution thing. It's been a limitation thing.

And, yeah, they – I think they're just over 40% touchdown percentage this year when they get into the red zone. It's not nearly good enough. This offense needs to score points because like you mentioned, the defense is, has held up. Okay. Um, this last week against Illinois was, was not a banner day for them, but, um, they've held up.

Okay. But they can only hold on for so long. This offense needs to score more points. That's what they were built to do. Yeah, absolutely. banner day for them but um they've held up okay but they can only hold on for so long this offense needs to score more points that's what they were built to do yeah absolutely i mean i remember watching the northwestern game and i believe it was like first and goal at the two or the three they did a shotgun play action roll out and then it got tipped and picked i mean like run the ball at that point i don't know but that's just my thoughts as an outside observer moving on the defensive side of the ball,

I do want to touch on some of the good things, but I just have to get this question out of the way. Is Markel DeSmuke as big of a dirt ball as it looks like whenever we play him? I hate that guy. Please talk me into not hating him, Blake. I do not like him. He is always talking crap. Even when he does things wrong, incorrectly, or injures a player,

the dude always talks crap he's one of the guys who um who the brass has a couple guys like this they seem to just kind of duck their head in there when they go to make tackles every time i i don't really understand it i don't know where they're they're getting that from um uh the his other safety mate deontay william Williams has already served a half suspension this year for just just a stupid play I mean the guy's right in front of him and he just like he kind of taps him on the head with his head all right well that's targeting and and there you go you're out for that Nebraska's had a lot of a lot of situations uh like that this year where I'm just looking at it like, what are we doing out there?

So that's probably, you know, that's a symptom of that. I think he's a pretty good guy. Like, I don't know him all that well, but every time we talk to him, he seems like a pretty good guy. Nebraska's defense likes to do some trash talking, that's for sure. They haven't really backed it up. So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on with that one. All right, so the jury's still out on him. It sounds like maybe he's a better person what I think about on the field

but then again everyone on that on that game is talking crap I'm sure Nebraska fans think Keith Duncan is the biggest d-bag in the world so um which I can understand but I personally love him anyways moving on the defense side of the ball though though, like I said, secondary-wise, you all have some pretty solid corners outside of DiCaprio Boodle, who has seemingly had some issues in Nebraska. The Nation hasn't been – or Cornhusker Nation, I should say, hasn't been super high on him. What is going on with that secondary, which has not typically been a strength

under Scott Frost, but I feel like, you know, you have a couple guys grading out pretty well, and then you have Boodle, who's also getting quite a bit of time as well. Yeah, they got – like like I mentioned they got safety uh Deontay Williams back from last year he he suffered an injury in the first game that kept him out for the season they felt like he was a pretty key component for their for their defense so you didn't see him last year in the Iowa game they were playing young guys back there and walk ons back there for for the majority of the year So they've kind of solidified the back back end.

And then Cam Taylor Britt, who they had used as kind of a roving guy, played a little safety, played a little corner. He's moved to full-time corner this year because of an injury that kind of happened in preseason with a guy that I think that they were going to trust out there. So he's been pretty good for Nebraska this year. And then you got Boodle out there as well.'s been pretty good for Nebraska this year. And then you got Boodle out there as well. A couple of young guys that you might see Quentin Newsome is, is

kind of their third corner and, and Miles Farmer is kind of their third safety. So those guys are both, well, one of them's a redshirt freshman and one of them's a true sophomore. So they're, they're young as far as the depth is concerned, but I think that's kind of what you want back there. Yeah, those guys are talented. Teams haven't really tried to take shots on Nebraska this year, throw it downfield. They've been able to kind of figure out what to do elsewhere. But I feel like that back end could hang in there pretty well.

It's just can the front seven stop the run game? Yeah, and the front seven, I thought, did a pretty solid job against Ohio State early on. And again, since has kind of dropped off a little bit, do you think there will be any issues with handling this Iowa offensive line that has been pretty solid this year? We did see some issues against Penn State with Iowa. If you can get some edge pressure,

you can definitely force some issues among Iowa's tackles, supposed to be the veteran guys in the team, but Larrick Jackson struggled against Penn State edge rushers. Coy Crock has been in and out of the lineup. Mark Kallenberger has allowed quite a few pressures. Is there an opportunity there for Nebraska to maybe get some pressure off the edge? Yeah, another good thing that's kind of happened for them this year is they have been able to generate a little bit of a pass rush and that's something that hasn't really been there for the last couple years um jojo doman is a guy who who comes off the edge and they kind of trust to to be in the right place um and and do the right things i don't think he's missed a defensive snap this year

so he's kind of out there all the time um he makes plays for them and and they're they're working in a junior college guy by the name of Phil Darius Payne, who does a pretty good job. A young, inexperienced, not so young, but an inexperienced defensive line that maybe Iowa will look at and say, all right, we got a real chance to lean on him here a little bit. But I think they've held up. We kind of expected going into the year that, you know, maybe it'd be a little bit of a step back for the, for the defensive line this year. They lost three guys really to the pros last year, believe it or not,

even though they got kind of ran all over last year, but they've held up. They've held up. Okay. So I don't know. That's kind of going to be the key of the game for me. Can they stop Iowa's run game? If you do, you put them in long third down passing situations, and Nebraska can kind of bring the noise with blitzes and stuff like that. Eric Schneider loves to dial up weird, exotic blitzes. So, yeah, that'll kind of be the key for Friday. Yeah, I mean, it's a huge thing.

I think from a Nebraska standpoint, you're looking at an Iowa team that has run the ball very successfully the last couple of weeks, but passing wise has been the issue, but they haven't had to worry about that because they're running the ball so darn well. And they're coming up with a few big turnovers on the defensive side and they're playing a good field position game. So if you can stop the run for Spencer Petras to try to win that game, that gives you the best chance from a Nebraska standpoint to ultimately win that game. So that'll be a, definitely an interesting thing to watch going forward. Just real quick, remind me, what, what is the base defense in Nebraska runs? I feel like you run a three, four, three, three, five. Yeah, it's, it's a three, four. They, they're pretty multiple. They, they have some four down lineman looks. They sometimes go into a look where it's only two defensive linemen

and they're kind of standing everybody else up. So they're pretty multiple, but I think the base is a 3-4. Okay, perfect. And then from a defensive side of the ball, is there anyone else that we haven't talked about that you think people should be aware of coming into this game? That's a good one. So, well, we'll see.

I don't expect that they'll have one of their senior leaders um a guy who's kind of the heart and soul of their defense according to Scott Frost uh Colin Miller he he suffered a pretty scary injury on Saturday against Illinois he got stretchered off they he seems to be okay um but I I kind of doubt that they'll have them especially on a short week so they'll uh they'll go with a couple middle a senior middle linebacker and Will Honus and a and a redshirt freshman former walk-on and Luke Reimer who they actually think is pretty good for them so um middle linebacker play will be important kind of just getting guys to the way Nebraska's defensive scheme kind of works is um they they is they're kind of gap in the front.

They like to hold guys up a little bit to allow linebackers to go out and make plays. So they're going to have to do that on Saturday. We know Iowa has blocked it pretty well before. But, yeah, I think we've gone through everybody basically on the defense. I would say on the defensive line, there's a, and I'm, I keep talking about red shirt, freshmen and freshmen notice this, right? So that bodes well for the future potentially. Yeah. So Ty Robinson, he's number 99. He'll be a guy to

watch. He's been really good for them this year. He's made a couple of plays from that defensive line. Really highly touted guy from the class of 2019. And he's, he's risen to the top of the depth chart pretty quick. I love it, man. And yeah, we have talked a lot about the defensive, you know, the whole defensive side of the ball. I think that is a very key point to this game. I want to get your prediction for this game, but before I get into a few Scott Frost, one Scott Frost thing, you know,

every year, this game seems to be close. If Nebraska is highly rated, it's either close either close or Iowa you know Iowa has blown them out a couple times but for the most part in the last couple years when Iowa has probably been the better team it has been a very close ball game I mean I remember last year Iowa gets up to a huge lead I'm feeling great I'm in Vegas I bet on the game I'm feeling like this is fantastic then all of a sudden we need a Keith Duncan game-winning field goal to go home with a victory and and I lose because Iowa didn't cover. So this is an interesting ballgame coming in here. Iowa is favored by – some sportsbooks have at them at minus 14. I think it started off at minus 12.

It shot up, and then I think Nebraska fans are probably gobbling that up because it went back down to minus 13.5 over the course of 24 hours. But what are your predictions for this game? Yeah, I don't think that you'll find any just by the now it's it's Monday things tend to get optimistic as the week kind of goes on a little bit but I don't know that you'll find any Nebraska fans really looking at that line and jumping all over it from Nebraska's side this week it's it's um we're in for probably you know a reflection week right we're like looking at ourselves like, what are we doing?

What's going on? So, yeah, there's that part of it. I don't know a lot of people are confident in Nebraska right now. With that being said, you're right. I mean, you know, last week one of the things that was said after the game was they just didn't bring the energy that's required. They won that game against Penn State, and maybe there were some people in the locker room who felt like,

you know, the Illinois game was going to be easy. I don't know what gave them that sense of entitlement or anything like that. But they played really flat, really, really flat on Saturday from all sides. So if they can bring some energy, which they will, I mean, it's the Iowa game. I do expect it to be probably within 10 points or within a touchdown. I don't think Nebraska has enough here to get over the hump unless they get really, really improved quarterback play.

But I do expect it to be close. It's a rivalry game. And I think Nebraska will bring a little bit more juice than they had last week against Illinois. Yeah. I mean, if you look at things on paper, take out the outside variables, Iowa should be favored by that much in my opinion. But if I'm a betting man and I am, I'm 100% taking that spread for Nebraska to cover.

That being said, I will never take a spread that means Iowa is going to get closer. So I'm just not going to bet on the game this week because right it just I can't be like oh Iowa you're up 21 I just lost 100 bucks like that doesn't make me happy either way so um you're absolutely right though it always it is always a close game and you talked about Scott Frost and the fact that you know Nebraska didn't get up for the Illinois game that's a concern to me right I mean partly that's on the players and partly that's on the coach. And I have been critical of Scott Frost the last three years. I, I see tidbits of his press conferences. I listened to him quite a bit. I see the play on the field. And to me, it just doesn't feel like the message is like continuing to resonate with

these players. And it keeps being the same thing. I more time I need more time I need more time we're in the third year these are the guys he recruited he has juniors now there again they're still a young team but how much longer does Scott Frost get with this Nebraska program I mean I feel like people have got to be a little getting a little bit annoyed right now of the lack of production coming out of this program yeah Yeah, absolutely. I think people are getting a little bit more restless and restless by the day. With that being said, like actual real danger of, you know, hot seat or you know, stuff from the actual administration here, it's little to none. I mean, they'll, they'll, they'll have to go back in the off season or, you know,

hopefully figure it out in the last three games of this season, how they're going this season how they're going to get better and what they need to do and the adjustments that they need to make as a program. So that type of pressure builds more and more every day. They want to get it done here, and Scott Frost really does believe it, and he cares about Nebraska, so they have that going for them. It doesn't get you everything, though. They need to actually do it. They need to win some football games. You know, Scott Frost really does believe it, and he cares about Nebraska, so they have that going for them. It doesn't get you everything, though. They need to actually do it. They need to win some football games. I mean, that Illinois game was big for them for a whole bunch of reasons, and especially the one that we saw play out.

If you lose it, you know, you're going to be asking yourselves a lot of key questions about what you do and how you do it on a daily basis. So that was a big game for them in order to kind of build some momentum, build a winning streak going into the Iowa game, and they weren't able to get it done. So now it feels like you're back to square one. They're not going to get fired. They're not going anywhere, at least anytime soon.

But the fans are starting to ask some key important questions and really starting to ask, all right, what are we going to do here? What's not working? And how do we fix it? Yeah, I mean, I think those are valid questions. And, yeah, clearly Scott Frost cares about this program. I will say this, to wrap up the show, we have our game on Friday. It's hate week this week.

Iowa doesn't like Nebraska. Nebraska doesn't like Iowa, but one thing we can all be thankful for on Thanksgiving, which is when this episode is going to be dropping is the fact that we all have big 10 football back, which is fantastic. And I went Nebraska for a nice short three to four weeks, all had one common enemy,

which made them friends. And that was Kevin Warren, president of the big 10. I went Nebraska. That was the nicest. I think I've ever seen exchanges on Twitter. People were like, yeah, go Nebraska. You sued the Big Ten.

Do whatever you need to. Let's get football back. So that was definitely fun to watch. And one other thing I do want to quickly point out is that Illinois has had a ton of COVID issues. So they looked really crappy coming into this game. But they did have a lot of COVID issues, and they have gotten a lot of their players back. So I guess one nice little solace to Nebraska is they did have better players in the game i mean yeah yeah they have the past three games i mean not necessarily over nebraska yeah no um brandon peters look i nebraska has a

knack for doing this but the brandon peters their quarterback looked pretty good it looked pretty sharp it looks looked well rested i i don't think it's an excuse for Nebraska to go out and look the way they did and lose by almost 20 points to Illinois. Just crazy. I mean, it's up there with one of, regardless of having guys back, it's one of the worst losses that I can remember. I mean, they've had some bad ones since they've been in the Big Ten, and they've had some bad teams.

But you kind of just felt like you were, you were past that. They were 15 and a half point favorites and they, and they lost by 18. I mean, that's, that's just bad. That's unacceptable. So that, that was as bad as they can remember, regardless of, of, of whatever's going on with them. 100% man. Well, thank you, Connor. I've Connor Happer on the phone today or on the zoom call talking to all things, Nebraska, Connor, where can the folks find you at again?

Yeah. 93, seven, the ticket and Lincoln. We'll be talking about this thing all week. Yeah. If you want to, if you want to hear this is, this is a great plug, I guess, for Iowa fans. If you would like to hear Nebraska fans be sad, is there going to get a lot of sad phone calls this week? Oh man. What a great plug. Iowa fans go over and listen to the two 93 is 93 seven, right? Yeah. 93, seven and Lincoln,

93 seven and Lincoln to listen to Nebraska fans be sad. Honestly, what's sad about this is that I could see a lot of Iowa fans doing that. Awesome. Connor. well, thank you for hopping on the show today. We will, we'll be in touch after this Friday game, hopefully after an Iowa victory. I'm sure you want a Nebraska victory either way. We can go back to hating big 10 president Kevin Warren after Friday, man. Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks for having me. Thanks Connor. All right. And that concludes our special Thursday morning Thanksgiving episode of the

lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. I appreciate you all tuning in. Reminder that we are going to be back with the conversation with Matt Vandenberg breaking down this Iowa-Nebraska game. I hope you all have a very safe and fun Thanksgiving. And as always, I appreciate you tuning in. I'm so thankful for your support over the last two years, and especially over the last couple months, as we've helped grow the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

And again, if you love the show, give us that five-star review. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, let's go Hawks.