Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Draft Analyst Nick Kendell joins the show to break down Hawkeye draft prospects Tristan Wirfs, AJ Epenesa, Michael Ojemudia, and Geno Stone

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

We've got NFL roster movement from former Hawkeyes, a few basketball awards, a quick recap of the baseball teams' win and a lot of NFL Draft talk with Draft Analyst Nick Kendell as he joins the show to break down Hawkeye draft prospects Tristan Wirfs, AJ Epenesa, Michael Ojemudia, and Geno Stone. 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, and we have another exciting episode coming at you today. host Andrew Wade and we have another exciting episode coming at you today. Lots of news and notes to cover on Iowa Hawkeye Nation before we jump into a lot of NFL draft talk with a recurring guest Nick Kendall of Mile High Huddle. He is an avid Iowa Hawkeye fan, a draft analyst and an analyst covering the Denver Broncos on the Mile High Huddle website. So make sure to check him out wherever you can find him. He's going to be talking about the NFL draft on today's show, though. On today's episode, we are going to be covering A.J. Epineza, Tristan Wirfs, Michael Ojemudia, and Geno Stone. On tomorrow's episode, we'll be breaking down Nate Stanley and the other undrafted free

agent type of players, the Michael Sleep Daltons, the Cedric Lattimore's. Those kind of guys are going to be broken down on tomorrow's episode. So two days of full NFL draft talk right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Before we jump into that, though, make sure to like, review and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, whether that was Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or the brand new Himalaya podcast app. And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Like I've been saying for a couple days, we have some great giveaways coming up with March Madness fully in session.

As long as March Madness happens, I know there's definitely some concerns about games and what games are going to be played with the concern over coronavirus. I saw that the Ivy League canceled their conference tournament this week. So lots of kind of confusion, I guess, at this point. So as long as there are games, as long as there's stuff going on, we'll be having a giveaway for that. I cannot imagine

the NCAA would cancel arguably their most profitable couple weeks in the entire year. So anyways, we'll be watching that and obviously monitoring that. And on tomorrow's episode, we'll also be talking a little bit about

how this could impact Iowa sports as well. There's some talks about moving to virtual classes and whatnot, as far as I'm aware. I don't think they've officially announced anything, but I'll be talking more about that on tomorrow's episode. Before we do talk about the Nick Kendall NFL draft talk, like I said, lots of stuff to cover on tomorrow's episode. Before we do talk about the Nick Kendall NFL draft talk, though, like I said, lots of stuff to cover on today's episode. In NFL news, Marshall Yonda retires as an eight-time Pro Bowler from the Baltimore Ravens,

a future Hall of Famer. Just had an outstanding career with Baltimore after being drafted in the third round. I'm working on getting a few guys on the show to talk to us about Marshall Yonda, provide a few stories. Highly recommend, you know, obviously just looking for Marshall Yonda on Twitter. He has a lot of great stories, especially there's one from an ESPN reporter that we're looking to get on here about being tased in the locker room and just handling it like an absolute champ.

Make sure to follow that as well. And then Christian Kirksey, a longtime Cleveland Brown, was released by the Browns. They're obviously moving in a different direction. They've had a lot of different leadership on their team. They're moving to a more advanced analytics standpoint. Probably something to do with that. Also, his cap hit was relatively high this season. He'll have no problem finding a new team, and we'll be covering that during NFL free agency and whatnot as we cover the Iowa Hawkeyes who are on the move. From a baseball perspective, the Hawks moved to 9-5 with an 8-0 win over Kansas and Iowa City yesterday. They get

Kansas again at Dwayne Banks Field today at 2.05 p.m. Adam Kettleson get the win with going five innings, allowing two hits and striking out seven before Hunter Lee replaced him in the final four innings where he allowed just two hits and 12 batters. The Hawks got three in the third, three in the fourth, and two in the eighth to cruise to an easy victory over the Jayhawks. And in addition to that, catcher Austin Martin was named the National Collegiate Catcher of the Year watch list.

We've talked about this with some of the watch lists that some of the Iowa Hawkeye football players have been on. And honestly, a lot of it is just, hey, here's some players who started a lot at this position. We're going to put them on a watch list. I mean, Makai Sargent was on a watch list last year. So not a lot now, but the fact that he is even getting noticed is fantastic. Not a lot now, but the fact that he is even getting noticed is fantastic. Currently at this juncture in time, he is hitting.277 through.13 games with one home run, five walks, and three RBIs, and he has a fielding percentage of.989.

So looking forward to seeing him continue to progress after a fantastic first season with the Iowa Hawkeyes after joining as a JUCO transfer. And then finally, in basketball news, Luka Garza named Sporting News Player of the Year. This is just one more step in the right direction. I believe this is the first time. An Iowa basketball player was named.

The Player of the Year. By a national outlet like Sporting News. Obviously we want to see him win the Naismith as well. So that will hopefully be coming in time. I think with a good Big Ten tournament and at least advancing to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament, we should expect to see Luka Garza as the Naismith. And on a side note with him, did you all see Frank Garza doing some sky hooks and recording it and putting it on Twitter? doing some sky hooks and recording it and putting it on Twitter. Gotta love the athleticism from Luca's old man,

kind of showing him the ropes there. And finally, Kaitlyn Clark, named Gatorade Iowa Player of the Year. Kaitlyn Clark is a five-star recruit, joining the women's basketball team next season. Just another opportunity to see this women's basketball team continue to grow, rise, and succeed. Getting a player of Kaitlyn's caliber coming into the program is absolutely huge, and you can tell just how strong of a player she is by the fact that she did get this award. So with all that being said, like I said, lots of news and notes to cover.

Let's hop into our draft talk with Nick Kendall. I believe you're going to absolutely love it. Lots of conversation about Geno Stone, Michael Ogimudia, A.J. Paneza, and Tristan Wirfs on today's show. And like I said, on tomorrow's show, we're going to be covering Nate Stanley, the Brady Rosses, Michael Sleep Daltons, those kind of guys. The guys who are likely going to be more of the UDFA range, excluding Nate Stanley, of course. So that'll be coming up right now. excluding Nate Stanley, of course. So that'll be coming up right now.

I am joined here by Nick Kendall, one of the draft analysts for Mile High Huddle, a Denver Broncos website. He's also a big draft aficionado and a huge Iowa Hawkeye fan, someone who I really respect the opinion of, and I think you're all going to really like this episode as we talk about the Iowa Hawkeyes who are currently entering the 2020 NFL draft. So, Nick, how are you doing today, man? Hey, doing pretty well. Just had a good weekend.

Spent almost the majority of it outside fishing in central Illinois. So, it's coming down now. Rain all week. But, you know, I'm still riding the high from that and trying to catch up from the spring ahead that we just had this week. Yeah, man, that thing is miserable. Every single year. Like October, November, whenever the fall forward or the fall back happens, I'm excited. Then the spring forward happened and I'm just upset and pissed. And yesterday just felt really off. Yeah, I think

it's national napping day today too, which that is for a reason. Yeah, totally makes sense. I saw something that someone said that if we would have the spring forward at noon on a Monday, that would make a lot more sense. I couldn't agree more. Let's just skip an hour of the workday. Whoever that is, run for president. Brilliant, right? Awesome, man.

Well, we have a lot of stuff to cover. Obviously, some Iowa Hawkeyes who are in the NFL draft kind of period right now. A couple of the big guys first. Let's talk about Tristan Wirfs, a guy who had a fantastic combine. A lot of the stuff they showed, a lot of the combine drills are not as pertinent to actually evaluating a player, but they do give some context behind that player. And I think with Tristan Wirfs, if nothing else, it showed that he does have superior athleticism. I know there were some concerns coming out about his athleticism and possibly moving to guard. I think the arm length definitely showed up well for him as a tackle.

Wanted to get your thoughts on Tristan Wirfs. Well, he just had one of the better combines that we've seen from any player, let alone an offensive lineman of the last decade. I mean, since the combine has been a thing, I think it's 2003 is when that first really started getting rolling. So this is going to be a combine that they're going to reference from for years to come. And they're going to show highlight tapes of it over the next decade. You know, this is what an offensive lineman is supposed to do and supposed to look

like. So I think he broke both records for the broad jump and the vertical jump and his four, eight, five, second 40 was also in the 98th percentile for offensive linemen. So, I mean, he absolutely killed it. I know that the bench press wasn't as high as some people were hoping it was at 24 reps, but 34 inch arm length, it's not a big deal in Iowa. I think I heard this from Scott Docterman on the athletic and said that I was strength and conditioning coach Doyle coach Doyle does not emphasize the

bench press. those iowa players typically you know they they were more work on those olympic olympic power lifts you know the explosive ones yeah the ones that actually matter yep exactly so i don't even know why they do the bench press honestly it shows more about your work ethic coming into it than anything else and if you totally bomb it it's an issue but it's not really it's really a non-issue for Tristan Wirfs. The agilities weren't, I guess, incredible. Both of them were above the 60th percentile for offensive linemen. But the big thing is he tested like many people were hoping. He ran excellent.

He's 6'5", so there's not really the height question that's pushing him in. And then the arm length, reaching 34. Some people argue 33, 34, what's the arm length requirement for offensive tackles 34 is the upper end of that cutoff so really no issues there he's going to end up at tackle there's no doubt about it and he could go as high as four overall and as low as 10 overall yeah i mean that's kind of what i've been seeing in mock drafts really he could go to the giants or could drop to the browns but really getting out of that top 10 is almost incredibly unlikely especially if there's going to be a run on tackles, depending on who starts that run,

people are going to be jumping up pretty, pretty high to get some really good tackles. This is one of the best years in the past couple of years for drafting tackles in the NFL draft. So. Yeah, it is really good. We could see as many as four off the board by pick 11, definitely four off the board by pick 14. And then there's a good second tier as well, but Tristan works,

you can make an argument he is number one. A lot of people like Andrew Thomas, but he seems to be from Georgia. He seems to be slipping a bit and falling out of that, at least the bottom of the top four. Then you have Jedrick Wills, who kind of had an up-and-down combine, some talk that he actually might be the guy who's getting that guard talk now, which is shifting from Wirfs to Wills. And then the massive tackle from Louisville, Mekhi Becton.

So I think Wills, Becton, and Wirfs, any of those guys could be the first one off the board. Who knows? Yeah, I just want to get your thoughts. I know Wirfs obviously talked about the guard play, and people had talked about potentially moving him to guard. I do think, though, there is a nice little thing to add with Wirfs that he can play left tackle, he can play right tackle, and he also could have the versatility

to move inside the guard if they already have an established tackle. Wanted to get your thoughts on that. Do you think that would actually increase his draft stock with the ability to kind of play multiple positions coming in right away? I think if anything, it doesn't really increase his draft. I guess it increases it a bit, but it really raises his floor. So let's say he doesn't work out at tackle well then you got an equally good player that can move into guard so there

were some issues with worse last season in his career where he can be a little bit over aggressive in his past sets you know over set and that can lead to him reaching the lead of him vulnerable a little bit to counters we saw that against michigan with josh uchi we saw that against wisconsin with zach bond both guys who will go probably in the top 50 of this draft. So both good players in their own right. But, I mean, if he fails a tackle, you can move him in at guard, and you're still going to get a really good piece on the offensive line. So I think that definitely amplifies his draft stock, if anything.

Absolutely, man. I know we could talk for days on Tristan Wirfs just because he is a freak athlete and a fantastic tackle, the next in a great line of tackles that have come out of Iowa. I want to move on to AJ Epinesa. I just talked to Benjamin Solak from the draft network about AJ Epinesa because he is a big Epinesa fan. Obviously Epinesa did not perform. I would say well at the combine and there's some talk about whether or not that actually matters. I know Iowa Hawkeye Twitter is, you know,

can get pretty aggressive and upset when they see mock drafts that have AJ Epineza going in the middle of the second round. They don't understand why after watching some of his production over the last two seasons. I wanted to get your thoughts, though, because to me, the combine, again, it's the underwear Olympics. There are some things that you can take from it, some things you can add some context to, but it's not the end-all, be-all. So did AJ Epineza's draft stock, just this first question,

did it fall for you based off his combine? For the Denver Broncos specifically, it's still hanging around because I was projecting him as a 3-4 defensive end, kind of a 5 technique. But overall, I mean, you just can't ignore the metrics. You know, drafting him becomes that much more risky because his overall, you know, the 40-yard dash, the explosiveness numbers were all concerning. So if he does succeed at the NFL, specifically in a 4-3 scheme as an edge rusher, he would be an outlier.

So again, that just adds risk, and that would push him down the board a little bit. However, one thing he does have going for him this season, you know, all the talk about offensive tackles being great, wide receivers, some great young quarterbacks at the top. Edge rusher this year is horrific. I mean, it's Chase Young, and then it falls off a cliff. So A.J. Epinesa could find himself sliding down the board a bit,

but when it comes to supply and demand, arguably there's no position that has more value than the quarterback position next to edge rusher. So that could push him up the board. So really, you've got to trust the tape with him, but there's no way to talk around it or work around it his combine definitely hurt his overall stock and is going to raise some questions for him yeah man when i was comparing him to derrick wolf for

example coming out of you know college derrick wolf was a defensive tackle at cincinnati uh came in he even had slightly better measurements than age epinesa who came in you know 15 20 pounds lighter i believe than derrick wolf did coming into the combine um at the combine epinesa came better measurements than AJ Epineza, who came in, you know, 15, 20 pounds lighter, I believe, than Derek Wolf did coming into the combine. At the combine, Epineza came in five pounds lighter than what they listed on the Iowa website. I know weights and heights can be very misleading in any, you know, college athletic room, but wanted to get your thoughts on that. Do you think then if he is projecting to be a potential 3-4 defensive end, Should he bulk up a bit more? Do you think that would be ideal for him when going into the Iowa Hawkeye Pro Day?

He probably, honestly, he should probably stick about the same weight and run again because it's going to be more important for him to put up better numbers overall running than running a slower time at a bigger weight. So whatever team drafts him, you know, they have the measurements. They know what his torso is.

They know whether they want to add mass to him if that's going to be the fit. honestly adding weight for the pro day unless he really his camp doesn't think he can improve his numbers if they think that you know that's as good as we're going to see then by all means you know add some weight for him but i think he'd probably his best bet to raise his stock would be to go in again in about the same weight and hopefully improve the form and test better makes sense to me man all right so those are the two first round guys um real quick on the age epinephrine thing last thing i want to talk about where do you think his best fit is i know you mentioned denver um i've heard some talks about new england or even baltimore would be

potentially good fits for him i think new england especially just because of the versatility that he could potentially move inside and they can find mismatches for a guy like him baltimore runs that three four scheme where he could be a good fit in that. I've also seen rumors about Seattle. So I want to get your thoughts. What are some of the best fits for Epineza? I think that New England, any of those teams that kind of use multiple fronts and they can find success with those power rushers. You know, obviously New England had Trey Flowers, so any of the New England teams or their disciples would make a lot of sense so that's like detroit miami both those teams really could use a power rusher like aj epinesa miami's picking 26

with the houston texans that pick they got from larry tunsell patriots at 23 maybe even the buffalo bills at 22 i mean i could see somebody bringing up athletic testing from the combine deshaun mcdermott and mcdermott just like giving him a cold eye because I mean he's a through and through hashtag football guy so any of those guys would make sense I could also see a team like Tennessee or even Green Bay make some sense there and maybe somebody even trade back up into the first round I mean Detroit if they do trade down from three and accumulate some more draft assets let's say three or five pick Jeffrey Okuda then they might be able to package some of those assets and move back into round one for a guy like AJ Epinesa,

who would make a lot of sense for their scheme. So, I mean, just the, his poor athletic testing, the biggest concern there is that it just limited the number of teams that could take him because before you're talking about a guy who you could perceive maybe four, three, seven technique, maybe kick into five technique, even three technique and some sub packages. And now it seems like you're talking about a guy who's mostly a pure five technique in a three four scheme now again it'll depend on what coach you talk to but that just limits the landing spots so

it'll be interesting to see what happens he could fall out around one i doubt that i think people are going to tend to trust the tape there and also the everybody raves about aj epinesa's attitude and work ethic and leadership and maturity so i just can't see him getting out of the first round. But it's a distinct possibility, which is crazy considering a year ago right now we were talking about a future top 10 pick. Absolutely, man. Definitely an enigma in this draft and where he goes will be very interesting. And whatever team gets him, especially if they get him in the top of the second somehow, that'll be a huge win for that team, I think, for A.J. Epinesa. Let's transition over to the defensive backs.

Two defensive backs I specifically want to talk about, Michael Ojemudia and Geno Stone. Ojemudia, it looks like he is rising up the draft boards. I watched him at the Senior Bowl. I thought he performed as well as you could expect given the general tendency to favor wide receivers in the one-on-one drills. I thought he played pretty well in man coverage, struggled a little bit towards the end of the week

and didn't get a lot of opportunities in the actual senior bowl game. But I thought performed pretty admirably, played man coverage for the first time. Coming out of Iowa, as you know, they primarily play a zone scheme. So I wanted to get your thoughts on him. He did run really well, which I think is not always the case for Iowa defensive backs. And I saw you know him

projected as early as the third round so Michael Ojemudy on tape do you think he can transition to a scheme that is not as zone dependent just based on his testing or do you think he does primarily fit in his own scheme well in today's NFL no matter what coaches say or what fan bases talk about at some point you're going to be tasked with man coverage. So that was the big question coming into the senior bowl combine everything. You know, he can go to a scheme that relies a little bit more on zone coverage, but at some point you're going to play some man. So the fact that he was able to run a 4-4-5-40 and test like he did,

I mean, all his percentiles besides the 20-yard shuttle were above the 50th percentile, which, you know, that's okay. La-di-da, that were above the 50th percentile which you know that's okay la-di-da that's above the 50th percentile but then you talk about a guy who's 6'1 200 pounds and has 32 and a half or 32 and a quarter arm length all about the 80th percentile so you have to adjust that bad athleticism for the size so I think he can play man coverage in we can look at these metrics but it doesn't always show on tape part of that is the scheme that Iowa plays keeping stuff in front of them but he did show a little bit of that at the senior bowl matching up obviously Denzel Mims some of those guys every once in a while they're

going to win their matchups especially in those one-on-ones that's just how it's set up but I agree I think Michael Ojemudia I'd be zero percent surprised if he ends up going in the top 100 maybe one of those late third round picks if he doesn't end up Ojemudia, I'd be 0% surprised if he ends up going in the top 100, maybe one of those late third-round picks. If he does end up falling, though, to day three, he'd be one of the first guys off the board. It's a solid kind of day two cornerback range, so that might push him towards the bottom of that. But teams are looking for guys that can play safety, cornerback. Kind of the lines are starting to blur there. And somebody with Michael Ojemudia's size his skill set

and his versatility he's shown at Iowa could be someone that a team prioritizes a little bit more just because they have kind of those those hybrid traits so maybe you see him kind of get a little bit more work at nickel maybe eventually he could transition to safety as well but I definitely think he's somebody that teams are going to like and he helped himself about as much as anybody coming out of the combine for the well but I definitely think he's somebody that teams are going to like and he helped himself about as much as anybody coming out of the combine for the University of Iowa you know a guy that was talked about maybe round five round six now he's definitely pushing on that top 100 absolutely man

I mean just talking to a very respectful kid who is clearly excited to be there willing to work and do whatever he needs to do to make an NFL team and I talked a little bit about the versatility with him and he played linebacker in high school. They tried him out, you know, doing the dime backer role at Iowa a little bit. He was in line to potentially do that playing outside corner. And like you said, have the size to play safety. That is going to be huge. Quickly for, for him, how do you think the past successes and failures of Iowa cornerbacks

potentially help or hurt him? We see Desmond King performing pretty well. Monty Hooker, I'd say, had a pretty decent rookie season when he was able to get on the field. Micah Hyde has been fantastic. Then we see Josh Jackson, who has really struggled playing for Green Bay. Do you think that helps, hurts, or doesn't matter? I tend to look at it from a scouting perspective where one of the first rules when you're scouting a player is you have to scout the the jersey not the helmet which

means you're scouting every person as an individual you're not you know putting any sort putting them in a box of any other player that's played at the position or the program you know let's say an example would be to a tag of iola at alabama oh he's gonna fail because alabama quarterbacks tend to fail that's just stupid i'm just gonna call it as it is sorry anybody out for that offense but every single player is their own individual so you can't look at them like you know whatever desmond king's done in the nfl should have any impact on what michael ogiludy is going to do you know he do you do like that he comes in a system that they're going to ask going to do. You know, you do like that he comes in a system

that they're going to ask him to do a lot. But again, you can see that on tape. So that really doesn't matter that he came from Iowa. It's stuff that you can pick up when you evaluate what he's putting out there on the field. Yeah. All right, man. Transitioning over to Geno Stone.

And Geno Stone, I think if you talk to an Iowa Hawkeye football fan, they're going to love and rave about Geno Stone. They love the instincts. They love the fact that he attacks downhill at all times. He's kind of all over the field. you talk to an Iowa Hawkeye football fan they're gonna love and rave about Geno Stone they love the instincts they love the fact that he attacks downhill at all times he's kind of all over the field I would say a slightly lesser version of Imani Hooker in a sense didn't exactly play the exact same role either but he did kind of move that was the reason why Imani Hooker was able to play that nickel backer role is because Geno Stone's emergence at the safety position now we kind of knew that he wasn't going to test great, right?

Even coming out of high school, he's a little bit slower, a little bit undersized, not as quick as the others, and that's why he was under-recruited and ended up at Iowa. So his combine performance, I would say, pretty much confirmed that. The tape, though, I think shows a guy who's very instinctual and a very smart, intelligent player. How much does that matter for NFL scouts, and how much does it matter the fact that he didn't have a lot of tape?

Right? I think it was kind of unexpected for him to come out. I mean, I guess I kind of predicted he would come out, but I thought it was not the right choice, I should say. So I wanted to get your thoughts on that. Well, unfortunate for him, we're talking about another guy that is going to have to be a statistical outlier if he's going to

perform at a high level in the nfl you know there's always guys that tend to bust out and break these metrics and that there's a reason that they're outliers but it would go against the norms if he was ended up being a great safety in the nfl again like you touched not only you don't want to be slow you don't want to be, but you definitely don't want to be small and slow. And that turned out to be what Gino stone measured out as at the combine, but the tape shows a lot of good highlights there. The instincts are there. The physicality is there. It's just, again, in the NFL, at some point,

you're going to be matched up one-on-one in man coverage and can he do that? So his, his role, he will find a role in the NFL. He will have a niche, you know, whether that be, yeah, I think, cause I think he has a very high floor as a special teams player especially because he does bring that physicality and the I guess discipline that you want for covering for special teams coverage but you know he's going to be a guy that's probably getting picked round six round seven I don't know him personally I don't know the background so maybe there's more there but I mean how much was he going to improve his stock as well? You know, if you're going to, if you have seven years of football left,

you want to get paid for six or seven of them. So I don't fault him for leaving early. Maybe he could have raised it, risen his stock a little bit more with some more high level tape that can make you say, trust the tape instead of looking at the metrics here. But again, probably a guy who's a little bit more limited than you'd like in the NFL. And again, maybe he'll bust out, maybe he'll beat the metrics,

but I definitely would have taken Amari Cooper, or Amani Hooker, excuse me, over him coming out. Got football on the brain, not Amari Cooper. Coming out just because I think he offered a much more versatile and valued skill set, the ability to come down and play nickel as well as play two, two deep safety sets. Absolutely, man. And does it matter the fact that there isn't a lot of tape on, you know,

I know I was listening to some draft analysts last year when Imani Hooker came out and there were some concerns of, we honestly just didn't expect this guy to come out and he did. He came out with a lot of hoopla too, right? Coming out as the big 10 defensive back of the year and all American defensive back, Gino stone, third team, all big 10, right? Didn't come out like an Antoine Winfield where he had the big 10 defensive back of the year. Didn't have some of that hype train coming in.

Do you think that hurts at all as well? Or do you think that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things? I don't think that matters in the grand scheme of things. Again, especially if you're talking about teams compared to media. A big reason I think a lot of media are pretty high on Geno Stone in, I guess, comparison to what it seems to be putting out from the NFL sources right now is a big reason also why I think a lot of people are high on Tristan Wirfs as a guard

instead of a tackle coming into the combine, not coming out of it. And I think that a lot of people watched and got access to the all 22, the coaches film in that Michigan game where Gino stone flying around, making amazing plays. And Tristan works, I think he had a bum ankle in that game, got hurt, could have, could have been taken out, but came back in because they were missing Alec Jackson on their side. And that was a really tough game for Tristan works,

falling and falling down a little bit, struggling against Josh Uche, like I mentioned, but also Gino stone had a really tough game for Tristan Wirfs, falling down a little bit, struggling against Josh Uche, like I mentioned. But also, Geno Stone had a really good game against Michigan. So overall, I think it's probably just exposure. And there's only so many hours, minutes in the day that you can watch tape. So you're only going to look at what's available. And also, if you have a choice to watch Iowa, are you going to watch them play Rutgers?

Are you going to watch them play Michigan and Penn State? So good game for him there. And I think that's kind of giving him a a perception of a boost where you know some guys he had a big game there good to see him step up against a good opponent but that wasn't really as reflective as his his overall game really good player at Iowa just I'm not sure if he showed the the NFL traits that you're looking for for a starter yeah man I feel like that's a honestly I feel like that's a lot of Iowa players though in general you have usually the top guys and then from there you get a lot of guys who can fill out the bottom end of a roster

because they're going to be hardworking, they're going to be smart, but they may not have the physical traits. And that's why Iowa does a good job. I mean, they do a great job of developing players who may not have all those physical traits. That's why they don't get all those five-star and four-star guys. They get the three-stars, two-stars, that kind of thing. Yeah, and for safety, it's so odd because safety defenses are starting to change, as always. It's a nuclear arms race here between offense and defense.

But getting yourself safeties who can do multiple things is becoming super important for defenses and disguising coverages and just playing different things based on what the offense throws at you. So Geno Stone, we didn't really see it at Iowa, but I don't know if he has the speed or the, especially the long speed to play. Definitely can't play cover one safety. You don't want him leaving over top as a cover one safety, but maybe even cover two. So I'm curious to see what his ability would look like as that star position, which we

didn't see from him this season at Iowa. But that might be his best bet if he's going to make a defensive contributions in the NFL. If not, again, you bring him in as a fourth safety, you're getting a special teams guy. And you know, those guys matter too. All right. Again, a big shout out to Nick Kendall. He's been on the show multiple times, always willing to come on and talk Iowa Hawkeyes and NFL draft. I love his opinion on a lot of the Iowa Hawkeye players.

And he's a guy who I really respect as a draft analyst. So definitely make sure to check out tomorrow's episode as well. And again, Nick, thank you for being such an awesome recurring guest. Make sure to check out his work on Mile High Huddle, and make sure to follow him on Twitter. He basically talks about anything to anyone, and most importantly, he talks a lot about Iowa Hawkeyes and is a very avid Iowa Hawkeye fan, so make sure to check that out. If you did like what you heard today, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

And if you did not get enough NFL Draft talk right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, make sure to check out the Locked on NFL Draft podcast with Benjamin Solak and Trevor Sikama. We had Benjamin Solak on the show on Monday talking about AJ Epinesa, so you got a little bit of a taster about what Benjamin Solak can bring to the table as an NFL analyst. Make sure to check out their daily show covering the NFL draft on the Locked On NFL Draft podcast. You can also find them at the Draft Network. So two of the guys I really respect from a draft analyst position as well. Make sure to tune into their shows daily if you want any more NFL draft talk.

Again, thank you all for tuning into today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. I hope you all have a fantastic Wednesday and I love you Hawkeye Nation. Let's go Hawks. We'll see you next time.