Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Ferentz has high praise for Brandon Smith plus three matchups to watch vs Minnesota Friday night

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

Kirk Ferentz spoke to the media yesterday and had high praise for Brandon Smith and other members of the Iowa Hawkeyes football team. He also shed light on the transfer situation and what he expects from Minnesota. We touch on the lawsuit that is in motion and give you our three matchups to watch on Friday night.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 Wednesday morning episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network. And on today's show, we have plenty to cover. But if you haven't listened to this week's episodes Monday and Tuesday, make sure to do that. Monday, we did our Monday morning recap with Matt Vandenberg talking through the Iowa win over Michigan State.

And yesterday, we talked a lot about the men's and women's basketball teams and then gave a little bit of a state of the Big Ten because a lot of stuff is going on in the Big Ten. Wanted to make sure we cover that as well. On today's show, we're going to be talking about the press conference that Kirk Ferens gave. We're also going to be talking about the soon-to-be-filed lawsuit. I know it's kind of becoming a tiresome topic, but we want to talk about it a little bit. We'll give a few things there.

And then we're going to give you the three matchups to watch out for in this Iowa-Minnesota game. So with that being said, let's hop into it. Let's get the lawsuit over with and we'll cover some of the fun stuff. But since basically October 5th, there was a demand for $20 million in the firing of multiple people within the Iowa Hawkeye athletic program. And if those conditions were not met, there was the threat of a lawsuit. Since that time, we haven't really heard much other than the University of Iowa saying we are not going to, you know, bow down to these demands. Well, now we get a little

bit more information. It's interesting. I've actually had a couple of friends talk to me about this the last week saying, has anything come of that? And I said, no, it seems like it just kind of died. Well, it didn't. It is back. And here's the quote from basically the lawsuit and kind of what was said. Basically said, since our settlement efforts are stalled, this letter serves as a formal notice. We are withdrawing our prior demand, including the $20 million monetary portion and moving forward with the filing of our lawsuit. Even though we are withdrawing our offer, we are receptive to revisiting settlement discussions after filing our lawsuit. Just a quick reminder of kind of how this came to be.

Obviously, we had this stuff happen over the summer, and then eight former players got in on this demand lawsuit, whatever you want to call it. Kevontae Martin-Manley, Maurice Fleming, Andrew Harris, Marcel Jolie, Jonathan Parker, Reggie Spearman, Akram Wadley, and Aaron Menz. I'll let you all judge that however you want. I do not have any personal experience, nor have I heard of anything concerning about six of those eight players. I do have a personal experience with the Kevontae Martin-Manley, and I've seen the concerns regarding Akram Wadley and the constant back and forth. So you all know my stance on this lawsuit. I do believe, and I don't want that to be confused with I don't agree with what happened

over the summer, because I do. I think what happened over the summer was fantastic for the Iowa football program as they continue to progress forward. It was a great opportunity to learn. It's unfortunate that the players felt that way, and I wish them the best and whatnot. It's unfortunate they had that experience in the Iowa football program, but them

communicating those concerns has now made the Iowa football program better long-term. For example, look at the locker room after the Iowa-Michigan State win. They were swag surfing in the locker room. That would have never happened before. They were having fun. They were having They were swag surfing in the locker room. That would have never happened before. They were having fun.

They were having a lot of fun in the locker room after a win. These are college students. We saw Spencer Petras hop into that. I mean, this is awesome to see, I guess I should say, from the Iowa Hawkeyes. And from Kirk Ferentz allowing the program to continue their personal growth and development and allowing these players to have a little bit more individuality in the program. I think that was huge. And I completely agree with the response that Iowa did.

I think they did a fantastic job of taking care of business quickly. They brought in the third party to do an audit and review and come up with recommendations of the Iowa football program. I think the athletes speaking out, all the power to them. I thought it was a great example of courage doing something very difficult, despite what they might get from a hate perspective from Iowa fans. I thought it was really awesome to see them speak up and not speak up to get people fired, but speak up to improve the program. So now let's get over to this because I do feel like this settlement or this lawsuit is a bit of a shakedown. I personally don't feel like this is the appropriate path. And again, only based off my two experiences with

Kavante Martin-Manley and understanding the Akron-Wadley situation. Kavante Martin-Manley, when he came on my show, spoke glowingly about the football program, spoke glowingly about Kirk Ferentz and then wanted me to buy autographs from him. So that was my experience. Take it however you will. Um, but I just, I don't feel this lawsuit doesn't make me feel very good about, um, the, the opportunity for this lawsuit to actually go through. I feel like this one, and I'm not a lawyer. I'll try to get a lawyer on to talk a little bit more about it, but I just feel like this is not going to go super far. That being said, again, I'm not a lawyer. A lot of things can happen. We have to let the legal process play out. The University of Iowa did respond though. And they said, the story shared by former athletes

this summer resulted in a strong commitment to improve. To the end, the University of Iowa continues to work hard to become a more inclusive campus for all students. We appreciate the athletes using their voices and we are on a positive path forward with our team. As has been stated previously, any student-athlete who left the university without obtaining a degree is welcome to return as part of the UI Athletics Department Degree Completion Program, which provides financial assistance for former student-athletes. Again, I believe Iowa had a huge issue. They put in the appropriate steps and actions to try to correct that issue,

and it's not going to be overnight, but they're working on getting better, and you can see the growth and improvement already. And it sounds like they agree with that based off of what their statement was on this lawsuit. So again, as more things come out about this lawsuit, we will definitely keep you posted here. But I thought that was a very important thing to kind of kick us off with before we get into some of the, I think the more positive and fun topics coming up on segment number two, we're going to break down that Kirk Ferentz press conference. And then second, number three, we're going to talk about the three matchups that matter. Don't worry, special teams is one of those matchups. So that'll be coming up in just a few

short minutes on segment number three. Before we get into either of our segments though, if you're anything like me, you're constantly on the go. You're constantly moving around. If I'm not working or hanging out with my family, I'm hiking, I'm going snowboarding. One of my favorite things to do is hike 14ers. And when I hike a 14er, I pack my bag with all the goodies, right? I got some chips. I got some candy bars, maybe a Bilt Bar. I also pack some Coors Light in there because let me tell you what, there is nothing better than climbing to the top of a 14er, a 14,000-foot mountain, and cracking open an ice-cooled Coors Light.

Ice-cooled Coors Light, it's literally made to chill, and I'm on top of the Rockies. I'm trying to relax after hiking three, four, five miles and climbing 3,000 feet elevation. Coors Light is my go-to drink though, because it's cold lager, cold filtered and cold packaged. Like I said, it's made to chill and it's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. Obviously I'm drinking it on the top of the Rockies. Coors Light is the one I choose though, and I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, I highly recommend you reach for the beer that is made to chill. Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door at get.coorslight.com.

And as always, remember to celebrate responsibly at part of the Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. And you know, sometimes I need to chill. Sometimes I need to get my protein in and get a little bit of a pick me up. And when I need that, when I'm getting a little hangry, I'm getting a little upset, it's a long workday sometimes, I grab myself a Bilt Bar. I have you know, my Bilt Bar power rankings have kind of changed a little bit. I have absolutely loved the pumpkin chocolate chip. Salted Caramel is moving into my number two. Cookies and Cream is my third favorite Bilt Bar.

Right now, actually, pumpkin chocolate chip, it was supposed to be a limited time offering, but they have more back, so I highly recommend you go check it out. I think I probably had a Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bilt Bar every single day for about 30 days. There's also 18 other flavors you can choose from. So if you don't like Pumpkin Chocolate

Chip, check out one of the other 18 flavors that are all covered in 100% chocolate. There are nut and non-nut flavors, so make sure to check that out as well. And not only does this Bilt Bar pack a punch in the taste department, it packs a punch in the health department. My number three favorite Bilt Bar cookies and cream, 17 grams of protein, 130 calories, 4 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of net carbs.

Why wouldn't you choose this as your midday snack? So go to BiltBar.com and use promo code LOCKEDON, L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N, and you'll get 20% off your next order. Use promo code LOCKEDON for 20% off at BiltBar.com and use promo code LOCKEDON, L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N, and you'll get 20% off your next order. Use promo code LOCKEDON for 20% off at BiltBar.com. And as I said, coming up on segment number two, we're going to be talking about this Kirk Ferens press conference. I thought he gave some really good information. Let's kick it off with one of the things we talked about, though, yesterday. Deron McKinney has transferred. He's entered the transfer portal.

And as I mentioned on the show yesterday, I don't think this has anything to do with what happened over the summer. I think it wholeheartedly has to do with the lack of playing time he's getting and the future he sees here in the program. And Kirk Ferens basically said the exact same thing. Here was his quote. I think De'Ron was hoping to get more playing time and he feels like he's a really good returner and he's got the potential to be one. We're just a little bit full right now with Smith, Marcet, and Charlie back there. I think that we just felt like those are our two best guys, and De'Ron's a good defensive back too.

He had a good future there, but we have a few other guys that are ahead of him right now. So not always, but a lot of times, it's based on what they see in front of them and what they think the path to the field is. Now again, we talked about it yesterday. I don't want to harp on it, but we didn't have spring practice. So these players are not getting the opportunity to see where they really fit in the program. Now we're a couple of games in.

They're getting a pretty good idea of what the pecking order is. And sometimes if you don't see playing time for a couple of years, maybe you do want to transfer out. Maybe you want to go to JUCO. Maybe you want to go to a different program and try to get playing time right away. The ultimate goal is to get playing time. Not a lot of players want to get a scholarship, go to a school, not play for four years, and then graduate. That's not typically what you want to do.

And if you did, I would question some of your motivation for even wanting to play college football. I mean, no issues with getting a degree, but you clearly don't maybe have that work ethic of trying to get on the field that you typically want in a college ball player. Again, to each their own, but to me, it makes sense. He wants to play football. I get it. Now, speaking on the special teams, Kirk Ferens did say a couple things because the media, including myself, has been very high on special teams this year.

Torrey Taylor has done fantastic. Charlie Jones has busted a few good returns. The punt coverage has been absolutely outstanding, led by Terry Roberts. And they asked, you know, has this been the best? Is this one of the best special teams units you have? And what does that mean for a program? And then he kind of gave some, you know, some criticism of the special teams. He said, yeah, I would like to see our kick returns get the ball past the 25.

First of all, before we start having celebrations. That would be nice. I don't know if we made it past the 20 yet. So we still have some work to do. We did miss a field goal the other day, so it's not all perfect at this stage. But I think if you look at any of our teams, that you guys judge things a little bit differently than I do. But you guys would consider our really good teams.

Most of them are pretty good on special teams. The 0-2 group comes to mind. Now again, Iowa started off 0-2. But those were interesting losses. They were close losses to two very good football teams in Purdue and Northwestern. And I think the field goal game, that's going to be cleaned up. That was a bad kick by Keith Duncan, but I'm not worried about him. And Amir Smith-Marset just needs to break one, but he's absolutely right. We haven't done that well in the kick return department. So that'll be something to watch when we take on Minnesota because their special teams unit is absolutely garbage.

And we're going to cover that as one of our three key matchups. He also gave a little bit of news on the injuries. He said Jack Campbell just got cleared for Sunday. So he's hardly in condition to go out and play 60, 70 snaps. He might be able to do it Friday, and then we may lose him for the rest of the year. So it doesn't make sense. We'll rotate him in, but he's a really good football player, and we have total confidence he'll do a good job when he's in there. But I

think what we'll do is rotate and split the reps and try to keep our guys fresh. And they're going to need to be fresh because they're up against a big challenge this week for sure. And that really goes back to the offense. He talked about Minnesota and he said, this offense is fantastic. He said, they're capable of scoring 50 points pretty much on anybody. We saw them do that last year. Most of the players are here from last year. And they've been clipping right along offensively this year as well. Now, I might disagree a little bit with that. Minnesota's offense has been good from a point standpoint.

They haven't been bad. But the passing game, which was really the big driver of their offensive success last year, has been subpar. They haven't really thrown the ball that well this year, all things considered. The protection for Tanner Morgan has been poor, very poor. And a reminder, they do have a new offensive coordinator. They have been really focused on the run. Muhammad Ibram, he's a fantastic running back. He's put up back-to-back 200-yard games, so that's something to watch out for as well.

But this offense doesn't scare me nearly as much as it did last year. So that, to me, is very interesting. And then to wrap up with this press conference, he did talk a little bit about Brandon Smith. And he said with each phase of his career, each month of his career, he's been showing improvement. And we're excited for the fact that he's with us here for the next six games. We're going to enjoy him while he's here and just look forward to him continuing to play

really good football for us and hopefully leading us to some good things. And I completely agree. I talked about this on Saturday. I tweeted out Brandon Smith is going to be in the NFL next year. Now that might seem like a pretty obvious thing to some of you, but Iowa doesn't send a lot of wide receivers to the NFL, and this year they might be sending two. And even Jim Nagy, the executive director of the Senior Bowl, spoke very highly about Brandon Smith as a guy who was really showing out early on in this

football season. I had the opportunity to cover the Senior Bowl last year. I thought Jim Nagy did and does a fantastic job of running that thing, and it is a fantastic opportunity for these players to get even more exposure. So Brandon Smith is doing great right now making these highlight reel catches. He still has a lot of work to do. When he came into Iowa, he was incredibly raw, but an extreme athlete. Now, if he can combine and fix some of those raw issues and continue to work on the fundamentals, he has that extreme athleticism. Jim Nagy said he expects him to jump over 40-inch vertical. That is going to be huge in the eyes of NFL evaluators. A 4-yard dash, if he can run under 4'6", that'll also be huge

in the eyes of NFL evaluators. And then the one thing to note is anytime you can go to the Senior Bowl, that is a tremendous opportunity to continue to grow the hype coming on for you. I think Michael Ojemudia, he ran really well, but I also thought he had a great senior bowl. Brandon Smith showing very early on in his senior year that he can be a guy who gets the senior bowl. If he can make that jump and get to the senior bowl, I expect him to be drafted. I expect him to have a pretty solid career as kind of a jump ball kind of guy. I don't think he's a first-round pick. I do think he is an early day three kind of player.

Projection, of course, not right now, but as a projection over the course of this season and getting into the senior bowl, to me, he projects as a day three player. And if he continues to make those 50-50 balls look more like 80-20, 90-10, that is really going to stand out in the eyes of evaluators and, of course, draft Twitter,

which is in love with those type of high-flight plays. So that was the press conference with Kirk Ferentz and a little bit of a rant on how awesome Brandon Smith is. Coming up on segment number three, we're going to be breaking down those matchups to watch out for on Friday night's game, Iowa versus Minnesota. All right, we are back for our third and our final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes

on the Lockdown Sports Network. As a reminder, tomorrow we have our Thursday crossover episode. We will be joined by a Minnesota Gopher expert. That's right, we got an expert. We don't have a host on Lockdown Podcast Network covering the Minnesota Gophers, but we have Daniel House joining the show. You can follow him at DanielHouseNFL.

He does a fantastic job of covering the Minnesota Gophers, and we're going to have him on the show to talk a little bit about what to expect in this upcoming game. Before we get into that, though, I do have three matchups to watch out for. I did a little bit of research, and obviously I watch a lot of Minnesota games. I have a lot of friends who are Minnesota fans, and I just care about the Big Ten. So I wanted to get a good understanding about what to expect from Minnesota. The first matchup to watch out for, though, is Rashad Bateman versus the secondary. And the reason I bring that up is Iowa does a pretty good job of keeping wide receivers in front of them.

But really good wide receivers have a tendency to torch Iowa. David Belt torched us two years in a row. And he might be one of the best wide receivers have a tendency to torch Iowa. David Bell torched us two years in a row, and he might be one of the best wide receivers in the country. Last year, Tyler Johnson went nine catches for 170 yards. He's now playing for the Bucs, but Rashad Bateman had six catches for 98 yards, and I think Rashad Bateman is a better wide receiver. Right now, three games into the season, Rashad Bateman is accounting for 50% of Tanner Morgan's passing production. 50%. You stop him now, that's 50% of the production you just eliminated. So Rashad Bateman is going to be a really huge target for Iowa to make sure he isn't getting the ball.

He's explosive after the catch. He does a great job of running his routes and has fantastic hands. He's a guy Iowa needs to stop, and we haven't seen them do a great job of stopping these wide receivers because they run a zone scheme. They also don't man up on these guys typically. They're not doing matchups, so Minnesota has the ability to kind of move Rashad Bateman around and get him into good situations. Now, that being said, if Rashad Bateman catches 10 passes for 100 yards, that is not super concerning to me because they don't have a lot of other weapons on this team. Chris Rodham-Bell, I believe, he's a solid wide receiver. He's accounting for 25% of the production.

But again, if you can stop Rashad Bateman, I think you have a good opportunity to stop this passing game entirely. And now we look at this pass defense, and there's been a little bit of struggles. They have the highest passing yards per game allowed in the last four years, but not by much. 2017, 212 yards allowed. 2018, 184. 2019, 195. Right now, 213.

But this passing defense is getting better week by week, in my humble opinion, I should say. I thought they did a really good job against Michigan State, save for one deep ball. And Michigan State came in really wanting to target the deep pass. They did a really good job of stopping that. So again, this will be a really fun matchup to watch and one that Iowa needs to win to win this game. Matchup number two, kind of flipping the script here. Spencer Petras versus a very weak secondary. This Minnesota secondary has lost Antoine Winfield Jr., who is looking like a defensive rookie of the year for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now, can Spencer Petras take advantage of this week's secondary? I saw some good things in game number three.

Seemed like he calmed the nerves a little bit, but there's still some issues with some throws behind people, putting a little bit too much on the throws, and we didn't really get a great opportunity to truly evaluate him again because Iowa was up so quickly with the help of the defense and the special teams. We also have Amir Smith-Marset back. And this secondary Minnesota, again, is very weak. And they have not been very good at forcing turnovers. It's just one interception this entire year. To me, the biggest issue with Minnesota's team is not their offense, but their defense.

Specifically, in their secondary. Joe Milton looked fantastic against Minnesota. That should be a really cool opportunity for Spencer Petras to now take advantage of that. Joe Milton has been all right for Michigan, but Spencer Petras has just the same amount of ability. Let's see him work on some of that touch and accuracy and get him a little bit more comfortable in this game. I think there's a really cool opportunity to take advantage of this week's secondary. And furthermore, Minnesota's run defense has been pretty porous as well. So the running attack should be open, which will be able to open up the passing game. We saw the running attack get a little bit more juice in it this past week

as Iowa makes it up, did a little bit of some ender rounds, did some handoffs out of the shotgun, some inside zone runs, and then their traditional line it up power type football. I thought that was pretty good to see. And against Minnesota, there's even a better opportunity to get that running game going so we can get the passing game open up as well. And again, I think the biggest thing for Spencer Petras is calming those nerves, taking a little bit off when you need to and putting it on when you need to.

And then the communication, getting acclimated and familiarized with his wide receivers. We saw him miss a throw against Sean Beyer. Matt Vandenberg broke it down pretty well. So it just looked like they were not in sync as to which route or how Sean Beyer was going to run the route. And for those of you who don't maybe follow as closely, route running is very huge in this process. If you're running an out route that's supposed to be 10 yards and you cut it short at 9.5, that completely changes the dynamic of your route. And so as these wide receivers, tight ends, running backs get more familiar with how Spencer Petras likes to throw these different routes,

we will see that get a little bit better. He's still developing. Again, the jury's still out. Who knows how good he'll ultimately be? But I like the tools that we're seeing from Spencer Petras, and Week 4 against Minnesota is a great opportunity for him to put those on display. My third and final matchup that I think is very important coming into this game is special teams.

And as we talked about with the Kirk Ferens press conference, special teams has been almost superb for Iowa. There's definitely some room to work on. We don't want to be missing field goals. We want to get that kick return game going a little bit better, but let's look at Minnesota's Minnesota special teams, right? So we have Matthew Stevenson of Minnesota versus Torrey Taylor. I'm looking specifically at the punt game. Matthew Stevenson is the 110th rated punter in the nation, averaging 34.9 yards per punt on 8 attempts. He makes Colton Rastetter look like the world's best punter. No offense against Colton, fantastic player and individual within the program,

but just wasn't able to put as much oomph on the ball as we've seen Torrey Taylor or even Michael Sleep Dalton do, both Australian punters who were able to really boom the ball. Now, Iowa is 9th in returns. Last week obviously helped with that after Charlie Jones had 5 returns for 101 yards. But there's a reason. Not just because the punters on the other teams are bad, but the blocking has been fantastic. Charlie Jones is running with a lot of confidence.

Now, you put those two things together, if Matthew Stevenson isn't kicking the ball very far, if he's putting line drives in there just like the Michigan State punter, that gives us an opportunity to get 10, 15 yards each punt return. On the opposite side of this, Torrey Taylor is 18th in the country with a 46-yard per punt average. Again, he's doing a fantastic job of placing it. In the last three games, we've seen punt returners really struggle to grab the ball initially. Matt Vandenberg talked about this as well. Every single time the initial punt happens, that very first punt, the punt returner struggles to catch it.

He doesn't know where to catch it at. The ball is kicked further than he's expecting. It puts him out of position and in an opportune position for the Iowa punt coverage to take advantage of that. We saw it with the fumble that happened against Northwestern. Now, Minnesota does a pretty good job of returning the ball. They're top 20 in returns, but they haven't faced a punter like Torrey Taylor yet. So that is going to be the huge battle, and especially in these games.

We've seen a lot of these games be such tight scoring between Iowa and Minnesota. Field position always matters in tight scoring games, even more so. I like this matchup. I think Torrey Taylor clearly is going to help us out and make sure Minnesota's return game isn't going to do well. Again, Terry Roberts on the outside as a gunner is fantastic as well, and we've seen the blocking be really good on our side. So that's going to be a really fun matchup to watch.

And again, Iowa special teams this year looks pretty darn good, and the punt game is going to be huge in this game, a game that is typically close scoring. So those are my three matchups, though, for Iowa to win the game. Let me know what your key matchups are, if you have anything that differs from what I said. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, remember to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast out as well.

Give us that five-star review if you love the show, and make sure to tune in to tomorrow's crossover episode with Daniel House, a guy who covers the Minnesota Gophers as we do our crossover episode. Thank you all for tuning in to today's Wednesday episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and let's go Hawks!