Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Fran McCaffery answers the transfer portal question | Iowa football's defensive line is getting clarity | Tyrone Tracy Jr leading the WR group

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

Fran McCaffery, Jay Niemann, Kelton Copeland, and Levar Woods spoke to the media yesterday and provided clarity on the basketball transfer portal, which defensive lineman have been stepping up, how Tyrone Tracy Jr has commanded the WR room, and who could replace Ihmir Smith-Marsette as the return man.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 “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. 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 Thursday morning 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, and today's episode is brought to you by RockAuto.com. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. And on today's episode, we heard from a lot of coaches yesterday.

We heard from three Iowa football coaches, Jay Neiman, LeVar Woods, and Kelton Copeland. We also heard from Fran McCaffrey. So the whole episode, we're breaking down what they said and what it means for the future of Iowa football and for Iowa basketball. We're going to kick it off with Fran McCaffrey. Before we get into that though, Fran McCaffrey just finished coaching the best basketball player in Iowa basketball history, Luka Garza. What made Luka so good was in part the mental aspect of his game. And that mental aspect comes from the same principles that Frank Garza teaches in the Elevate program, which is available to you as a non-basketball player for $125 for three

sessions. By going to sportshood.net, you can sign up. You get three one and a half hour sessions with Frank Garza. He begins walking through the entry level principles of the Elevate program, which believe me are incredibly helpful. It has truly changed my life already. And I'm really looking forward to doing Elevate level two, which is actually immediately after level one. So really excited to be able to do that. And I highly recommend if you're looking to improve any aspect of your life, professional, personal, athletically, whatever it might be, I highly recommend you doing this.

It is 1000% worth your money. Let's get into what Fran McCaffrey said. He said a lot of things. And there's a couple of things. If you listen to some other reporters and how they interpreted what he said, I think you can get some different interpretations. But I'll kind of walk you through the quotes and then talk through how I feel about them and what my thoughts are. There were really three big themes, in my opinion, Jordan Bohannon, Joe Wieskamp, and transfers. So to start with Joe Wieskamp, Fran McCaffrey said he's had numerous discussions

with Joe and they've met with NBA folks. Those discussions are ongoing and he wants him to have the best possible information that he can have. He's basically said his name is in, he should have numerous tryouts and he can take whatever time he needs and that he loves being a Hawk. He's smart and he'll go when he needs and stay if he needs to. So to me, it seems like a ton of respect from, from Fran on what Joe was going through and trying to be the best and most helpful coach possible without any inkling of bias towards it. Right. If Fran McCaffrey wanted to have a better chance of being successful next year, he would

want Joe Weiskamp to stay at Iowa, but he understands what Wieskamp is trying to do and what his ultimate goals are. And he's putting aside what he would like for what is best for Joe. And I think that's one of the best qualities about Fran McCaffrey is being able to separate what makes him a fantastic coach versus what people or what, you know, what makes him a fantastic coach, but being able to separate what he would personally prefer for his own personal gain versus what is the personally prefer for his own personal gain versus what is the best thing for the player and that's why players absolutely love Fran McCaffrey so I thought that was really cool on Jordan Bohannon he says there's been no decision by

him but he's pretty sure that he'll come to a decision relatively soon people asked about you know whether or not Jordan Bohannon having that decision impacts other guys and Fran was very clear he said yes it does but every one of those guys also got an extra year of eligibility as well he said it's a difficult scenario that we are all faced with we understand it it's not exactly how everyone pictured it but my hope is that it'll eventually get back to normal um Chad Lystico is a phenomenal reporter one of the things he actually mentioned was he feels like, um, Chad or that friend didn't seem overly excited about Jordan possibly returning. Now, my thought is after watching that whole interview and listening to the entire thing, I would argue that Fran's just sick of the roster construction chaos that's happening

and not necessarily tired about Jordan Bohannon's decision. Everything Fran has always said about Jordan has been incredibly positive. I'm sure he would love to have Jordan's three-point ability back, but also on another aspect of it, he does want to make sure that Aaron and Joe have the opportunities that were promised them when they joined the Iowa basketball program. Joe has been waiting in the wings. He's experienced time as a high level player and getting 20 to 25 minutes a game and had to, you know, kind of sit back and watch a bit this year. So I'm sure Fran is excited to see what Joe and Aaron can do and, and, uh, you know, more extended minutes, especially Joe, since he's had that opportunity a couple of times,

but I don't think he would be upset if Jordan decided to return. Fran has the ability to say, no, you should transfer if he wanted to. Now, would that look good for Fran? Probably not. But I don't think Fran was as annoyed by Jordan's indecisiveness or potential of coming back as he was just with all the roster construction chaos in general, which gets me to my next point about transfers. You know, they were, he was asked about whether or not he was big on transfers and he said, he wouldn't say that he's not big on transfers. They just don't typically have room. Now it's a bit different because we're approaching 1500 transfers that are all eligible immediately. But he said, there's really two parts that go into this. He said, it's part of, part of it is,

has there been a previous relationship? And part of it is, has there been a previous relationship? And part of it is, what are we looking for now? He did speak about the fact that there are players in the portal that he would love to have on his team. But we don't have a need there because we already have players there. To me, that eliminates guys at the point guard spot and at the shooting guard spot. They don't need players there, per se, in Fran's mind. He wants to see what Joe can do. He wants to see aaron can do you know that jordan might be coming back you already have cj and tony at the shooting guard spots so there's not the need there but he said

when they have a need they will address it and the post is a need he's not showing the numbers whether it's one or two um so to me shooting for, for one and trying to see whether or not Joe and Jordan are coming back with that ultimately does impact the roster construction and those scholarship numbers. Again, big, big time things. He also got asked about Josh because Josh Ogun delay is a guy who

struggled a bit last year. And he said, you know, I don't think people realize how difficult of a time he had at the beginning. Everything hit him at once, which is really hard to do. He did get to go hit him at once, which is really hard to do. He did get to go against Luka every day, which is really hard to do.

And he's working really hard on his body. He's got to get a bit leaner. So I think, you know, what Fran said is he has an offseason, basically. He has an offseason to get to where he wants to be. But it didn't sound like Fran was lacking confidence in what Josh can do. He thinks if he can lose a bit more weight, he can be an explosive athlete like the one that they recruited and they're really excited about. But we did see what he can do in a few moments, being able to play defense,

being able to go for slamming dunks, big-time dunks. That's what he brings to the table. So if he can lean up a little bit, Josh could have a very big role on the team next year. He also said from an injury perspective, CJ doesn't require surgery. He has about a week back from being on the floor, and he'll jump right into workouts after that. I actually took two things away from that. CJ did just have a stress fracture.

He just needed to relax a little bit. But CJ's not transferring. Those rumors were ridiculous. They were bull crap, and they were started by a dumb website who didn't have any sources on the matter. Literally, we're just speculating and created chaos for no reason about a young man's future. And that to me is complete garbage. And then Connor is going to be ready for November. He said the first surgery went well. Second one is in a week. We talked about this, I believe a week or two ago, but

Connor's not going anywhere. He's going to be on this team next year from everything it sounds like I did I just talked about someone speculating and you know being a jerk I did speculate that there's a chance that maybe Connor decides to go play baseball and only baseball simply from an injury perspective but it does sound like Connor wants to return so that's what we learned from Fran McCaffrey and his press conference that's the takeaways from that coming up on segment two and three. We're going to hop into our discussions, what we heard from Jay, from Kelton, and from LeVar Woods. That's all coming up on segment two and segment three of the show today. I do want to tell you about rockauto.com because they saved me a lot of money on engine air filters when I went to them as opposed to the brick and mortar store.

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Host Peter Bukowski updates you on the latest news in every major sport with the help of our local experts. Follow the Locked On Today podcast on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast at. Now, we did hear from three assistant coaches yesterday as well. Again, Kelton Copeland, LeVar Woods, and Jay Neiman, all three speaking on some different topics. A lot of fantastic questions and really learned a lot about

what is going to be brought to the table for this Iowa football team in the year 2021. So let's get into it. Starting with Jay Neiman, he mentioned a couple things that the biggest thing with spring practice is the ability to build a good fundamental base and help players become more familiar with the intricacies of the defense. And that's something they lost by not having that last year. So the fact that we even saw guys like Wyatt Black getting into the game a little bit was actually a really big deal because they didn't have a chance to work on the fundamentals they were only focusing on just installing the playbook at that point he got a lot of questions though about some of the younger guys which is to be expected so I'm going to give you some quotes on that and what all

that means starting with Logan Jones he said because he is mature beyond his years physically, that gives him a better chance to compete now as compared to others. He has shown that he has the numbers or that the numbers that have shown up in the weight room can translate to the field, which is phenomenal. He also went on to say that every guy is getting equal reps and individual drills and mostly team drills. So in my opinion, what, what, from the Logan Jones perspective, that bodes well for him getting some playing time. Again, Iowa wants to rotate in anywhere from eight to 10 guys. So just

because you're not the starter doesn't mean you're going to get, you're not going to get some big time playing time for the Iowa Hawkeye defensive line. He also talked a little bit about recruiting defensive linemen and really said, you know, because the question was asked, how do you replace three guys each year? And he said, it comes down to recruiting philosophy. We recruit defensive linemen, not defensive tackles or defensive ends, just defensive linemen. And we continue to have the same place system in place.

And once guys get into the system, they continue to hear the same things over and over and over again. You might have new names from a media perspective. You might have new names from a fan perspective, but to those players, nothing is new. The concepts are not new. It's what they're familiar with. It's what they've been acclimated to and they are ready to go. The only concern or challenge is the unknown. You have to have trust and faith that you've done a good job of recruiting players. You've done a good job of evaluating those players and you've done a great job of teaching them the fundamentals of Iowa football. And again again that's one of the reasons why we've seen Iowa do such a strong job of replacing

three guys the last three years which is not an easy thing to do even for a team like Alabama yet Iowa is such a strong developmental program it makes it even more difficult typically you don't have the players ready to step up and go in when you're losing three guys every year that's also why Iowa has placed a lot of emphasis on recruiting defensive linemen every single year and we're going to talk about some of those other younger guys just like we talked about Logan Jones why Black he said is up to nearly 300 pounds to me that means he's going to be sliding into that defensive tackle spot and sticking there or he's already playing there but he's going to be sticking there a guy who has a lot of potential he also mentioned Ethan Herkert saying really hard-nosed guy who converted

from middle linebacker has done a really good job in spring practice he's super locked on right now so what you're going to hear is a lot of just big time things especially the defensive tackle spot because he had a lot of very very good things to say about John Wagoner and Zach Van Valkenburg and called out both of those guys as being the top two most consistent guys on the team with Zach being number one and John being number two. He actually singled out Zach. Someone asked, you know, who's really been the best player out there so far? Who's been the hardest working?

He said Zach. He said one of the things you love about him is that you wouldn't even have an idea that he received so many accolades last year because of how hard he's going in practice. And to John, he said he finally, you know, John realizes there's a new, now a window of opportunity. He's been stuck behind a lot of guys. He has the versatility to play other places, but they really think that his best reps have been on the edge and that maybe they could even slide him to play inside on third down because he does have some experience there. Now, again, that all goes back to how is that defensive line shaping up?

Yes, you want to be that number one, but you're going to see a lot of different packages that Phil Parker deploys. You could see that NASCAR package with John Wagoner sliding inside and getting like a Joe Evans on the outside, a guy who is really good at rushing the passer, but maybe not as strong at the rush defense perspective so you're going to see 8 to 10 guys and all these guys you're hearing about are guys who are in contention for playing time that defensive tackle spot is really going to be up for grabs it sounds like Noah Shannon you know the it's pretty easy to make

that comparison to say Noah you know goes in and replaces Davian Noah came in with a lot of expectations and so the question was asked can he is it even fair to and you know Jay said it's not fair to compare Davian or Noah to Davian but that Noah has elevated his game a notch or two leadership production quality of play is all pointing in the right direction so Noah is a guy to watch out for on this defensive line. It does appear like right now the starters would be John, Zach, and Noah with that one defensive tackle spot up for starting grabs. But again, who's going to fill in for those other spots on that defensive line? You still have another six to seven spots. Another guy to watch out for that he also mentioned is Deontay Craig, mostly because someone had brought him up but he said Deontay is doing fantastic in pass rush but needs to continue to bring along those

rush defense fundamentals so maybe Deontay is a guy who can get in on third downs that's something to watch out for as well something I'll be looking forward to to see kind of what what happens we also heard from Kelton and LeVar Woods as well. I'm going to go through a little bit about what LeVar said, and then we're going to take a quick break and finish up with the rest of LeVar and Kelton's messages. LeVar did a really great job of kind of stepping up to the podium and kind of walking through the entire depth chart,

basically saying Caleb Shudock has done a tremendous job of stepping in from a leadership perspective and that Luka and Aaron have been pushing him. You know, they've Lucas, sorry, Lucas and my own, and they are really working well and doing well together. Austin Spiewak, the fact that he was returning is huge and that Liam and Liam Reardon and Zach Kluver have been pushing him. He mentioned punter that he didn't even say that anyone's pushing Tori Taylor.

He just said Ryan Dersande and Nick Phelps have been working with him and doing a solid job. And that really the big area of focus is on replacing Amir Smith-Marset and mentioned several guys. He said Tyrone Tracy, Tyler Goodson, Charlie Jones, Max Cooper, Nico Regani, Arlen Bruce, and even Keegan Johnson are guys he called out specifically as guys who can carry the ball

and could do a solid job. So that'll be interesting to me. Arlen Bruce, Keegan Johnson, again, true freshman who got a lot of talk during this press conference, mostly at this time coming from the media, forcing LeVar, forcing Kelton to talk about them, but two guys to keep your eyes on as they've been really showing out in spring practice. So replacing Amir Seth-Marset, kind of the big thing.

He also said Charlie has a good lead on the punt returns. Then Nico Regani and Max Cooper could be a solid second and third. But obviously you want to run with Charlie as much as possible. In regards to Torrey Taylor, he actually mentioned that statistically he did really good. But technically things need to clean up, which is exactly what Torrey mentioned on yesterday's conversation when we talked about that. He said he's really been focusing on those spiral punts

and punting from the pocket, things he don't really learn as much in Australian football don't come as natural to Torrey Taylor. So being able to add that to his arsenal is going to be really huge for Torrey as he continues to build on what has been a very impressive freshman season for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Coming up on segment number three, we'll get into a few of the questions that LeVar had and what his answers were and also talk a little bit about what Kelton said as well.

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Odyssey is your audio home for all the sports podcasts, music, and news that matter to you. That is a U D aD-A-C-Y, Odyssey. Now, let's turn our attention back to our final segment of the show as we wrap up with what LeVar Woods said and get into what Kelton Copeland said. A lot of questions about the wide receiver group,

and in particular, one guy who I mentioned might be a breakout guy. Kelton had some good things to say about him. LeVar Woods, though, talking about Caleb, you could tell how much Caleb really means to him. He said, Caleb is a really good kicker. People just don't know him as well. And he said, when you say the word character, you think of Caleb Shudock. And he said he would literally have cried tears had Caleb left.

And he's really excited that Caleb has so many opportunities now to show Case what he can do. And he's so excited that he ultimately decided to return to the Iowa Hawkeyes. Noted the fact that Caleb and Keith were both phenomenal kickers. But Keith just had an edge. But Caleb could still be a fantastic kicker this year. Also mentioned a couple guys who have really stepped up on special teams play. And that's how you can get some playing time right away.

Dallas Craddith and Henry Marquez, both guys who have really stepped up on special teams. We saw last year Terry Roberts really made a name for himself as a gunner. Could it be one of those guys kind of taking the spot as Terry becomes more of an every-down defensive player? Although I don't think Terry's leaving that gunner spot anytime soon because of how phenomenal he's been doing. He also mentioned the guys, you know, Kyler Fisher, Mike Tim, although I don't think Terry's leaving that gunner spot anytime soon because of how phenomenal he's been doing.

He also mentioned the guys, you know, Kyler Fisher, Mike Tim, Monty Potterbaum, Turner Palisade, and Riley Moss is also guys who have really stepped up on the special teams front. He also gave a fantastic story that I don't really have anything to add to it other than it's just hilarious, but he said he was watching Torrey punt when they first got him there, and his first three punts, he hits one, it goes out at the one-yard line. Hits another, it goes out at the three-yard line punts he hits one it goes out at the one yard line hits another goes out the three yard line hits another goes out at the five yard line and he even said that one he didn't kick it very well but that and he asked the coach if that was good and uh LaVar didn't have a lot of words to say they just laughed and I think

again we talked about it on yesterday's show Torrey Taylor is so young still learning American football that you just gotta love the enthusiasm and the lack of awareness on certain things like that and you love those kind of stories just showing just some of the things he really doesn't know about American football which I think is was pretty funny turning our attention to what Kelton Copeland said, though, the two big takeaways. I actually have three takeaways here. A, Tyrone Tracy is the guy. That's number one guy. Desmond Hudson is a guy who I think could really step up this year based off what he said. And he has been really happy with Keegan and Arlen's development.

But unlike what some media members might tell you, I don't. And I could be wrong here. unlike what some media members might tell you, I don't, and I could be wrong here, but I don't see Keegan and Arlen necessarily getting a significant amount of snaps. He did say they had done a really good job. He gives them a lot of credit because he couldn't have done that at their age.

I mean, they're supposed to still be in high school, but also that they have a long way to go. But each and every day is a challenge, and right now they keep coming up and answering the bill, which is good. But again, there's a lot of challenges along the way, but Keegan Arlen nonetheless showing what they can do early on in spring practice. Tyrone Trace though, he said, Tyrone has done an excellent job being an upstanding citizen and a leader. He has set some pretty high standards for himself and goals for himself and the team, which I think was really amazing.

And he also mentioned that Tyrone is the only guy on the entire offense who can play all four widest rear positions, the Z, X, Y, and F. Again, just a ton of praise for Tyrone. And we listened to Tyrone yesterday. I talked to you about what he said and kind of gave my thoughts on it. Tyrone's a guy who could be very impressive. I've been touting the fact that I think Charlie Jones can get 50 catches this year. I think Tyrone can get 50 catches this year.

I think Tyrone can top that. If Spencer Petras can improve his accuracy, if they open up the passing attack, Tyrone Tracy is a guy who could be an all Big Ten type of wide receiver this year. Not just because of the ability to get the ball and very secure hands, but his yak ability is so phenomenal. Again, averaging 16.4 yards per catch two years ago.

That's something he can do, and he's been putting in that work, and I'm excited to see what he can do. He also mentioned something that I was kind of curious that I didn't realize, but Nico Regani hasn't practiced a whole lot. He said he's been helping a lot in the meeting room. Now, when you're injured, and I mentioned this before, Nico, I like what he can do when he gets his hands on the ball, but I have not liked how much

he has dropped the ball in the past. That allows opportunities for other guys to step up. Guys like Max Cooper, who he even mentioned, he's been unable to find a lot of traction here and there, but has done a really good job of taking opportunities to advance and move the room forward. Max is the veteran leader. I don't think ultimately at the end of the day, Nico being injured, Max doing well, Max is going to necessarily take that starting role. But Max is the guy who will be rotating in from that three to five wide receiver spot

depending on what they need at any given time and obviously depending on injuries. But one guy to watch out for is Desmond Hudson. They asked the question, what are some young guys that have really stepped up? He mentioned Desmond Hudson and Jackson Ritter. Jackson, a former walk-on. But Desmond had a few other questions they mentioned.

And this was really eye-opening. He said he's done a really nice job, but he kind of got screwed last year. Because two years ago, he played in three games, and they were trying to decide whether or not they wanted to burn a redshirt for Desmond. They ultimately decided not to. But as I mentioned when I did my wide receiver preview on our spring positional previews

that we haven't even gotten to the defensive line or that specialist spot. But as we kind of talked about, Desmond's a perfect build for that X. He's a perfect guy to replace a Brandon Smith. He's the only guy on the roster that really has that size too. But it sounds like last year he was probably one of the biggest victims of the pandemic in terms of being able to play football simply because apparently he was out three times quarantining due to contact tracing and whatnot. When he was just trying to be a good teammate, he was just trying to get another workout and he was just trying to help out a guy. And because those guys tested positive for COVID, he had to go into

quarantine during the summer, which made him miss a lot of really good developmental time and then during the season getting into it he got in minor injury so Desmond Hudson a guy to watch out for now that he's back in the offense picking things up and he did mention that you know Kelton did mention he's a guy who really needs a lot of development because he came here as a raw basketball player type. Sounds a little bit familiar. That's because Brandon Smith came here as a raw player as well. Desmond Hudson, a guy who could really step in and fill that position,

maybe just even at the goal line, a guy who can go up and get some contested catches, having that basketball background that allows you to box out, out-jump opponents, understanding where to high-point the ball, that could be really huge and something to watch out for Desmond Hudson this upcoming year he also said he's really excited to see these guys get out there and perform for Deontay Vines and Kayvon Matthews so again high praise among all the wide receiver groups and then the last thing I want to talk about which I thought was really interesting is that he said they haven't been able to identify maybe who are the

best blockers in the team and blocking from a wide receiver perspective is one of the most important things to be able to get on the field for Iowa. And he said that last year, Brandon was so good and played the exact same position every time. He knew exactly how he was going to line up, and you basically game-planned your run game around where Brandon Smith was going to be at because you knew Brandon Smith could get it done from a blocking perspective, which I thought was pretty high praise for Brandon Smith was going to be at because you knew Brandon Smith could get it done from a blocking perspective, which I thought was pretty high praise for Brandon Smith and will help him get to the next level in addition to his contested catch ability. But again, from Kelton Copeland, a lot of high praise amongst all the guys.

Nico seems like he's been injured. Tyrone, the number one guy without a doubt. Keegan and Arlen have a lot of work to do, but they're getting there. And watch out for Desmond Hudson, a guy who I think could get some big-time snaps and needs to take advantage of the opportunity with Nico being out right now. And then Deontay and Kayvon Matthews, don't forget about them. Kelton has done a phenomenal job of building up this wide receiver room. And, again, it goes to show when you look at Amir Smith-Marset and Brandon Smith

possibly being drafted this upcoming draft. So exciting stuff all around for the Iowa football team. It was great to be able to hear from the coordinators. As we have additional Iowa interviews coming up, hopefully in the next couple weeks, we will make sure to cover that and break it down for you right here on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Unless there's any major breaking news in the transfer portal

or decisions of who is coming back and who is not from an Iowa basketball perspective, we will finally wrap up our spring positional previews on tomorrow's episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. So stay tuned for that. Thank you all for tuning in. Please, if you love the show, go follow us wherever you downloaded it at, whatever podcast site you use.

And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation. And let's go Hawks.