Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Hawkeyes cuts four varsity sports due to huge budget deficit and the Senior Bowl announces a top-250 watch list

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

The Hawkeye's athletic department cut four varsity sports amid a huge budget deficit. What does this mean for the future of other programs and why these sports are questions we will be addressing. The Senior Bowl also announced it's top-250 watch list, which included four Iowa Hawkeyes. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic we might not see any surprise Iowa players work their way on this list. We kick off the entire show with our Monday morning round up highlighting all the tidbits of news in Hawkeye nation.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.ManscapedGo to Manscaped.com and use code LOCKED to get 20% Off and Free Shipping. Manscaped is #1 in men’s below the belt grooming and offers precision-engineered tools for your family jewels.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 $10 off your first order. 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 Hawkeye Nation, to a Monday 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. And apologies for getting this episode out a little bit later today. As I mentioned, I took a little bit of a vacation this weekend. That's why you got the interview with Mike Dahm on Friday, a pre-recorded intro outro with the Mike Dahm interview talking about the bubble and life inside of that TBT bubble, the amount of COVID tests he was taking and what he's doing professionally going forward.

You got that on Friday. I hope you enjoyed that. If you haven't listened to it, definitely check that out. This week, though, we have lots of great stuff coming up on the podcast. Today, we're going to be breaking down the shocking but not so shocking decision for Iowa to cut a few varsity programs. Four in particular. We're going to talk about that decision.

We're going to do our Monday morning roundup that we've been doing the last couple weeks. Kind of breaking down some of the minor news. I say minor lightly. I mean some of the things that we don't want to talk about as much. But we're going to cover that on the first segment of the day. And then finally, on segment number three, we have the Senior Bowl. We're going to be talking about the first segment of the day. And then finally, on segment number three, we have the Senior Bowl. We're going to be talking about the process for the Senior Bowl. They broke down their top 250 players coming into this year

and what the Senior Bowl could look like next year with the postponement of college football. So that's going to be coming up on the show today. We have some great interviews as well. We're also looking at doing a training camp kind of review slash preview of what's happened over the last couple weeks for some of the Iowa Hawkeyes. So lots of great stuff coming up on the show today and this week, and I really appreciate you all tuning in.

If you do like the show, please make sure to like, review, and subscribe if you haven't already, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But let's hop into it with our Monday morning roundup for today. A couple big things popped up over the weekend. First and foremost, hope all is well with Ross Reynolds. He was carted off at the 49ers training camp with an apparent leg injury. I haven't seen anything as of now about what has happened with that, if he's doing okay, if it was minor.

But it seemed like it was a relatively major injury. So prayers and thoughts are with Ross as he begins his second season with the San Francisco 49ers. Also, in some other not-so-great Iowa NFL news, Parker Hesse was released by the Titans. If we're being honest, it was a little bit shocking. The fact that he was able to get on the team was fantastic was fantastic last year as a practice club player. Um, but obviously a very big learning curve that he needed to go through, um, to be able to make it far in the league. And then with the fact the NFL has to, you know, cut rosters down 80 and you're not

actually getting preseason games, it makes it a little bit more difficult. You basically have to be a practice, a solid practice player. Otherwise they're just not much else to show them. Also, Oliver Martin has officially transferred to Nebraska as a walk-on wide receiver. First and foremost, I know we could all make jokes about the fact that he's going to be with three different big 10 teams in three different years. And as much as you want to call him an adult, the dude's still in college and I wish him the best. You know, I hope he does well at Nebraska. Clearly there's something going on. You know, he decided to leave Michigan for, you know, relatively unknown reasons. At Iowa, he entered into arguably the best wide receiver, you know, group that Iowa has ever had. And had

he maybe been to Iowa a little bit earlier, he could have built that repertoire and been able to solidify a spot, but he came in late and Tyrone Tracy and Nika Reganey, you know, supplanted him. And then if you look at it from next year's perspective, people were like, why would he transfer? Well, if you look at it from next year's perspective, Brandon Smith and Amir Smith-Marset are going to be gone most likely, depending on whatever happens with these seasons, right? ButMarset are going to be gone most likely depending on whatever happens with these seasons right but in theory those two will be gone that leaves Tyrone Tracy Nico Reganey and then behind him though you know it is Oliver Martin but there's a couple

other guys I mean you're and there's a guys coming in as recruits as well so it's not like it's guaranteed that he was going to be that number three receiver. And I don't think you take that chance if you are in Oliver Martin. You're looking to get playing time, and you clearly were not going to get playing time based off what we were seeing. I mean, right now we've got Tyrone Tracy, Nico Regani, Brandon Smith, Amir Smith-Marset. At the max, Oliver Martin was a number three receiver, and you've got to factor in the other guys that are also coming in.

Desmond Hudson, you have Skylar Bell, not Skylar Bell, excuse me, Deontay Vines, you've got Keegan Johnson coming in the following year. A couple guys I'm just blanking on right now, but it makes sense why he's probably leaving. Got a shoulder injury and wasn't able to get a lot of playing time. So, nevertheless, I wish him the best, and I think it's wrong if you're making fun of him on Twitter. I think it's okay to realize that it's a little bit crazy.

I think three Big Ten schools in one, you know, three seasons. But clearly there's something going on that we are not aware of. At least that's what it seems like to me. I do wish him the best, though. Also, forgot to add this on Friday morning or Thursday morning, but Amir Smith-Marset was also named a preseason All-American as a returner. So fantastic stuff for him. Friday morning, though, there was a big kind of news, something that had been kind of bubbling up for a while.

The parents of Big Ten players were going to go to the Big Ten offices and not necessarily protest, but demand a meeting with Kevin Warren. So they did that. I would say the turnout was not as great as I was hoping. But nevertheless, glad to see the parents sticking up for the kids. And surprising, surprising, Kevin Warren did not show up. They did not get a meeting and they have not gotten any answers. So the Big Tens continued debacle of of uh a pr son has really

kind of messed with them they have done a terrible job of handling this whole process and news continues to sprinkle out the fact that it sounds like this is not a fact but it sounds like all 14 athletic directors wanted to play sports this year or this fall and it was made without them kind of being in the know. I mean, you talk about the issues with the guidance of their medical staff. That is really not a legit medical staff to make decisions on this. Overall,

just the decision has been just botched over and over again. And they continue to make, make mistakes despite knowing that they've already made a mistake. They're just not even handling. Well, Kevin Warren has done a terrible job and the parents did not get any answers when they, when they went there. Also, it sounds like the NCAA is considering a potential bubble and regionally focused games, which I think would be interesting and we could

possibly see the return of the Big Four coming back to Iowa with Iowa Drake, UNI, and Iowa State. Drake is definitely a better team now than they were over the last couple years. UNI is back on track as well. And then, of course, Iowa State and Iowa are around as well. And Iowa is going to be a national title contender next year. But we could definitely see more regionally focused games outside of just the Big Ten Conference. And I think that would be quite interesting for the Hawks. And we'll break that down and what that means on a show later on in this week maybe tomorrow but I'm thinking

that people you know teams like Creighton would be a really fun game for Iowa to get to play that wouldn't be one that I would circle for sure as an opportunity for a regionally focused game that would be very hyped Creighton's coming into the season likely going to be a top 10 team as well that would be a matchup I would love to see. But that'll do it for our Monday morning roundup. Coming up on segment number two, we're going to talk about the sports being cut, the fact that there's four varsity sports leaving the Iowa Hawkeye athletic program and what that means and what could also continue to happen going forward. So that'll be coming up on segment number two.

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All right, we are back for our second segment of the day, and definitely some sad news in the Iowa Hawkeye athletic community. The Iowa Hawkeyes have had to cut four varsity programs, and we'll get into why these programs and that kind of stuff, but I'm going to quickly kind of walk through the logistics of it. So last week, Gary Barta came out and said, you know, the Iowa Hawkeye athletic program was going to run a deficit of around $100 million. They're sorry, they were going to lose $100 million and run a deficit around $65 to $75 million.

Obviously, we're not completely sure on what those specific numbers are right now, but we knew there were going to be cuts coming. You cannot have a $65-$75 million deficit and not do something about it. It was announced this weekend that after the 2020-2021 seasons, four varsity athletic programs were going to be discontinued, which includes the men's gymnastics team, men's and women's swimming and diving, and also men's tennis. All those student athletes will have their scholarships honored throughout their tenure at Iowa if they choose to remain at Iowa. The contracts of the coaches will also be honored. And if those student athletes want to transfer,

they are, I always said they're going to do whatever they can to help them out and get that going. This should not come as a surprise. We saw Stanford cut a lot of programs earlier on. We're seeing a bunch of teams start announcing furloughs and different type of budget cuts. We saw Nebraska announced it recently. Yesterday, we saw Purdue come out with their plan as well. I'm sure there's more to come for Iowa. They already have, you know,

salary reductions across the board, it sounds like. But these four programs are gone. And people are probably wondering why these programs in this order and a lot of it comes down to um title nine and the fact that when you have varsity programs need to basically have a similar number of scholarships available for football or not for football sorry but for men's and women's sports and with football having you know 85 scholarship positions and also being usually the breadwinner of the sports programs. In Iowa, for example, it's basically football that's carrying the rest of the athletic programs that typically run a deficit.

And basketball does a decent job. They at least pay for themselves and make a little bit of money. But overall, the other programs mostly run a budget deficit. So especially without football in the fall, it's going to be tough to make that up. But also the amount of scholarships that you get from football kind of makes it a little bit awkward when you're trying to determine what programs to cut, which is why Iowa cut three men's programs and only one women's program so they could keep the amount of sports kind of intact as much as possible.

A couple things to realize with this information. First and foremost, to be a Division I school, you must have 16 programs. So right now, Iowa is at 20, so relatively close to that. When you're looking at the rest of the sports that they have, it doesn't seem, I don't know where they would make these other cuts at possibly. So from a sports perspective, though, they are losing these four sports, and ideally this will save them about $20 to $30 million over the next three to four years, not having these sports in play. But there's still a lot of room to kind of make more cuts on.

I don't foresee that happening from an athletic program perspective. When you look at some of the other programs, it would be tough to make those cuts. For example, men's and women's basketball is not going anywhere. Men's baseball is is not going anywhere. Men's baseball is certainly not going anywhere. That baseball team has built a really good following among Iowa Hawkeye fans. Track and field has done really well. Wrestling just built a brand new facility, or is building a brand new facility, and they're, you know, one of the best in the nation. So wrestling isn't going anywhere.

I guess if you had to pick a men's sport that might, you know, be the next one, possibly be golf or cross country. Cause even the track and the field team does pretty well. The gymnastics team actually was, you know, usually pretty solid too, but just interesting times all around for Iowa Hawkeye athletics. And I know there was some talk about Kirk Ferentz and the fact that he's getting his salary paid by the public. Again, please understand the situation. Iowa's sports program is self-sustaining.

Their programs are not ran by the state. The state does not pay for their salaries. Yes, the state does give money to their salaries. Yes, the state does, you know, give money to the school, but not the athletic portion. Overall, the school does a great job of supporting itself from an athletic standpoint. So back off of that, if that is really something you're super concerned about. I just people just getting pissed off about the most ridiculous stuff nowadays. Yeah, so Iowa's losing four sports. I don't think there's going to be more sports going away,

but I do think we're going to see some drastic budget cuts. I think we're going to see some coaches possibly leave. We're going to see salaries reduced significantly, and we're going to see a lot of furloughs probably, especially over the fall. These athletic programs, a lot of times their staff that's working from now until December, they would typically be handling football, and they'd be handling a start of basketball and getting those marketing programs in place. And they don't have that ability to do so now.

There's not a lot to do. And actually, now that I'm talking about Lout, I actually know someone who runs or manages the athletic program from a marketing standpoint in Oklahoma. Maybe we'll get him on to talk about what it means for sports programs. I think that would be a really interesting discussion to see kind of what they're doing to keep their programs alive and what they're doing to try to get people in the right space. But this is not the end. This is only the beginning. Now that we don't have fall sports programs,

we're going to have to make some really difficult cuts. And we see Iowa making a difficult cut, cutting four varsity programs already to get to, you know, try to cut that deficit down to about, you know, two thirds of what it was. So they're about, you know, probably around that 35 to 40 million deficit mark. Still trying to figure out where to make up that difference at.

Ideally, I think another way to do it is also to reduce the travel of teams. So, and that'll actually probably happen naturally a little bit this year with coronavirus. You might see the men's and women's basketball teams not going to as many big tournaments, not going all over the country, keeping everything pretty regionally focused. Baseball's another sport, you know, They don't bring in as much money. They do run a deficit, but they also go to a ton of tournaments. So is softball. Same as softball.

They go to a ton of tournaments in the spring to get out of the Midwest so they can play baseball. We could see that go away to reduce the travel expenses as well and see if we can get that budget a little bit more in line over the next couple of years. So just a few options that possibly could come up as this story continues to develop. We'll definitely be covering that as well. But we're going to take a quick break and then hop into segment number three,

where we talk about the four Hawkeyes who were announced on the Senior Bowl's Top 250, what it means for them, what Hawkeyes could also be on that roster, and what the Senior Bowl is going to look like in 2021. So stay tuned after a few messages from our sponsors. Welcome back to segment number three of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And if I didn't, I want to make sure if I didn't say this on segment number two, first and foremost, now as we talk about these, you know, cuts happening to the sports programs,

it is still just an incredibly unfortunate situation for those players who put their hearts and souls into working for the Iowa Hawkeye programs and while some of this definitely has to do with you know historical performance a lot of it just has to do with a numbers game of scholarships money and what is kind of coming in the pipeline swimming and diving was probably one of the more shocking ones but also understandable but considering the fact they just built a world-class swimming and you know diving facility and they're hosting the national championships i believe the next year that was a little bit shocking to see as well but again as this you know kind of keeps coming up we will make sure to break that down and talk to you a little bit more and as we get more information

we'll talk about what that impacts and how it impacts Iowa. But Iowa being the first Big Ten school to do this, I expect a few more Big Ten schools on the way to continue to do this as well. And, you know, for example, like field hockey has been very successful, but they don't have a lot of field hockey teams in the Big Ten. They don't have any field hockey teams in the state of Iowa for high school. So, you know, there's a lot of tough decisions coming ahead. I hope they don't cut any more sports, but we'll continue to break that down.

So let's jump into the Senior Bowl and the Top 250. So every year, the last couple years, Jim Nagy, he's the executive director of the Senior Bowl. He has done a really fantastic job of making the Senior Bowl a better event for fans and for media than what it has been in the past. And also an event that attracts top-level talent. And so the Senior Bowl has really become a great kickoff point for the NFL draft season. Obviously, there's going to be some changes this year with the Senior Bowl. We're not sure what's going to happen, when it's going to be played. Jim Nagy had a conversation with the Stick to Football guys on Bleacher Report stick to football podcast last week and he talked about the potential for

you know kind of like a bubble type of situation um you know a couple weeks staying all down a mobile knocking out the senior bowl um it definitely gained some good media attention and it could be even more hyped up because a lot of the you know some of these players aren't getting an opportunity to play their senior season so maybe this is the one chance to show they can play maybe this is the one chance to improve their draft stocks the senior bowl almost becomes even more important this year but they have to factor in when is the NFL draft when is the NFL combine they want to give guys a chance you know be ready for the NFL combine and depending on what the contracts look like for Indianapolis, considering Indianapolis

is such a hotspot for conference championship games and national events, do they need to switch up their dates? Can they switch up their dates so they can move around the Combine, which would allow the Senior Bowl to move around? All these things are relatively unknown at this point, but do impact when the Senior Bowl is being played and where it's going to be played at. So getting into that, though, every year since Jim Nagy has taken over, the Senior Bowl staff has been releasing kind of their top guys, the guys that they have on their radar right

now. Last year, for example, I think I saw Nate Weeding on there. I believe Nate Stanley is on there as well. Michael Ojemudia, I think, was also on there. And then Christian Welch. At the end of the season, only Michael Ojemudia went to the Senior Bowl. Nate Stanley was invited and elected not to go, and the other guys were not invited.

So things can change. Keep in mind, you know, if someone has a breakout senior season, that could also change. But considering the fact there's no fall sports and right now the senior bowl will be played at the end of january um it would be tough for iowa hawkeyes to improve their draft stock and make it there so i'm thinking of guys like matt hankins nick neiman those are guys that are are going to struggle uh brand Smith, Amir Smith-Marset, although Amir Smith-Marset is actually on the list, but Brandon Smith is another good example of a guy who could have maybe improved his

stock to be able to get on that senior bowl watch list. So the four guys who did make it, Aleric Jackson, Coy Cronk, Amir Smith-Marset, and Chauncey Golston. No surprise there. Coy Cronk was a guy who was on the draft radar a year ago before he had a significant ankle injury. Aleric Jackson was also on the NFL radar pretty significantly, even listed as a first-round pick.

So his season really depends on being able to come back healthy and clean and free of injury. Amir Smith-Marcet is a burner who definitely can see himself on special teams, and I think this year would be a great year for him to improve his wide receiver stock. And then, obviously, Chauncey Golsan, a guy who's been playing in the shadows of some really great defensive ends. I would say at this point, if college football does not happen this season, the senior bowl does happen,

I think Amir Smith-Marset and Aleric jackson are locks to be on that roster it will be tough to get on just because like i said there's there's a lot of guys who aren't going to be able to play full football season this year who are going to be using that opportunity to improve their draft stock and you can really improve your draft stock by going to the senior bowl and balling out look at what michael ojemudia did coming into Senior Bowl, I would say he's probably a mid-to-late-day three pick. A guy who, coming out of Iowa, you don't play a lot of man coverage. So seeing him be able to play man coverage really well, or pretty well, in just a week and stick to guys pretty well and tackle well, that definitely improved his stock.

And then running a fast 40-yard dash. So these are really great opportunities. Amir Smith-Marcel, I think, is kind of a guarantee to go. So is Larry Jackson. Coy Cronk and Chauncey Olsen, which just did a pretty solid season, I think could make it. But again, this really impacts guys like Matt Hankins and Nick Neiman, you know, guys who should be able to play their way into a senior bowl spot, but may not have that opportunity to do so. So unfortunate nonetheless. As we get more news in the senior bowl, like kind of with everything, we'll continue to break down what that means for Iowa Hawkeyes.

I can't imagine media, like at least me, I'm not going to be allowed to be there, but we'll definitely be covering that, and it would be a huge opportunity to get a few of those guys there. The whole process of coronavirus it it positively impacts the guys who already have a lot of tape um and no question marks so for example it definitely helps out amir spith-marset it kind of helps out larry jackson um if he didn't have the angle injury and kind of or the injury last year and struggle or the knee injury excuse injury and struggle a little bit towards the end of the season it'd be fine for him

but it hurts guys like a Matt Hankins who has been up and down it hurts guys like a Nick Neiman who is looking to play in that middle linebacker spot potentially this year sucks but that's kind of what's happening in the general aspect of coronavirus in the world but that'll do it for our third

and final segment of the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. We have some fun segments coming up later this week as well. Um, without fall football, um, what are some teams you could potentially root for? We're going to break down what that decision looks like and who are some

teams that you can maybe, uh, reach, you know, look at, look at maybe being a fan of for, for this fall. So we're gonna be talking about that on future episodes of the show as

well. Again, I appreciate you all for tuning into today's show. I know my voice is a little bit lighter today. Again, a little bit tired from this weekend, but wanted to make sure I got you an episode out today. I'm looking to break our record for listens and downloads this month. We're pretty close.

So help us get to that. Spread the word of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast and give us that five-star review wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, thank you so much for listening and tuning in. Have a fantastic Monday, and let's go Hawks. you