Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Hawks get big win over Nebraska | Who can replace Amani Hooker | End of season awards for Iowa football

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

The Hawks got a much needed victory over the Cornhuskers so we analyze that game and provide our takeaways from that game including the impact Garza had when he entered the game, how uncomfortable Bohannon looks in the offense, and Iowa's renewed energy on the defensive side of the ball. On segment number two we cover the departure announcement from Amani Hooker and discuss who we think could replace the junior All-American. We also give our thoughts on Hockenson and Nelson and whether or not they will actually declare. Segment three finds us handing out MVP awards, Newcomer of the Year awards, and Breakout Players of the Year awards for the 2018 Iowa football season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. The Locked On Hawkeyes podcast is one of the newest additions to the Locked On Sports Network's growing lineup of college podcasts. I'm your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at DearOldGold.com, where you can find analysis pieces on all things black and yellow. And we have a good week ahead for you. We're going to be talking a lot about Iowa basketball, doing some end-of-the-year football type of things, and obviously reporting on the late-breaking news and giving kind of our analysis and opinions on that. Obviously today we're going to have to talk about the most recent news that we've gotten for Iowa football, and that's the Imani Hooker official announcement that he is going to be departing.

So we'll be talking about that today. On segment one for today, we're going to be talking about the Iowa game last night. Iowa beat Nebraska in a must-win Big Ten situation. And we're going to be talking about that game, kind of what it means for the Iowa Hawkeyes, and kind of some takeaways from that game that I found very important, you know, when you're looking at the broad spectrum of the game and what it kind of means for the season going forward. On segment number two, we're going to be talking about Imani Hooker departing. We're going to be talking a little bit about TJ Hawkinson and Anthony Nelson.

They haven't exactly declared yet. And then we're also going to be talking about kind of an under-the-radar walk-on that Iowa just received word from that's going to be coming to the Hawkeyes from Iowa Western. And then finally, on segment three, we're going to be talking about the end-of-season awards. So I went through, kind of gave out my MVP awards, the newcomer awards, and breakout player of the year awards. So I wanted to talk about that on the show. Before we jump in though,

make sure you are subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at. And if you have a smart speaker or a smartphone, smart device, whatever it may be, all you need to do is to tell Siri, Google, or Alexa, play podcast Locked On Hawkeyes. That will give you the latest episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, easy access to listen to one of the best episodes

or one of the best new additions to the Locked On Sports Network. So with that being said, let's jump right into segment one, the Iowa Hawkeyes. If you didn't get a chance to watch last night's game, it was a very fun contest. Iowa won 93-84 against a ranked Nebraska Cornhusker team. That being said, Iowa is also ranked 25th. Both those teams suffered tough losses this week. Iowa to Purdue, Nebraska to, I want to say, Minnesota.

So they'll likely be dropping out of the rankings, but that doesn't mean that these teams aren't solid teams. Sorry, and for correction, Nebraska lost to Maryland. So both teams suffered kind of some disappointing losses earlier in the week. Both teams kind of needed a big win this week. Nebraska going on the road, obviously, was going to be a little bit more difficult. Iowa was able to prevail, though, with a win, and they faced a little bit of adversity, I would say. Tyler Cook ran into foul trouble early in the second half.

Had three fouls. He had to sit for a little bit. Luka Garza wasn't anticipating having to play. But Ryan Kreener got into foul trouble early. They were also, Iowa was struggling defensively down low, defending Nebraska. They were getting a lot of easy looks in the paint. So had to switch it up a little bit for Fran McCaffrey. But I think one of the things that really stuck out to me about this game is that it was a total team effort.

I was really impressed with Isaiah Moss specifically. He pulled down, I want to say his career high in rebounds with 10 rebounds. I want to say he had 12 or 13 points as well. And it wasn't just the statistics that really impressed me. It just seemed like he was involved on every single major play, most fast breaks. He was taking good, clean looks. He wasn't hitting all of them, but he played very smart, mature basketball. And I was very impressed with his game. Also Jordan Bohannon put in 25 points. Interesting. I have an interesting opinion on him, and I think a lot of Iowa basketball fans would share this sentiment, but I was really upset watching him play basketball for the first half.

It looked like when the ball was in his hands, the offense would just stall. He would run up to the top of the arc, and he would dribble around. Luka Garza at one point would set a screen and would be open for the pick and roll, and Bohannon would have his head down, kind of look into the right or to the left, and then finally decide, eh, this is time to stop dribbling and pass it off to another wing who would pass it right back to Bohannon and start that whole cycle again. And that was really frustrating. Obviously, it's easy to forget about that when he pours in 25 points.

He got real hot in the second half, hitting a lot of three-pointers. I believe he had five. He also had 10 in the second half, hitting a lot of three-pointers. I believe he had five. He also had 10 free-throw attempts, all 10 of those. And some of those three-pointers were a little bit ridiculous. Not exactly high-percentage three-point shots, but they went in. And I think, I mean, that's ultimately why you keep Bohannon in is because he can get hot like that. And it worked in the game against Nebraska.

I mean, Tyler Cook sat out for seven, eight minutes in the beginning of the second half, and Bohannon took over, had five points, three assists, and six, seven minutes of play. So he has the ability to really show what he can do, except for I feel like he's just not comfortable in this system. It's a new team this year, and last year it was easy for him to kind of be the go-to scorer

and just take a lot of shots, a high- a high volume shooter but this year he can't do that and I think he's struggling to find his rhythm in the offense but regardless it's kind of frustrating he's kind of been the a hindrance for the the offensive progression and on defense he's obviously one of the worst defenders that Iowa has so some interesting takes there think, with how that kind of looks going forward. Obviously, Luka Garza coming in, he was injured, wasn't expecting to play. McCaffrey had to turn to the bench to get some help down low. Garza had a fantastic performance considering he was playing on a bum ankle. I want to say he had, let me look up the box score right now. Luka Garza had eight points and looks like, where is this at, two rebounds. And that was not exactly the best stat line, but he was extremely active on both

sides of the ball. He had a couple of defensive possessions where he was in solid position. Nebraska was able to convert, but Garza made it a lot more difficult for them to get that basket. He also had some really good post moves, despite not being able to really play super well on the ankle. He had one kind of crappy foul in the second half where they tried driving on him. And he obviously doesn't have the lateral quickness. So it happens. But nice to see him back in the game. I was a little critical of Garza early in the season just because I feel like he can kind of be pushed around down low.

But his presence was really needed against Nebraska, so exciting to see that kind of happen and come into fruition. Another guy who really impressed me, Joe Weiskamp again, 10 points, 7 boards, 2 assists, just a real complete player. He had 29 minutes in the game and did a really fantastic job. I thought he hit 2 of 4 three-pointers. The other big takeaway I thought was really interesting is, you know, against Purdue, Iowa really struggled.

They let a lot of open looks down to the paint, and I think you could see when Garza returned that that was happening less and less with Nebraska. So, obviously, the importance of Garza is huge. Also, just the defensive effort, though, seemed to be – Iowa seemed to be a lot more engaged in this game. And you can tell by Nebraska's shooting I mean they're the third best team in the the conference in terms of points per

game and they're shooting pretty well from the field overall at three-pointer they were shooting about 36 37 entering this game last night they shot four of 23 for 17 all right so that's that's a testament to the kind of defense Iowa's playing. And sure, there were a few open looks that they missed, but for the most part, Iowa was in their face the entire time. Nebraska couldn't handle that zone defense Iowa was playing. And Iowa was doing a good job of moving along the arc and making sure they were adjusting appropriately

as the ball moved around and stuff and following the ball and have good closing defense on the perimeter, you know, offender. So I was excited to see that, you know, happen for Iowa. It'll be good to see if they can continue this going forward. And obviously Garza getting back and being healthy would be huge. I'd love to see how Isaiah Moss played again, having his presence there. And if he can start hitting some of those three point shots, I mean, he only shot 30% on the day. If he can start hitting some of those shots, he'll I mean he only shot 30 percent on the day if he can start hitting some of those shots he'll be a real crucial player going forward as Iowa tries to make a run on tomorrow's episode we'll actually be talking about you know I was right back out there playing Northwestern on Wednesday night in Evanston so we'll be talking

about the preview of Iowa versus Northwestern tomorrow morning so make sure you're checking that out if you're curious about that. And obviously on Thursday morning's podcast, we're going to be talking about the game itself and kind of what happened. And then, you know, we're going to talk about again, I believe they're playing Ohio State after that and giving a preview of that. So lots of basketball this week. Stay tuned for all of that information. Before we jump into segment number two, though, we're going to be talking about Amani Hooker and some of the departures and people coming onto the program, I want to make sure I gave you a really important message because I care about you as a listener. Because if you're like me, you hate to miss your favorite team play, regardless of who they are playing.

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All right, I am ready to get into segment number two, but just a quick reminder on segment number three, we're going to be talking about our end of season awards. So make sure you're staying tuned for segment number three. Now, getting to the kind of disappointing news, obviously I was hoping Amani Hooker stayed. If I had to pick out of Hawkinson, Hooker, and Nelson, who was going to actually stay, I would have picked Hooker simply for the fact that I feel like he wasn't getting the buzz

and the hype from a lot of draft analysts. And I follow a ton of draft analysts. Matt Miller, Bleacher Reports, kind of main draft guy. Obviously, you have Todd McShay and Mel Kuyper. They're a little bit more mainstream and not exactly in the weeds as much. Obviously, the four guys that work on the Locked On Sports Network, they are fantastic. You have John Ledger and Trevor Sikama, Kyle Krabs, and I can't remember Joe's last name. Check those podcasts out on the Locked On NFL Draft,

and you have the Draft Dudes podcast, both on Locked On Sports Network. They haven't even talked about Imani Hooker either, and they're very in the know. A couple of those guys are very high on Anthony Nelson and TJ Hawkinson, so they're watching a lot of Iowa tape and not seeing Hooker stand out as much, which I thought was interesting. But at this point, to each their own. I think Hooker will probably be drafted fourth, fifth round.

I think that's kind of the going rate for Iowa defensive backs. And I wouldn't be surprised to see him have a Micah Hyde type of career. He's a very fantastic, versatile defender. And as a Denver Bronco fan, I would love to see him play on the Denver Broncos. I think they've been looking for a guy like Hooker who can play that over-the-top safety, but also come down and run support, can play that nickel corner, can also cover tight ends. They've been looking for a guy like that. That's why they brought in Suha Craven.

So I go on for days about that. But the big thing for Iowa is who's going to replace this guy? Monte Hooker was arguably the best player on Iowa's defense this year in the sense that he really let the defense move in a lot of different directions and allowed Kirk Ferens to move to a 4-2-5 defense, which allowed them to play better against some of these spread offenses. And the fortunate thing is there's not a lot of veteran depth, but there's a lot of talented depth behind Imani Hooker. The guy that's currently backing up Hooker right now is John Malani. He's a former walk-on from Iowa City. He's played a couple times, recorded 11 tackles this season, but the

buzz coming out of Hawkeye Nation is that DJ Johnson is actually the guy who's rumored to be the frontrunner to take on this spot. He didn't get to play at all this season as a freshman, probably redshirt, but he struggled with injuries. Really impressive, though. Three-star product out of Indianapolis, Indiana. So it'll be fun to see how he does in spring practice. A couple other guys I want to be, you know, weary of as you're kind of looking to who could potentially place, you know, a Monty Hooker is Dallas Cradith. Cradith was the highest, and I might be obviously not saying that name correctly. Names are not my strong suit.

But he's the highest rated recruit from the class of 2018. He did not see a single game or a single minute of action in any single game this season. Coming out of college, he was the 379th best prospect in the nation and one of the top three-star recruits. What's interesting about this is it sounded like some leaks out of camp or that he was struggling to pick up kind of the college pace. So, but a guy to watch out for nonetheless, obviously a very good athlete and at the safety position where they are in need. And then Kayvon Merriweather, another three-star recruit from Belleville, Michigan, made a huge impression on the coaching

staff and actually burned his red shirt this year as a freshman. So I know DJ Johnson has kind of the buzz coming out of camp, but pay attention to Merriweather. As we saw this year with Hooker, Gervais, and Geno Stone, Iowa's not afraid to play three safeties. And at this point, we have Geno Stone, who's obviously locked into one of the safety positions. That's kind of what happens when you have a season like he did, as honorable mention, all Big Ten.

But there's a chance that there's going to be two other safeties playing and a lot of playing time, especially if they continue to move to that 4-2-5. You want to get that fifth defensive back in that lineup. That also could be a third corner, depending on how that position battle plays out. We'll be talking about some position battles later in this week. One of the hot ones will be corners. So some interesting stuff there. Another two guys to watch out for, just some of the incoming recru later in this week. One of the hot ones will be corners. So some interesting stuff there. Another two guys to watch out for.

Just some of the incoming recruits from this year. We have Dane Belton and Sebastian Castro. As we saw this year, Iowa is not afraid to play younger guys in the secondary. So if they stand out, if they have a good camp, who knows where they could be playing at or if they could be playing this year. Obviously, I think the goal would be to redshirt them when you have three other freshmen or three other freshmen kind of waiting in wings.

Merriweather will be a sophomore. Johnson and Kratiff will probably be redshirt freshmen. So you want to kind of spread out those classes. I think Belton and Castro might be looking at redshirt seasons. But if they play well enough, Iowa won't be afraid to play them. And I think we saw that this year with Riley Moss and Julius Brents. Some other news, some people I want to talk about too is obviously Anthony Nelson and TJ Hawkinson have not declared yet.

They have about a week left to make that an official announcement. I mean, I would be so surprised to hear the Hawkinson comes back. Word I've heard is that he loves Iowa City. He loves the Hawkeyes. That's been his dream, right? But mentally, he's like, I have to go to the NFL, right? You have this money waiting for you. You've got to get while the Hawkeyes. That's been his dream, right? But mentally, he's like, I have to go to the NFL, right? You have this money waiting for you. You got to get while the getting's good. And I think that's kind of the struggle he's playing with. You know, what if he comes back

and gets injured? What if he pulls a Jake Butt and tears his ACL and gets dropped to the fifth round? You just never know what could happen. So interesting stuff there. Anthony Nelson has had a couple of good seasons, been high on draft boards all year. And, you know, he's been playing with a bunch of seniors who he's become really close with, and they're all graduating. So what does that mean for him? Does he want to come back and be that senior leader? Does he want to continue to get some free education? I know education is very valuable to him.

Or does he want to go and make a run at it in the NFL? It will likely be a second or third round draft pick, keeping in mind that the edge class is extremely strong this year. So when you have a player of Nelson's caliber, but there's 10 other players who are better than him in this class, that's going to push him down a little bit, right? So just because he might be a second round worthy player doesn't mean he's going to go in the second round. So that's got to be weighing on him a little bit too. Maybe, maybe wait till next year and comes out and maybe is a low first or high

second round draft pick. Who knows? The other guy I want to talk about is Willie O'Hara. Kind of under the radar signing. He's going to walk on to Iowa. He's a West Des Moines kid, played at Iowa Western. I want to say he was a JUCO All-American this year and he set a school record in tackles for a season. So as we've seen with Iowa Western kids in the past couple of years, McKee Sargent, Nick Easley come to mind. I was willing to put those guys in right away. O'Hara is going to be coming to Iowa

with two years of eligibility left and a red shirt opportunity. So there's a chance they red shirt him. Comes back the following year. Linebacker is a position in flux. Obviously they signed Justin Jacobs, a four-star recruit out of Ohio. So a lot of talent coming in.

It'll be interesting to see where O'Hara falls in there, whether he's just a special teams player or what. He had a couple of FCS offers, but he wanted to play in Iowa. He wanted to take that run at it and say, I gave it my all. So fun to see a guy like that come to Iowa. You love those kind of kids who grew up wanting to be Hawkeyes and will literally take opportunities to be Iowa, even if it means paying for their own education.

So I love to see players like that. Obviously, tough financially to do that, but you know they care about the program, and they're going to put every ounce of effort into it. And even if they're not playing in the game, they're going to be making an impact by improving the guys that are playing in the game by giving it their all every single day. And that'll do it for segment number two.

On segment number three, we're going to be talking about end of the year awards. But we're going to take a quick break and give a few opportunities for our sponsors to give some messages to you all. Alright, we are back for segment number three where we're going to be talking about the different end-of-season awards. And this kind of a, you know, this doesn't really mean a lot, but I like to do it. It's fun to kind of go through and talk about who the MVPs are, who the newcomers are, who the breakout players are.

And we won't focus a ton of time on MVPs just because if you listen to the podcast earlier in the year, we talked a lot about MVPs already, and they haven't changed. It's on offense is TJ Hawkinson. I don't know how you could not name him offensive MVP. There's a couple other guys who did really well, I think, this season. But Hawkinson finished the season second in reception with 46. He was first in yards with 760. And he was Nate Stanley's go-to guy. He was a third-down weapon. He was the guy, when you needed a huge play, you'd go to Hawkinson. So that, to me, stands out a lot. On defense, it's obviously Imani Hooker.

Like we were talking about in segment number two, he was the guy who allowed Iowa to play a lot of different formations and moved to that 4-2-5 that allowed Iowa to match up better against some of the more spread-focused attacks in the Big Ten. And then finally, on special teams, Amir Smith-Marset. Again, I don't know how you don't pick this guy. He averaged 29.5 yards per kick return this season. Impressive.

He was the Rogers-DeWitt Specialist of the Year. I know he had a fumble in the Outback Bowl, but I'll still give it to him. He was dynamic, and I'm really excited to see what he can do next year as a returner. As far as the newcomers go, there's some context to be given around this, right? Because breakout players and newcomers can kind of be the same thing. I try to give newcomers to the guys who are either brand new to the program or haven't played at all in the program. Breakout players are going to be those kind of guys

who may have played a couple times but just haven't really stood out and then really had a dominant performance this season. I think when you see who we pick for both, you'll understand where I'm coming at with that. And the three newcomers I want to call out was McKee Sargent, Julius Brents, and Junio Stone. So McKee Sargent especially, I mean, heck, no one even really knew who this guy was. He was under the radar signing late, you know, in the summer even, coming on to the Iowa Hawkeye football team from Iowa Western. Again, he ended up leading the team in terms of from running backs and carries yards, yards per carry, touchdowns, receptions,

receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. That is freaking impressive for a Juco transfer to come in and do that, especially when the battle was really between Ivory, Kelly, Martin, and Torin Young. Sargent just kept buying his time and kept having consistent games here and there before he finally got his opportunity. Julius Brentz, obviously it's tough to not pick this guy. We kind of had a feeling he was going to be kind of the next great Iowa corner, four-star corner from Warren Central High.

Same place as David Bell, who was a recruit for Iowa, but committed to Purdue very recently. I think with him, we didn't expect him to play right away, though. Hankins and Ojemudia were kind of slotted to be the starters. They obviously had some injuries earlier in the season. Brents had an opportunity to make a few starts. He made five in all. He only had 13 tackles and one interception,

but according to advanced analytics, Brents actually allowed the second least yards per coverage snap out of all power five corners as a freshman so i think this will be really interesting and as i talked about earlier we're going to be talking about position battles corner is going to be a huge one because there's so much talent there i mean we've seen two guys already transfer out because they're not even in the running for playing time because there's so much talent between the top four spots so another newcomer and then finally gino Geno Stone. Obviously, we did not

anticipate him coming out. We have Jervas as a senior. We have Hooker as a two-year starter, you know, a safety. You don't expect another safety to come in and make an impact. But with Hooker moving down to that dying backer role, Geno Stone was really able to make quite an impact. And he had 39 tackles this season, four interceptions, and even returned one for a touchdown. Obviously, that led to him being honorable mention all Big Ten. So impressive performance nonetheless. He'll be a huge contributor next year as a full-time starter. And then finally breakout players. This was a little bit more difficult. I think the first one I want to give it to is Ross Reynolds, the guard. First year starter. You know he waited for four years. Redshirted. Played in a few games here and

there his next three years. He finally got the opportunity to become a full-time starter, and he did pretty well. I mean, he struggled against Mississippi State. Let's be honest, everyone's going to. That defensive line is incredible. But the 6'4", 295-pound senior was arguably one of the most consistent interior offensive linemen on the Iowa Hawkeyes, and he received third-team All-Big Ten honors this season. So impressive performance nonetheless. AJ Epinesa, I could go on and on about this guy.

Last year as a true freshman, he had 4.5 sacks and 15 tackles. This year he had 37 tackles and 10.5 sacks. This guy hasn't even started a game yet. All right? This guy has not had one single start, and he's already racked up 11 sorry 15 sacks that's that's incredible if you listen to stick to football the stick to football podcast from the bleacher report guys they also talked a lot about ajf and s as a guy who could you know be a top 15 pick next year

he's gonna have a huge year as a starter and i'm really excited to watch it and then finally this one was probably the most difficult one to pick but i I have to go with Nick Neiman. He didn't have the most stats or the, he didn't have the largest stat line, but he also sat out a few games, but I was just really impressed by his play. I mean, the guy was, or was around the ball all the time. And he also, you know, he sat behind his brother, Ben, Josie Jewell, and Bo Bowers for two seasons before finally getting the opportunity. And I think when he wasn't injured, he played very well. He could be the next great Iowa linebacker. His instincts were incredible.

I loved how he moved to the ball, filled the gaps, that kind of thing. It was really impressive to watch. So those would be my three breakout players of the year. If you have any ideas or suggestions as far as who you think should be here, please let us know. I would love to hear from you on the Locked On Hawkeyes Twitter account, which is LockedOnIowa. You can also tweet at me at Wade underscore Andrew.

Would love to hear from you on your thoughts as to who the newcomers are, in your opinion, who the breakout players are, et cetera. Also, just a reminder, the Iowa women's basketball team plays tonight against Wisconsin at 6 p.m. Make sure you watch that game. The women's basketball team plays tonight against Wisconsin at 6 p.m. Make sure you watch that game. The women's basketball team is having another fantastic season, and they're led by probably the best player of all time in Iowa history, Megan Gustafson.

So make sure you are watching those games. They are a fun team to watch. If you're frustrated by ever watching the men's basketball team, watch the women's basketball team. It's a lot of fun watching those games. So make sure to check that out. It will be airing on the Big Ten Network. And that will actually do it for our Monday morning episode. I hope you all had a fantastic weekend.

Thank you so much for joining us on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. As a reminder, I am your host, Andrew Wade. You can find me on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew. And you can follow all the exciting happenings of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. Make sure you are also subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at. And leave us a review. Let us know what you think. And you can also reach out to me with questions, comments, or suggestions at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com. That's LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com.

Thank you again for joining us on the LockedOnHawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day Hawkeye Nation, and we'll be back tomorrow.