Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Hawks slated for Holiday Bowl? | #12 women's team loses first game | Football postseason awards

Episode Date: November 27, 2018

Are the Hawks slated for the Holiday Bowl? Is there still an opportunity for the Citrus or Outback bowls? And finally, will Iowa be ranked in today's CFB poll? On segment two we cover other Hawkeye athletics including men's wrestling, women's volleyball, and the women's basketball team. The last segment we cover what Hawkeye football players could be up for postseason awards.Twitter: @lockedoniowaGmail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another exciting episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. I am your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at Dear Old Gold, where you can find all things black and yellow analysis on literally anything you can think of, of the Iowa Hawkeyes. And like I said, we have a great episode for you today for your Tuesday morning commute. If you didn't get a chance to, please listen to yesterday's episode. We recapped the Iowa-Nebraska game. We also talked about the Big Ten West and how that, you know, the games,

you know, have some implications for the Iowa football team. Then we also previewed the upcoming basketball game that takes place tonight between the number 14 men's basketball team and the Pittsburgh Panthers. Also, something we mentioned yesterday, we have some great content coming up this week and also coming up in the future, have some guest appearances that we are working on as of right now, including a former Iowa Hawkeye wide receiver that we will reveal on Thursday's episode. Something that we are really excited about, going to be a great guest. You're going to love having him on. So something you want to be in the know for. On today's episode, we have three segments. The first segment, we're going to be touching on the bowl possibilities for the Iowa Hawkeyes and whether or not Iowa will be ranked at the end of

tonight's CFP rankings. On segment two, we're going to be talking about other Hawkeye athletics. So what's happening in women's volleyball, what's happening with the wrestling team, and so on and so forth. And then finally, in segment three, we're going to be discussing potential postseason awards for the Iowa Hawkeyes football team. And just give a quick shout out to our seniors. There's 14 that are going to be playing their last game at Kinnick this past Friday. So I want to say just a quick, thank you. Before we jump in though, want to make sure that you are subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at. And please leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you all.

I want to get, you know, ideas, suggestions, content, et cetera. And feel free to interact with us on Twitter at locked on Iowa. You can find our podcast, like I said, at locked on Iowa, and you can find me Andrew Wade at Wade underscoreOnIowa. You can find our podcast, like I said, at LockedOnIowa. And you can find me, Andrew Wade, at Wade underscore Andrew on Twitter. You can also reach out to us via email at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com. Like I said, love hearing from you, love to get your feedback, content suggestions, et cetera. Always nice to hear from fans of the Iowa Hawkeyes.

So we're going to jump into segment one, where we're going to be talking about the bowl possibilities for the Iowa Hawkeyes and whether or not we think Iowa will be ranked. And it's kind of a contentious question. You know, Iowa struggled over the last, you know, latter half of the season, right? So since starting out six and one, they have gone two and three down the stretch.

However, they've managed to win their last two games. Granted, neither team was really that great. Illinois, I believe, has four wins to close out the season. Same with Nebraska. Nebraska is a better team than record shows. But regardless, the Iowa Hawkeyes were able to pick it up at season's end considering they lost three straight to Penn State, Purdue, and Northwestern. At the end of the Purdue game, Iowa was still ranked in the college football playoffs,

which was fantastic. It meant that the CFP team was really valuing what Iowa brought to the table and also valuing their losses. Not that there's a good loss per se. No loss is good, but it was really a quality loss to quality opponents. Now, though, with Wisconsin finishing the season 7-5 with a blowout loss to Minnesota, it'll be interesting to see how the CFP committee values the Iowa Hawkeyes going forward, but I do believe

when the rankings come out later tonight that Iowa will be ranked in the top 25, and for a couple reasons. There were two teams in the top 25. And for a couple of reasons, there were two teams in the top 25 that lost this past week. And then also in addition to that, some of the, you know, there's four teams in the top 25 that have four losses as well. So it's really a matter of ranking those teams against Iowa, figuring out where they kind of sit in that mess. And two of Iowa's losses came to ranked teams, right? So Northwestern and Penn state are both ranked Penn state's at number 12 Northwestern's at number 19.

So in the eyes of the committee and the eyes of kind of what I think about that, those are good losses or quality losses for the Iowa football team. And the other, you know, the two teams that lost in the top 25 towards the bottom number 21, Utah state and number 24 Pittsburgh. Really that means that there's going to be two spots that need to be filled when the committee releases their rankings Tuesday night. And while there's no exact science to what they're doing, they're looking at the record,

how good the team actually is, so evaluating the talent, not just the record, evaluating head-to-head, so how well they played against other top-ranked teams, how they played against bottom-ranked teams, and so on and so forth. So based on the fact that after starting the season 6-3, Iowa was still ranked, I have a good feeling that their only loss since then was to Northwestern, which just won the Big Ten West. And I believe that the committee is going to really value that as a solid quality loss. The only teams that, when looking at the AP polls, which, you know, doesn't have an impact on the committee, but when looking at the AP polls,

it does give us a little bit of an idea about what teams potentially could be on the radar for the committee. And the other teams that Iowa is really competing with is Utah State. They are 10-2 in the Mountain West. Missouri, 8-4 in the SEC with a win over number 11, Florida. So honestly, I think that's probably Iowa's biggest competition. You also have North Carolina State. They are 8-3 but with no major wins. You have Cincinnati, which is 10-2 in mid-major AAC. And then finally Stanford, which is 7-4 with no major wins.

So it'll be interesting to see if Iowa can jump those teams. In the AP poll, the newcomers were Fresno State, which they are 10-2 in the Mountain West with no key wins, and they lost to Minnesota, which Iowa smoked. Then Army is 9-2 with just three wins over teams with winning records. So it'll be interesting to see what the committee decides. But honestly, when looking at that list of teams that are, you know, potentially in or out of the top 25, I really feel like the only team that has a better record or a better resume over Iowa is Missouri. And Missouri can fill that 24 spot.

Iowa can sneak into the 25th spot. And, you know, it's not necessarily the season that we wanted, but it's not a bad consolation prize for an Iowa football team to finish in the top 25, considering the disastrous October that they had. Additionally, you know, with the committee rankings, it also kind of ties into what bowl the Iowa may get into, right? So depending on how well the committee values Iowa's record, it does play somewhat of a, you know,

has some sort of an impact on what bowl the Iowa football team plays in. And right now really all signs are pointing towards the holiday bowl. So when I would play Nebraska this past weekend, there were representatives from the citrus, the Outback bowl and the holiday bowl. But when you look at the records of the other teams in the big 10, how things kind of shake out, it doesn't, I don't feel like the citrus or the Outback Bowl are going to be really the bowls Iowa is going to be attending.

It would be great if they did. That would definitely be a step up from the Holiday Bowl. The Holiday Bowl is not a slouch bowl by any means, but the Citrus Bowl is kind of the cream of the crop for the Big Ten after the Rose Bowl. Unfortunately, I feel like that's going to go to Penn State. You know, sitting with a 9-3 record head-to-head win over Iowa, they're likely to go to the Citrus Bowl. And then Northwestern is probably

going to fill that fourth bowl slot with the Outback Bowl. And then Iowa is going to sneak into the Holiday Bowl considering they are the fifth best team in the Big Ten in terms of record. There's a couple of factors though that do go into, you know, how the bowls kind of shake out. First and foremost is, you know, where are the teams ranked within the college bowl playoffs? And then where are the teams ranked within the Big Ten? So like I said, Iowa is the fifth ranked team. Every bowl, there's a lot of bowls with tie-ins to the Big Ten. So that's kind of the second point is that there are bowls with specific tie-ins to the Big Ten. That includes the Rose Bowl, the Citrus Bowl, the Outback Bowl, the Holiday Bowl,

Tax Slayer Bowl, Pinstripe Bowl, Red Box Bowl, and the Quicklane Bowl. So teams are kind of slotted in order of, you know, rankings, how well the committee values that team, and then kind of staggers down, right? So if, for example, Michigan or Ohio State makes the CFP, at this point, it'd be only Ohio State that could make the CFP playoffs, but likely not. If one of those teams, though, makes a New Year's Bowl that's not the Rose Bowl, that allows teams to kind of jump up a spot. So if we have Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl, for example, and Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, that means Penn State will jump up to the Citrus Bowl. Northwestern goes to the Outback Bowl, and Iowa falls into the Holiday Bowl. So again, not the ideal situation. I think at the

beginning of the season, we were kind of looking at, you know, could we be a CFP sleeper team? Could we be going to the Rose Bowl? Obviously those hosts have died, but not the worst situation is still be going to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. And finally, the last thing, you know, one thing to keep in mind though, is in general with the Bulls, there are are there is an agreement in place to not allow teams to attend Bulls back to back. And that's for a couple of reasons. You want to have the universities have a different experience. You want to have the players get unique experiences at different bowl games. Every bowl game has something unique to offer in terms of prizes, in terms of the hoopla surrounding it. So it's fun for the players. It's also fun for the fans to be able to travel to different places. So that kind of, you know, from Iowa perspective,

that really eliminates the Outback Bowl, the Tax Slayer Bowl and the Pinstripe Bowl. So that's why I really don't feel like the Outback Bowl, despite Iowa, maybe jumping up in terms, you know, over Northwestern, depending on how the bowl committees value them. I just don't feel like they're going to go to the Outback Bowl just because Iowa has already been there and been there pretty recently. They made the Outback Bowl in 2016 season. So again, I feel like the Holiday Bowl is kind of on the docket for Iowa, which again, not a bad idea, not a bad thing by any means,

but could have been better based on what the expectations were coming into this season. That kind of covers it for our bowl possibilities for the Hawks. We'll keep you posted as the game takes place on Saturday between Northwestern and Ohio State. We're going to get a much better feel for where the teams are going to shake out. There could be some shakeup.

If Northwestern pulls off an upset, that'll shake out a little bit differently because they're going to be going to the Rose Bowl, and it'll be interesting to see where Ohio State and Michigan fall on that ladder. But we'll keep you posted on exactly what that looks like from an Iowa Hawkeye perspective as soon as we get that information. And then also once the bowl games or once the, you know, the division championship games or the conference championship games take

place, there'll be a lot more clarity as to what bowls teams will go to. The bowls will start, you know, selecting teams or inviting teams and, you teams and that sort of thing. So we'll keep you posted right here on Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. On segment two, we're going to be touching on what is happening in Hawkeye athletics over the past week and where are we at with volleyball, wrestling, et cetera. But before we do that, I have a message for you, the listener, because if you're like me, you hate to miss your favorite team play regardless of who they are playing. That's where Sling TV comes in. Now I

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and now you have an opportunity to take advantage of an even greater deal and not even on a holiday. So again, Sling.com slash locked on. Never miss a game again with Sling TV. All right, we are back. And before we jump into segment two, we're going to be touching on some of the other Hawkeye athletics, kind of what they've done over the past week.

Wanted to touch on what we're covering in segment three. It's sure to be a doozy. We're going to be previewing what postseason awards the Iowa Hawkeye team is kind of up for. There's a couple people that may be in the running for All-American Awards, All-Conference Awards, and there's also some prestigious position-specific awards that a particular Iowa Hawkeye football player potentially could be getting. So I want to touch on that. It'll be a great segment. Do not miss it. But like I said, for segment two,

we're going to be touching on what's happened over the last week in Iowa Hawkeye athletics. And the first thing we want to get to is the women's volleyball team. They finished their season on a high note. They beat Ohio State. Always good to beat the Buckeyes, even if it's volleyball. I know obviously a lot of people hate the Iowa State football team. They hate kind of what Urban Meyer stands for, but I think it's okay to bring that hate to the other sports as well and consider it an awesome win. The women's volleyball team beat Ohio State 3-2. They did finish their season, overall record of 15-16. And really, it all kind of went downhill after they upset number six,

Wisconsin, earlier in the season. They went 2-10 at that point. So it could have been better, but sometimes when you get on a bad streak or a losing streak, it's hard to get out of that rut. It seems like that's kind of where the women's volleyball team fell at. We're looking forward to next season. Girls, great season. Better luck next year, and we'll be rooting for you. Meanwhile, the Iowa wrestling team continued their dominance.

They beat number 18 Purdue 26-9. And really it wasn't even that close. Um, the three wins were three wins that Iowa chose to not wrestle their best wrestlers. So at two 85, uh, Aaron Costello lost a number one ranked Sam still didn't wrestle. So again, I think it's one of those situations where I will wanted to get a few of the younger guys or some of the reserve wrestlers in the lineup, get them some time. They knew they could afford to lose a few points here and there. At 125, Perez Perez also lost. But this is kind of an interesting match where Purdue put out their second best wrestler at 125 and so did Iowa. So that could have been a matchup between number one, Spencer Lee and number 15, Devin Schroeder of Purdue, but both teams decided to hold out their star wrestlers. And then finally, Miles Wilson at 174, he lost to number 13, Dylan Lidd out of Purdue,

the number six wrestler in the nation, Michael Kamir. And I probably butchered that name. He did not wrestle though during the game or during the wrestling match. Again, another case of Iowa probably saving some of their good wrestlers when they don't need to utilize them, giving them some rest, especially because they are taking on Iowa State in just a few days on Saturday, December 1st. So want to save some of those guys for a key matchup. Iowa State isn't at their strength that they normally are. Typically, you think of most Iowa wrestling programs, Iowa, Iowa State, Northern Iowa as having top 10 programs. Iowa State is in the top 25, but I believe they're around the 20 or 21st spot. So not as good of a team as they've had in years past, but always a competition that

you want the Hawkeyes to win. Always great to be an A&A rival. Then the other sport they wanted to cover is the number 12 women's basketball team. And unfortunately, they did suffer their first loss. Jam tourney title game. Man, that is a tongue twister. Say that three times fast. Can't do it, I bet. And it's kind of an interesting situation where the women's basketball team lost before the men's basketball team. I believe if you, you know, if you thought, if you made a bet that the women's basketball team would lose before the men's basketball team, then I want to take you to Vegas because there is a good chance you could win a lot of money for me because I'm not very good at betting. But, again, number 12 team lost to Florida State, not a ranked team.

It was a close game in the final score of 71 to 67. It was a tough game, though, for the women's Hawkeyes team, basketball team. Florida State had a strong second quarter. They got a lead at 24 to 13 in the second quarter, and they kind of kept that lead from there on out. Iowa also just shot 26.7% from three-point, and they only attempted four free throws in the entire game. Coming into this game, they were averaging roughly 20.5 free throws per game.

So interesting that they weren't able to get to the free throw line as much as they wanted to. That could have been the difference. I didn't get a chance to actually watch the game, just followed it online and whatnot. But unfortunate loss. I don't think it's indicative of what we can expect from the women's basketball team. They have a very strong program led by Megan Gustafson,

who had another incredible performance in the tournament in both games. I believe in game one against number 25, West Virginia, the Hawkeyes came back by about 25 points down, led by Megan Gustafson. She put in double-digit points and really carried the team there. And then in the Florida State game, she went eight for eight for 16 points and eight boards. So another incredible stat line from the All-American forward at Iowa. Kind of some exciting news, though.

The Iowa Hawkeyes women's team is facing number one Notre Dame Thursday night at 5 p.m. on ESPN2. That is a game you do not want to miss. This could be a huge game for the program. It'd be a huge game to put them on the map and give them the confidence they need to continue throughout the Big Ten conference season. And also carry that into tournament time where, you know, knowing that you beat the number one Notre Dame women's basketball team. That'll do it for segment two. We're going to touch a little bit more on the Iowa versus Notre Dame game later this week, but I don't want to cover it too much right here,

especially considering it's two days away. Coming up in segment three, we're going to be previewing the, you know, the possible postseason awards for the Iowa Hawkeyes football team. All right, we are back, and we are getting ready to cover segment three, where we're going to be touching on the Iowa Hawkeyes and what potential postseason awards some of these players will garner from their incredible performances this season. And before we jump into that, I wanted to give a shout out to junior defensive end Anthony Nelson, who received his second Big Ten defensive player of the week honor today.

I believe when you're listening to this, he will have received it yesterday. I'm recording Monday night. So congratulations, Anthony. He had a great performance this past weekend against Nebraska, having two sacks and eight tackles and one pass defense. So fantastic job, not unexpected. Anthony Nelson is one of the top players on Iowa's defense, and he's rising up draft boards as we speak. And we'll probably touch on him in a few seconds

when we jump into some of the potential all-conference players. But the first person I want to talk about is TJ Hawkinson. And this guy has been fantastic to watch this season. If you've watched an Iowa football game, you've likely seen TJ Hawkinson taking a huge hit while running up the seam and getting a 20-yard pass from Nate Stanley. He's also added some vertical to his game, hurtling a few players, which is not something you typically see from a small town Iowa tight end, but it's pretty exciting to watch that.

And he has a couple opportunities to collect some hardware this season in just his redshirt sophomore year. He is one of three finalists for the prestigious John Mackey Award, which is awarded to the nation's top tight end at the end of the season. Last year's winner, Mark Andrews, actually now plays for Baltimore Ravens. And so it's a really prestigious award. Oftentimes, it means that that tight end could be or will be a solid NFL prospect. And I do believe that that is the case for TJ Hawkinson. And surprisingly enough, actually not really surprisingly, it will not be the first time

an Iowa Hawkeye tight end wins this reward as Dallas Clark did it back in the early 2000s. And the competition that Hawkinson has really isn't much of a competition. So on the year, TJ has 46 catches for 717 yards and six touchdowns. And meanwhile, his two other finalists, Albert Owing-Boonham from Missouri and Caden Smith from Stanford. Albert has 43 catches for 466 yards and six touchdowns. And meanwhile, Smith in just 11 games has 47 catches for 635 yards and two touchdowns. So either way you flip it, he's statistically superior compared to both of those players.

And Hawkinson is a better blocker. Just search him on YouTube, TJ Hawkinson block, and you'll watch him pancake a few players. And so another thing that TJ Hawkinson is up for is, you know, potentially an All-American. In the middle of the season, he was receiving recognition for being a top head end, was on a few midseason All-American teams, and that hasn't really changed over the course of the season.

He's continued to put up great statistics he's a fantastic blocker and in terms of you know some statistics only UCLA's Caleb Wilson and Jay Sternenberger from Texas A&M have actual better statistics but with that being said Hawkinson is a more complete tight end he's able to block he's able to provide that security blanket for Nate Stanley. And he's also not in such a high-powered offense like UCLA or Texas A&M, which I do believe plays a huge factor in some of those guys' production. So I do believe he will be an All-American. I don't think there's going to be anyone else from the Iowa Hawkeyes

that are named one of the top three All-American teams, but it's always nice to get a player on there. And jumping kind of a step down into the All-Conference teams, there's a few players that are going to be likely getting some recognition for All-Conference. Obviously, TJ Hawkinson will definitely be making the All-Conference team. His counterpart at tight end, Noah Fant, also will likely be on the All-Conference team. Last year, he was third team All-Conference. This year, he's likely to be second-team all-conference after he's caught 39 balls for 518 yards and seven touchdowns. His 39 catches are second only to Hawkinson,

and he leads the entire conference for tight ends and touchdowns. So interesting to think of what Noah Phan would have in terms of awards if he was actually utilized correctly, but that's another story that we can beat the bush around a little later. On the defensive side of the ball, A.J. Epineza and Anthony Nelson are likely to be on the all-conference teams, and that really shouldn't come as a surprise. They are tied for first in the Big Ten with the Saks at 10.

They've both been named Big Ten Defensive you know, they both been named big 10 defensive player of the week twice, which is outstanding. That means out of 12 weeks, they've taken up a third of it just between the two of them. And then Imani hooker, who has really been, I would say the glue of the Iowa Hawkeye defense this year, he has been a Jack of all trades similar to what,

you know, Michigan did with Jabril peppers minus, you know, kind of the hoop, you know, Michigan did with Jabril Peppers, minus kind of the hype and hoopla, but Hooker has been outstanding. Throughout the season, he has had 59 tackles, one sack, seven passes defense, and three interceptions. That seven passes defense is 14th best in the conference, and those three interceptions are sixth best in the conference.

The interesting thing to see, or what I'm kind of curious to look at is how he'll be evaluated against some of the the strong defensive back talent in the big 10 there's other players who put up more numbers who have some more defining moments but i truly believe that if the coaches are voting on how good the player's been for the team and you know what he actually brings the program money hooker is no doubt an all-conference player in his junior year. And then finally, kind of a dark horse candidate for all-conference is Amir Smith-Marset, and that's because he is an incredible return man. I love watching him get the ball.

If he can't carve out a role in the Iowa offense in terms of his wide receiver play, and it remains to be seen, he doesn't get a ton of production. They don't get the ball in his hands as much as i would like to see but who cares because on special teams this guy is electric uh he currently leads the conference in yards per return with 29.3 which is about five yards per per uh kick return more than the next closest person and then additionally in terms of overall kick return yards he he has 557, which is third best, but he has 11 and 14 less returns than the first place and second place guys. So he's doing a lot more with a lot less than a lot of people in the league. It's just a matter of whether or

not they value the touchdowns because he hasn't had that kickoff return for a touchdown yet, but he's had multiple returns of 30, 40, 50 yards. And it's unfortunate the Iowa offense hasn't been able to take advantage of that. But I do think there is a solid chance that the sophomore Amir Smith-Marset can take home an all-conference honor as a special teams player. If not first team, which I think he should be second or third team. And as we talked about earlier, on Friday was Senior Day,

and we'll be coming out with an article on Dear Old Gold, kind of highlighting some of the seniors' accomplishments. It wasn't a relatively small class, 14 players, but their contributions were fantastic nonetheless. And I want to make sure that we highlight what those guys have brought to the program. So be checking out dearoldgold.com. You'll be getting an article here in the next couple of days, and we'll be covering a little bit more in depth about each of those players on a later episode.

We have the whole month of December where we have no football games until the bowl game. So we have plenty of time to talk about the Iowa Hawkeyes football team. And we'll save that for a later day. And with that, that'll actually do it for Tuesday episode. Like I said, we were kind of not really doing too many episodes last week with the holidays with my personal schedule, et cetera, but we are bringing you at least four episodes this week and we have some fantastic content to continue to deliver to you this week. And maybe if you're lucky, maybe if you leave me a few reviews on iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher or

wherever you get your podcasts, maybe I'll throw in an extra episode on Friday to cover some additional Hawkeye news that you can use and listen to on your Friday morning commute. For the next couple episodes, we're going to be touching on the Wisconsin versus Iowa game. We're going to be coordinating with, we have an Iowa Hawkeye wide receiver, former wide receiver is going to be joining the podcast. And so like I said, a lot of awesome stuff that you do not want to miss for the podcast as I said earlier in the podcast I'm your host Andrew Wade and 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 Locked On Iowa make sure you subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher,

Spotify or wherever you do your podcasts and please leave us a review I've made multiple mentions of this but we want to hear from the listener. We'd love to hear what you have to say, want your feedback, want your content suggestions, your ideas, and just love to interact with you. If you have questions, feel free to send those in. I would love to bring those up on the podcast and answer your questions for the rest of the Locked On Hawkeyes community. You can also reach me on my Gmail account at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com

if you don't feel like doing it in a more public setting like Twitter. That being said, thank you for joining us on the LockedOnHawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and we'll be back tomorrow with a great episode.