Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - How does Iowa move forward | Will Tyler Goodson be more involved in the offense | Secondary facing another big test

Episode Date: October 9, 2019

After washing away the game from last week, we focus on what the Hawks need to do this week to get back on track against Penn State. Will Alaric Jackson look better in week two and will Brian Ferentz get freshman Tyler Goodson involved in the passing attack again? How will the secondary hold up against another stiff test? All covered on today's show. 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 Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network.

As always, I'm one of your hosts, Andrew Wade, and I'm joined here by Zach Cohen. We got all of our feelings out about the Iowa game yesterday, and today we're going to talk about how does Iowa move forward. Zach, I'm excited to talk something positive today about Iowa football. It's been a rough couple days, but I'm looking ahead to Penn State and thinking, you know, let's get this crap back on track. What do you think, man? Yeah, I mean, I think I took my 48 hours with it. I think you took your 48 hours. I think that we kind of digested everything. We kind of, I mean, dude, it's's like even me I'm being a Bears fan after that I went into Sunday I'm like

you know what Iowa lost we got the Bears we're playing London against the Raiders the Raiders suck and then after getting my heart ripped out in Iowa I had the Bears too so I mean I was I was hurting extra hard at least your Broncos pulled out a win. But, I mean, that was a tough sports weekend for me. But I'm excited to get back into what I mean. A night game at Kinnick, you know, I don't care what our record is at this point. That stuff is so special. I'm actually going to be going to the game.

So I'm really, really excited to be doing that, going back to Iowa. So I'm really looking forward to that. And I just think that, you know, this is one of those games that can kind of, you know, I tweeted about this too games that can kind of, you know, I tweeted about this too, but let's reel the fans back in. Let's get everyone united and let's get some positive vibes going, you know? Absolutely, man. And I just want to call out one statistic. Iowa has not had an undefeated season since 1922.

Every season since 1922, we've had at least one loss. Yeah. So what is everyone expecting? I think I mean, it's one of the best teams in the the country it's not rutgers and everyone's acting like we're alabama or clemson like we're just out of everything now yeah i mean i think i think the problem is like the season got so hyped up because we know so well but and i was definitely to blame too i was so pissed off watching that game but that being said you had to take a step back and think, we were playing a ranked Michigan team who has a chip on his shoulder after getting its butt kicked against Wisconsin.

We were in the big house. It's 100,000 fans, dude. Come on. And we lost 10-3 despite our offense having the worst performance of this century. Yeah, I saw someone tweet that. They said, look how bad our offense played and we lost by a touchdown. Yeah. so, you know, this is the kind of theme of this Wednesday show, man, we're going to be positive today. We're going to talk about what the hell can I would do to get

back on track and what can they do going forward to make sure they don't lose to Penn state. They kick butt against Penn state and get their name kind of back on the national radar as a team that could contend for the college ball playoffs. Before we do that though, you got to cover the housekeeping items. Make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We have some awesome hype videos coming out. So make sure to check those, like those. Lots of great responses from that. I know one coming out this week. Oh yeah, what is that posting? We are going to be posting it. I'm trying to post every Thursday. Our video guy, Iowa Addict, if you want to follow him, he's great.

We've kind of been working, talking back and forth today. He's cooking up something pretty cool, a little revenge-type themed video and something to kind of get our Iowa fans a little more hop back on the train and get a little more juiced up. So expect that on Thursday. I love it, man. Do you have any inside information as to what the hype song is going to be this week? Oh, everyone's going to have to, uh, sit back and wait. I was personally hoping I would find out too, but okay. So we're going to have to wait till

Thursday for the hype video, but make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram find that stuff. And if you haven't listened to us before, or even if you have, and you haven't done this already, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. Give us that five-star review. Let us know what you love about the show. Or let us know what you want to see from the show going forward. All right, man.

Positivity today. Going into the Penn State game, I'll kick us off because there's one thing I want to cover. The depth chart came out, and Tyler Goodson was finally listed on the depth chart. And for anyone who's listening to this show they know we love tyler goodson and really if you're an iowa football fan and you don't love watching tyler goodson play um then to be honest you're kind of an idiot because uh the dude is dude is phenomenal um but i'm i'm really excited the fact that he's on the def chart really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things because he's been playing like

a number three back already but i am excited to see if Brian Ferencz can get him a little bit more involved in the offense maybe in the passing attack maybe in you know two running back sets put Makai Sargent or Torin Young back there with Tyler Goodson and give defenses a different look and maybe split out Goodson out wide like we did against Michigan and try to get in the ball more in the passing game the guy is just such a great athlete and for for a freshman, I mean, the sky's the limit for this kid. And I'm really excited about it going into Penn State. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I think that he is, as you noticed last game, anyone who watched, he is the spark plug. He is that guy that can kind of give everyone the juice to kind of, he is a big play waiting to happen. And I think that Iowa still has potential to make big plays as anyone's seen

hit Ted Goodson's catch Brandon Smith's catch you know if you could say hey Iowa has a third and 22 are we gonna be able to convert it first down I think everyone bet all their money no so that's some kind of bright spot the answer is always no so what I'm saying is that yes Sally didn't look great but in the in the grand scheme of things Ference is still trying to get the ball downfield. You know what I'm saying? He's still trying to force the issue and have more explosive plays of more than 30-plus yards through the air. You know what I'm saying?

So I think that type of thing. And combination, I think, is kind of as a result, I think Tyler Goodson is a part of that too. You know, I think that, like I said, he is literally a spark plug, and I think he's so exciting because anytime he gets the ball in his hands he's shiftier and faster than most of those guys on that field and he's a hard hitter for a size he's not a big dude he's still a freshman a lot of more weight to be gained and muscle will be gained and he's still running guys over so a lot to look forward to with him yeah

man i'm just excited to see the running game get back on track in general i thought there'd be more of a boost from having a lyric jackson back the lineup. We saw him, you know, struggle against Michigan. I wasn't really, his feet wasn't really there yet. And that's why I wanted him. Yeah. And that's what I wanted to see him play at middle Tennessee state. So we could get some of those, those kinks and rust out of the way, but I'm hoping that with another week of, you know, recovery and whatnot, he's going to be looking more like a first round pick and then a undrafted free agent.

I will say, hot take, I wanted to cover this on our last show, but that performance and Larrick Jackson's injury, I think might just mean that he might stay with the Iowa Hawkeyes for another year. Think about it. I mean, the guy coming into the season was a potential first-rounder if he had an outstanding season, but he's been injured, has some really bad tape against Michigan, which is a team,

which is a game that a lot of scouts are probably going to watch. So there's a chance we get to keep a Larrick Jackson for another year, which, you know, if we don't good for him, I hope he does well, but obviously for the sake of our next year quarterback, whether it's Spencer Petras or Peyton Manziel, or even, you know, Deuce Hogan, or I guess Alex Padilla as well. I'm hoping, you know, he comes back, man. Yeah, no, I agree.

I think that, you know, he's a good player, and I think that he'll get his groove back. And I think he just – to be honest, I don't know if he was completely ready. I think that he wanted to be ready. He's from Michigan. He's from the Detroit area, I believe. So I think that a lot of that was riding on that, and he's really excited to be back.

But, I mean, I think Ferran said that, you know, I, there was, there could be, there is a possibility that, you know, he really wasn't ready. And it kind of, it could have been up to the coaches to be like, Hey, I know you want to play your, you know, 19 or 20 year old kid. Obviously you want to play, but you know, maybe it's better for the team if you don't, you know what I'm saying? So sometimes you have to have those tough conversations. We're going to cover some more of the things that we want to see going into the penn state

game after a few messages from our sponsors before we do that though make a memory that lasts a lifetime and let the vivid seats app help you get to your favorite live event enter promo code kickoff that's k-i-c-k-o-f-f at checkout to receive a discount of up to $100. All right, man. We are back with segment number two of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. As we kind of finish up, we were talking about Aleric Jackson and seeing improvement from him. Just the entire offensive line, I'm looking forward for a rebound performance from them.

Across the board, that offensive line just got wrecked. And I think Michigan provided a blueprint for how to potentially, you know, kick, you know, I was, but with a lot of different stunts and blitzes bringing six, seven guys or pressure. I think, you know, Brian Ferentz and Kirk Ferentz are going to go back to the drawing board and look and see what needs to happen. And I believe we're going to, like you talked about in the last show,

we're going to see a lot better pass protection, not just from the offensive line, but seeing more help in the pass protection game, either that from, you know, from the running back or from the tight end perspective. You know, last year with Noah Fant and TJ Hawkinson, we saw Nate Weeding come in a lot just to block. And I think we could see that this week as well. And that's really what, what his value has been is as a blocker. So I think we're going to see the pass protection game improve significantly and maybe start unleashing some of those more short routes with some of our quicker guys like Tyrone Tracy and Nico Regani in the slot.

Yeah, I think that a lot of things people kind of saw, a lot of the Twitter coaches after the game, which I do agree with, that there was a lot of opportunities and times where there wasn't even a guy. They came in seven or ten yards off. The slot guy are or not even covering them they're not even shading them yet and there's a lot of times where i know a lot of people big uh comment that with nate is that when you're a senior quarterback you have to kind of scan the field before you you know snap it and you kind of got to look at the matchups and people were confused saying that if you see a slot guy wide open why

aren't you audibling audibling him around piss off so much. Yeah. See, here you go. So whether it's a quick slant, whether it's a hitch route, whatever, whatever it is, a comeback or whatever you need to do. I mean, I, I know obviously I'm not offensive coordinator, but you know, pretty every time in Madden that happens, you know, I throw a quick slant. It's pretty much the first down and that's partly joking at satirical guys don't attack me. But you know, I throw a quick slant. It's pretty much first down. And that's partly joking. That's satirical. Guys, don't attack me. But, you know, those are those type of things that I think that we need to kind of do better and I think we need to take advantage of.

And because at the end of the day, you know, Reganey and Tracy, they could have basically abused the slot with that game. I think that we had a lot of opportunities, you know, to have bigger gains from our slot receivers. Is that kind of what you saw too during the game, Andrew? I think we, no, so I was, I was actually more pissed off about the take itself just simply because, yes, there were times where they were wide open. I think there's some routes that you could have utilized to get them open, but the linebackers in that coverage were dropping immediately to the slot spot. So it was kind of a confusing look. And I think we saw

that throughout the day Michigan's secondary and their you know the linebacker core basically their second and third levels of the defense were doing a great job of disguising some of their coverages and in those slot positions I think you're absolutely right there are definitely routes that we could have utilized to get Regani open or when you have two wide receivers out there maybe throw a quick bubble screen and yeah yeah because the like you said the linebackers drop you know probably majority of the time you think one of the side receivers cannot run them right exactly exactly so maybe get them a little bit more in space and you know get up to get the

sideline so there's definitely some things we could have improved um there i also think you know we saw a lot of i saw a lot of twitter talk about mckay sergeant not playing well and he did it yeah he's missing some blocks. Yeah, but usually, I mean, he's typically been so reliable. I would like to see him have a rebound performance. If nothing else, I mean, the guy has a great story, and I know it's not all about stories, but he's such a hard worker, and the fact that he's gotten to this position, despite being under-recruited coming out of high school,

under-recruited coming out of junior college, under-recruited coming out of junior college, I do want to see him have a bounce-back performance against Penn State. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I'm at a crossroads of that. You know, I like Sargent. I like when Sargent does well, but I also like the shiny new toy, Tyler Goodson. It's so tough, man.

I like it too. I mean, whenever can we say that Iowa has recruited a running back that is a Georgia player of the year? Like that's like crazy world. That's banana land. I didn't even think that we could ever have the opportunity to have that. So I think that the fact that they're still playing him too as a freshman, and I don't know if they're even registering him anymore. They can't. They lost it. They burnt it already.

So what I'm saying is that this guy is like not generational. He could be generational in college football in general, but this guy, Iowa doesn't see a lot of these type of players, man. So it's hard for me to not want to see more, you know? Yeah, man. It's kind of crazy to think that he was the 43rd ranked running back in the nation last year. And the 670th prospect, I believe.

So pretty ridiculous overall. But yeah, I mean, I love seeing Tyler Goodson. From a defensive perspective, I just want to see more of the same old man. I thought the defense played very well. We get Julius Brentz back in the lineup playing a little bit more this week. I'll be interested to see kind of what Kirk Barron says

in his press conference, whether or not Matt Hankins is ready to play. But I'm excited to see them and how they handle the test of Penn State's offense with Sean Clifford. And obviously James Franklin being kind of an offensive guy, this defense is going to need to step up again. And they've been playing so well. I mean, right now they're third in the nation in points allowed per game,

12th in passing yards and 11th in rushing yards. So I'm really excited to see this defense step up in a night game at Kinnick. I would love to see – you think about some of the big games in the past decade, two decades, and you think of turnovers. You think of pick sixes. I think of Tyler Sash's flip back to Micah Hyde. I want to see that happen this week, man. I want to see Geno Stone.

I want to see Michael Ojemudia, someone get a big pick and take it back to the house. Uh, nothing electrifies a crowd high like that. Yeah. Don't we have, isn't reef coming back to potential? He's on the depth chart. Um, he's the number two defensive tackle, which, you know, early in the week, that couldn't mean anything. I think at this point it means he should be dressing and whether or not he's ready to play or not means he'll get back in but heck I've even been impressed the

backup defensive tackles Davian Nixon and Austin Schulte played pretty well as well yeah I mean I think that I mean Epinesa Chauncey Golsan looked really good too about freaking time yeah he looks really good and I think that Epinesa looks pretty good too he was about a couple inches away from picking off a pitch or it was a slip screen or something. He got his big bare hands like two inches away from it. I thought he was going to take it to the house, but he was getting back there obviously and he was getting double teamed.

I was happy to see him get a sack and happy to see Golsan get a sack too. I mean, I think that, listen, Penn State, they don't have Miles Sanders anymore. They don't have Saquon Barkley. So I don't think that they're going to be running through the running back, their offense. Instead, instead of being a Trace McSorley quarterback, where it's kind of almost like a Shea Patterson,

where a lot of RPOs, a lot of running plays, a lot of options, where you have to kind of keep a safety or a spy on him, Clifford's going to air the ball out. And, listen, I didn't really know who he was coming into the year, but I've seen a lot of his game film. He's played a lot of lackluster opponents, but the dude can sling the ball, Andrew. I'm telling you, this guy has a great arm.

So what makes me nervous is that their best players, Clifford and Hamler, Hamler's kind of like almost like a poor man's Randall Moore. In Penn State, people, if you hear me, are probably going to get mad about that. But in the sense that when this guy's open in space, he's a short, quick receiver, that I'll tell you what, you're gonna have to be on your P's and Q's tackling and have to square the guy up because if you make a miss that you cannot make a mistake because that guy has video game speed. So, but here's the thing though. So with that being said, it was kind of perfect timing where we saw our safeties and we saw

our cornerbacks and everyone plays so well and have great tackling and have great coverage that maybe it's kind of like iron you know iron sharpening iron this game you know as our secondary taking the next step to be that elite secondary against one of the top passing attacks in the big town yeah man i i think so and i think it's going to be a really interesting matchup between the secondary and Sean Clifford and those wide receiver groups. But before we touch on that, I have a couple of thoughts on that. I do want to get to a few messages from our sponsor before we jump into the

third and final piece of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. All right, man. So, yeah, before we left the show for the couple messages um we were talking about and you were kind of mentioning you know sean clifford and the passing attack being pretty potent um kj hamler 19 receptions 394 yards an average of 20.7 yards they have three receivers averaging over 20 yards per reception hamler johan dodson um and nick bowers so a pretty impressive all around from that wide receiver group, some explosive plays.

And right now, Sean Clifford has thrown for 1,400 yards, an average of 10.7 yards per attempt. And he's thrown 12 touchdowns and two interceptions. So this isn't Shea Patterson, right? This isn't going to be an easy day in the ballpark for the Iowa football defense. But like you said, one of the things I wanted to call out is our safeties have been playing phenomenal. And with Phil Parker's defense, defensive backs know how to tackle.

And you're going to always get that from Iowa Hawkeye defensive backs. If you can't tackle, you can't get on the freaking field. And you mentioned that they don't have a superior player like a Miles Sanders or a Saquon Barkley who makes Iowa Hawkeyes look like they're running in slow-mo. But they do have a pretty good running attack man I'm looking at this right now and they've got four guys sorry three guys ran for over 200 yards one guy who has a hundred and ninety yards yeah Clippers ran for you know has the most attempts averaging 4.7 yards per carry though so I mean something they're gonna have to watch out for

but I think probably a lot of RPO type things things so the one one thing that um i kind of so as weird as it sounds is i i went with iowa football i feel like that we have such sure tacklers we have a good pass rush i get nervous when quarterbacks extend the plays like shea patterson and they roll to the left roll to the right and kind of are more mobile because i think that if you play the game where you're a pocket passer and you're not really moving out of the pocket, I think that kind of gives the advantage to Iowa. Yeah. Cause that's what I'm saying. Because I think that, I think we're very good North and South with the pass rush, but I

think where it gets a little, uh, if he is, is, you know, lateral East to West when the quarterback start rolling out. So if you're in the pocket and it's collapsing on you, I think that could play to an advantage for us. And, I mean, you just pointed out Clifford has the most attempts. So, I mean, they're running the ball, but they're kind of – and it looks like to me they're kind of using the run to set up the pass as opposed to using the pass to set up the run type things like Iowa does, right,

with the play action. So that's going to be more of a pass-first happy offense. But it but it's just like you said guys like KJ Hamler and Rondell Moore when these guys are in space they do a lot of slip screens they do a lot of quick passes right like we wanted to see to get guys in open space right so when you have cornerbacks and lanky cornerbacks and safeties that can make these tackles and you take out a facet of their game which kind of can almost make them not one dimensional, but lose the type of dimension of that offense. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think for me, I take it one step further. It's less about, in my opinion, it's less about like the defense being able to attack North and South. But when a, when a guy like Sean Clifford can extend a play,

that becomes difficult because I was, I was defensive predicated on the guys being in the right space or the right spot, especially because they play predominantly a zone defense. When you start having quarterbacks break and tame, things are getting a little bit messy. People start moving around. People have to, you know, abandon. Ad-lib routes.

Yeah, and that's where I think it really can hurt Iowa. And we saw that with Trace McSorley, who, you know, played fantastic as Iowa in his career. Again, I haven't, you know, we haven't gotten to see a lot of Sean Clifford, but the fact that he who, you know, played fantastic as Iowa in his career. Again, I haven't, you know, we haven't gotten to see a lot of Sean Clifford, but the fact that he is more mobile than we probably anticipated does offer some challenges for the Hawks. But that just means that, you know,

Chauncey Golsan needs to take advantage of the, you know, the awareness that's being paid to A.J. Vanessa and A.J. Vanessa hopefully can get to the quarterback again. And if we get Brady Reif back, that's, that's a huge asset to that defensive line. I think we even saw as well Nick Neiman and Christian Wells and Digimon Colbert they've done a great job of rushing the passer on blitzes and I would love to see Phil Parker incorporate a few more blitzes like he did against Iowa State in

the second half yeah I think that what's going to be happening I think that put yourself in the perspective so obviously playing on the road Iowa was tough with the big house and all the noise Yeah, I think that what's going to be happening, I think that put yourself in the perspective. So obviously playing on the road, Iowa was tough with the big house and all the noise they were making. So I think that being able to use the sound, because dude, being in that stadium, even Iowa that doesn't have as many people as the big house, if anyone has been to a game, it gets loud, like really loud.

So those, it is a huge advantage, obviously, especially when a night game that just brings out a whole different monster of Iowa fans. So I think that using that to our advantage and making it hard for Clifford to maybe communicate the plays when a quarterback can't get an audible and he's having a hard time communicating with the players, you don't understand. People say, oh, the 12th man, the 12th man, that's a real thing. When the quarterbacks can't hear and the crowd is that loud, it makes it really hard and guys miss plays, guys miss hot routes, and it really does affect the play. I've seen multiple times a running back doesn't know that they option out of the run. They don't know that it's an RPO and the things get messy.

So being able to use the sound and then also making it hard by using a little different schemes and packages and things like you've said and you've explained before, that's NASCAR, things like that. I think that can really take Sean Clifford, a guy who's a pretty confident pocket passer, you know, it can kind of throw him off his game. When you start doing that to people on the road is when you start, you know, maybe seeing their true colors, right? Seeing how they do under pressure. I couldn't agree more, man. It's going to be a really interesting matchup with that and we saw it last year at Penn State um the you know the crowd got a little loud and um obviously the play was a little bit confusing for Nate Stanley no fan that was the uh miss interception at the goal line so we've seen

it happen before to us and and hopefully Kinnick will be rocking I mean it's a it's a night game it's the America Needs Farmers game it is the cold out yeah on night like Yeah, ABC on night. Like it's going to be pretty incredible. I'm having some people over. We're going to put it on the projector screen. I'm having a nice little time. So I'm pretty excited, man. You know, I'm looking forward again to Iowa football. I will admit Sunday was rough.

Monday was rough. Plus, dude, we've lost two years in a row. And can't you confidently say we probably should have won both those games? Exactly. We should be going to the – The DeJuan Johnson, Hushing Canning. Just absurd. But I think we're going to make it happen, man.

I really do. And we're going to cover a lot more of that later in the week. But any last thoughts from you before we round out the show, man? I'll say it one more time. Guys, the season's not over. We're not Clemson. We're not Alabama the season's not over. We're not Clemson. We're not Alabama. We're not Oklahoma.

We're not. We haven't run the table since 1922, like Andrew said. We still have a big season ahead of us. Nate Stanley's not complete trash. He can bounce back. The team will bounce back. And like I said, you can judge a team on how they get back up after getting knocked down and how they respond to the criticism and to all of the negativity that they want through that game.

Right. So depending on how Iowa can bounce back for this game, that's when I'll make an assumption and judgment on them. Right. Absolutely, man. I definitely think Iowa can win. And,

and I've said this before, all of our goals are still intact. If we go 11 and one and win the big 10 championship game, we are very much getting the college ball playoffs. So everything is still intact. Everyone kind of expect that to be a loss anyways, in Michigan, let's rebound.

Let's go out. Let's get some, you know, let's get a win on the table against Penn state, a top 10 ranked team. Let's, you know, start working towards our goals again,

the season kind of forget the atrocity of the Michigan game. We appreciate everyone tuning into the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. If you like what you heard today, make sure to like review and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at and make sure to give us that five-star review and give us any comments and feedback you love to see on the show kind of take place. Then again, make sure to follow us on Twitter,

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