Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - How Tyler Goodson can win the Doak Walker Award

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

On today's show, we break down how Tyler Goodson can win the Doak Walker Award before jumping into the recruiting conversation again as the Iowa football team missed out on another top target.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back, Hawkeye Nation, to a Wednesday 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 the NBA Draft is next week, and you do not want to miss the live NBA Draft show hosted by NBA Draft GOAT Chad Ford,

Locked On NBA Draft host Rafael Barlow, and Locked On NBA host John Corrales. They will be live this year covering the NBA Draft. It's Locked On NBA Draft 2021 brought to you by Bilt Bar. Get local expert analysis on each pick. Follow Locked On NBA Draft 2021 brought to you by Built Bar. Get local expert analysis on each pick. Follow Locked On NBA on YouTube today and watch our live coverage on July 29th at 7pm Eastern Time. And that is a quick plug for that.

Quick plug for me. We are going to be doing YouTube starting in August, I believe. So be on the lookout for that, especially as we have Monday morning recaps with Matt. Really excited about all the stuff we have coming up right here on the show. And we do have Big Ten Media days later on in this week. So lots of content that's going to be coming out of that. Lots of things to analyze. I'm sure Kirk is going to get the question about recruiting, which we are undoubtedly going to have to unpack his response. Recruiting has been kind of an issue. But on today's show, we're going to talk a little bit about some interesting analysis on Iowa in close games.

We're going to talk about Tyler Goodson and what he needs to do to win a Doak Walker and is the Maxwell Award even an opportunity or possibility? We're also going to talk about the media day and the attendees that are going to that, why those are good selections, and who we would love to see as media day attendees. And then if we have time, we might talk a little bit about recruiting as well. An Iowa prospect, Chase Carter is making his decision. I'm recording this at 4 30 PM mountain time. Chase is making his decision in 30 minutes. So more than likely,

Chase is not going to be committing to Iowa. The plan is as far as we've heard is him to go to Michigan state. If that changes, I will be breaking that down on this show, going to be committing to Iowa. The plan as far as we've heard is him to go to Michigan State. If that changes, I will be breaking that down on this show, but it'll probably be segment three because I'm going to try to record the rest of the pieces and advance that. But let's get into it. One score games. I thought this was a really interesting stat that was put out by Bill Connolly from ESPN. He noted that from an Iowa perspective, and actually from all Big Ten, it's been a really interesting kind of trend we've seen. And here's the actual tweet that I thought was really cool. He said, generally speaking, your record in one-score games will even out over time,

and your record in multi-score games does a much better job of hinting at program strength. He also mentioned Iowa and Wisconsin or Northwestern have not gotten the message. So here is Big Ten play for the West for all the teams. In one score games, Iowa is 6-11. Wisconsin is 4-2. Northwestern is 11-3. Purdue is 7-11. Minnesota is 6-6.

Nebraska 6-7. Illinois 3-3. In multi-score games, Iowa is 15-3. Wisconsin is 20-7. Northwestern is 10-11. Purdue is 7-8. Minnesota is 9-13. Nebraska is 6-16. And Illinois is 5-24. Now obviously those teams below, the Illinois's and Nebraska's, they are not winning a lot of games. So it naturally makes sense that their multi-score win percentage is going to be pretty low. What I thought was most interesting about this is the fact that Iowa is pretty

dreadful in the win-loss column from a one-score perspective. They are the worst team in the Big Ten West in one-score win-loss percentage, 6-11. In multi-score, they are the number one team as well. Now, as he kind of said, he's hinting at program strength typically comes from those multi-score win losses. You can kind of see a better job of that. And the reason why he says that is in a one score game, anything can happen, right? Just because you're the better team doesn't mean you're going to win that game. What I find most interesting about this is the fact that Iowa has been so good at those multi-score games and honestly hasn't lost a lot of multi-score games. And when you go back and look at the games they did lose,

Wisconsin's going to be on there as well, a game where they were actually leading in the fourth quarter and they ended up losing by two scores technically. And that's what I would consider a very close game as well. So what is happening with this and why is Iowa, in my opinion, struggling with one-score games? Now I think it kind of goes back to the fact that Iowa's whole identity is built on being tough, running the ball, and playing very good defense.

That is going to lend itself to be a low-scoring game regardless. So even if Iowa scores 20 points, that's not going to be, or sorry, I should say that even if the other team scores only 13 or 14 points, I was not expecting to try to put up 40 or 50 points on the board. They might only have 20 points or 21 points and they are okay with that. They want to protect the ball. They want to limit mistakes. And again, that lends itself to being in more close game situations. When you look at these records again, the only team that's been in more one score games is Purdue. Now I have a couple of in more one-score games is Purdue. Now, I have a couple theories on that.

First of all, Purdue is one of the most up-and-down teams I've ever seen play, at least in the last five to six years. They can beat the best team in the Big Ten and lose the worst team in the Big Ten the next day, or the next week, I should say. So that's interesting to me. But again, Iowa is going to have a lot of one-score games because of how they play their football game, because they run the ball, they play good defense, they do not take a significant amount of shots down the field

they're not going for that big play and then when they do win games when they do have multi-score games it's because Iowa's offense is clicking and their defense is playing lights out as well those one score games typically is when Iowa's offense is not clicking as well, is not able to grind it out, not able to get any big-time plays on the board. Look at the Wisconsin game this past year. It was a very close game until late in that game when Spencer Petras was able to hit Amir Seth-Marset for a few plays. Tyler Goodson was able to break off a huge run, and that was really what sealed the deal. Now, is this an indictment of the strength of the program? I think the ability to win close games is an indictment of the strength of the program? I think the ability to win close games is an indictment of the strength of the program. Now, I think Iowa has had

arguably the most talented team in the Big Ten West the last couple of years, or at least one of the most talented. Definitely Wisconsin gets a nod there because of how well they've done, but look at what Northwestern has done. They're 11-3 in one score games. Iowa needs to do a better job of that. When you look at the big time seasons for Iowa, I'm thinking that 2015 season. I'm thinking that 2009 season. Iowa managed to pull out some very close games. Now the seasons where fans look at Iowa and say, man, there's a lot of what ifs. It's those one score games. Heck, this past year, two of them, Purdue and Northwestern. Iowa wins those games. Iowa's 8-0. And those are games they were up big. They should have won those games. What happened to those? Honestly, they got away from their bread and butter. They stopped trying to run the ball because it wasn't working

as successfully, and they started throwing the ball, and they started forcing turnovers on themselves. Having Spencer Petras throw the ball upwards of 50 times is never going to be a, no matter who the quarterback is, you don't want hardly any quarterback out there slinging the ball 50 times a game unless you're at Texas Tech. And there's a reason why Texas Tech is not typically in the national title conversation. So to me, it's kind of interesting to see that trend break out. And we've seen that, you know, when it goes in Iowa's favor, when the ball bounces Iowa's way, they are going to be an 11-1 or 12-0 team. When that ball doesn't bounce their way, when they have an extra interception here and there, they get some bad penalties called.

That can swing a game pretty significantly. So it's very interesting to see how that all breaks out. I obviously would like to see Iowa get a little bit better in those one-score games. Another problem is their hurry-up offense kind of struggles because they do rely on the run so much. When you get in that situation and you're relying on the quarterback to bring the ball down the field quickly, it does make it kind of difficult. The offense becomes very one-dimensional.

It loses a little bit of its ability to hide and deceive. To me, that definitely hurts the Iowa offense more so than it does other teams who pride themselves on spreading the ball out and running multiple types of plays from those formations and being able to get to multiple playmakers. Definitely some interesting statistics that we saw from that analysis. Hopefully we can get some more there. Hopefully Iowa

can improve their win-loss percentage in one-score games. I do think again, that's the difference between great Iowa seasons and average Iowa seasons is those one-score games. I do think, again, that's the difference between great Iowa seasons and average Iowa seasons is those one score games. They are never going to get blown. They typically are not going to get blown out. They are not a team that gets blown out because of how strong a defense they play and because

of how well they typically run the ball or at least how much they run the ball. And speaking of running the ball, I want to talk about Tyler Goodson and his ability or the possibilities of him winning the Doak Walker Award. So we're going to cover that on segment two of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Before we get to that though, I do want to tell you about betonline.ag, the fastest and the easiest way to bet on all of your sports action. Baseball season is in full swing and you can track all the action at betonline.ag. Get all the latest news, odds, and info for all of your sporting needs, including the MLB, UFC, MMA, thelympics you got college football and the nfl coming up all that stuff can be found at

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I wanted to talk about Tyler Goodson. He was recently added to the list of preseason possibilities for the Maxwell Award. He mentioned in his interviews earlier this summer that he really wanted to win the Doak Walker Award, and he felt like he had the ability to behind this great offensive line, especially on the interior. And given his ability to run the ball, you'd have to imagine that that is a possibility. His biggest contender, his biggest rival in that aspect, is going to be his in-state rival, and that is Brees Hall. And the fact that Brees Hall gets to play in the Big 12 is going to be a big advantage for Brees Hall, given the fact that the defense is not exactly up to par in the Big 12.

But what does Tyler Goodson need to do to win the Doak Walker? And is it even a possibility? To look at that question or to answer that question, I took a look at the previous five winners of the Doak Walker award. And that is Najee Harris, Jonathan Taylor, Jonathan Taylor, Bryce Love, and Dante Foreman. We also cannot forget Sean Green also won that award back in 2008. So I want to cover that as well. But when I look at what they did from a running perspective, I think it's important to look statistically what they were able to do. And then you've got to factor in the wow factor as well. Najee Harris, when he won the Doak Walker, ran for 1,466 yards last year on a 5.8 yard per carry average and 26 touchdowns.

He also had 425 yards receiving and four touchdowns there looking at jonathan taylor in 2019 he had 2003 yards average 6.3 yards per carry 21 touchdowns had five touchdowns receiving on 252 receiving yards in 2018 when he won it again or won it for the first time had 2194 2194 yards rushing 7.1 yard per carry average 16 touchdowns and had 60 yards receiving bryce love when he won the award he had 2118 yards rushing 8.1 yard per carry average 19 touchdowns and 33 yards receiving and then finally Dante Foreman had 2028 yards rushing 6.3 yard per carry average and 15 touchdowns along with 75 yards receiving okay why I and I guess it's worth bringing up Sean Green as well 1850 yards rushing six yards per six yards per carry average and 20 touchdowns so So when I look at there, so it's kind of a common theme. First receiving doesn't really matter that much. I mean, yes, Nadja Harris

had a great receiving season. And at one point, Jonathan Taylor had a decent season in 2019, but three of the five award winners didn't have above a hundred yards receiving. So that is not a huge factor in this. Um, but I think given the fact that you are able to make some big splash plays that can definitely help you if you are comparing apples to apples from a running perspective. Now, Tyler Goodson hasn't been super involved in the running game, but I would love to see him getting more involved, putting him out in the slot and basically keeping defenses honest a little bit. And his past two seasons, he's had 39 receptions for 318 yards and 8.2 yard

per carry average. Now where he's going to need to pick it up at is his carries. I actually think if Tyler Goodson gets enough carries, he could win the Doak Walker award. I think 5.3 yard per carry average, I think he can see that go up a bit. He's going to continue to get stronger. We've seen him continue to develop as a running back, and they've found interesting and unique ways to get in the ball, including the Wildcat formation. That Wildcat formation is especially going to be a big package down in the red zone. Iowa has struggled a little bit last year.

They struggled quite a bit two years ago when Keith Duncan won the Lou Groza Award. It was because Iowa struggled in the red zone. I know it's weird, but they struggled quite a bit. Two years ago when Keith Duncan won the Lou Groza Award, it was because Iowa struggled in the red zone. I know it's weird, but they struggled. That's why Keith Duncan got so many field goal opportunities and was able to win the Lou Groza, in addition to the fact that he was incredibly accurate. Iowa has not done traditionally a great job in the red zone. Last year they really struggled not having a target to really go to,

although the fact they had Brandon Smith I thought was an interesting Last year they really struggled, not having a target to really go to. Although the fact they had Brandon Smith I thought was an interesting wrinkle that they didn't utilize enough. So look to them to utilize the running game a bit more. Touchdowns is going to be a big indicator of whether or not he can get the Doak Walker award winner. Again, looking back, Najee Harris, 26 touchdowns. Jonathan Taylor, 21-16. Bryce Love, 19. And then Dante Foreman, 15.

Those numbers are more than Tyler Goodson's career total. So he's going to need to see that pick up. Again, the thing that's going to be against him is the fact that he's going to be sharing carries. Iowa likes to involve several guys in the running game. But we have seen them in the past, especially when they have a guy like a Tyler Goodson or when they had Akram Wadley. They did rely heavily on Akram Wadley in that situation, despite the fact they also had James Butler. When Akram Wadley was kind of the guy, he got 252 carries. Now, he wasn't able to do a ton with that, Um, a 4.4 yard per carry average. Imagine 252 attempts with Tyler Goodson's, even his 5.3 yard per carry average. I'm going to do

the math here real quick. That would get Tyler at 1,335 yards. Now, if you take that 252 carries and you times it by 6.5, which would be absolutely insane. He would have 1600 yards rushing. That's not an impossible task for Tyler Goodson. So can he win the Doak Walker award? I do believe he can. What needs to happen is they need to rely on Tyler Goodson as the bell cow. He needs to get over 250 carries. I would prefer maybe even 300, right? He needs to average over six yards per carry, and we need to see them utilize Tyler Goodson in the red zone more. Use him as that wildcat guy. We also need to see, obviously, a few big plays. The Hawks need to have a good season. They need to obviously win probably 9 games to have him in

that consideration for the Doak Walker award. And then finally, what does not need to happen? I don't think he needs to be involved in the passing game nearly as much. Now, I would love to see him involved, but from a Doak Walker award- to happen? I don't think he needs to be involved in the passing game nearly as much. Now I would love to see him involved, but from a Doak Walker award winning perspective, I don't think he needs to be as heavily involved in that aspect. Now, does he have a chance at the Maxwell award? Probably not. That usually goes to a lot of quarterbacks. Um, it just doesn't typically go to a running back and especially not to Iowa guys, um, as well. But I do think Tyler Goodson has the opportunity to carry home some hardware outside of just winning an all Big Ten award or even a running back of the year award for the Big Ten. Those are things that are on the docket and maybe even a national

award for Tyler Goodson. But again, his big competition is going to be in-state with Brees Hall. Coming up on segment three, we're going to talk about media day and possibly a little bit about Chase Carter once we get that news, and then a little bit more about recruiting. There was an interesting angle that I didn't think about from a recruiting perspective, so we're going to cover all that on segment three of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

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Use the promo code LOCKED15 for 15% off at BiltBar.com. Welcome back to the third and final segment of today's episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. I know I said we were going to talk about Media Day. We'll talk about it a bit tomorrow. But we did get the news. Defensive end Chase Carter has officially committed to Michigan State University. You've heard me talk about recruiting a lot. I'm going to continue talking about it

because it is a big deal. Chase Carter is a 943rd ranked player in the nation from Minneapolis, Minnesota. And we kind of had a feeling he was going to go to Michigan State. He had Iowa and Michigan State listed in his top two, but there was Crystal Balls as high as eight having him to Michigan State. And that was actually pretty decided, I feel like a couple weeks ago even. So not as big of a surprise from a loss perspective as we have seen for some of the other recruits recently, but again, just kind of goes into that perception. Iowa struggling to get some of those guys,

continuing to lose out on guys that have Iowa in their top two. There are still prospects in the pipeline. Again, we've talked about this a lot. Some defensive guys, Keith Mochua out of Newton is a guy to watch out for. Jason, the running back from Florida is a guy to watch out for from a recruiting perspective. And again, Iowa is going to be really hitting the recruiting trail hard, finding some of those under the radar high school prospects that haven't really picked up steam from a recruiting perspective.

And we talked all about that on previous episodes. One angle I did not take, though, which I thought was really interesting. Chad Lystico, a fantastic reporter. If you aren't reading his stuff, you need to. I actually read his article a day about recruiting. I wanted to get his take on it. And he mentioned Kirk's age and how that could be a factor in the recruiting and the fact that Kirk you know probably only has four to five years left maybe that is not something that occurred to

me but it is an interesting angle especially if teams are using that against you know commits going to University of Iowa what I find interesting about that is if you look at the program, the tradition of Iowa football though, they've only had two coaches in the last 40 years. The tradition is very strong and I would be very shocked if Iowa doesn't try to keep that coaching search relatively in-house. Now, the obvious solution previously prior to these racial allegations was probably Brian Ferencz. With his name being on those racial bias allegations, I'm not sure how feasible it is to have Brian Ferencz be the successor to the Iowa Hawkeyes head coach, Kirk Ferencz. But there are several guys on that staff that I think could be candidates to be looked at to move up. What Kelvin Bell has done on the defensive line is phenomenal.

What Kelton Copeland has done at the wide receiver group I think is also something worthy of looking at. I don't think Phil Parker wants to be a head coach. Based off what he said in previous conversations, I just can't see that being a possibility. But also look for Iowa to maybe look outside of the box for guys who have been at the University of Iowa but have gone elsewhere to gain some experience. Regardless, it is going to be a highly sought-after job. There is a significant amount of stability. The fan base is incredibly passionate.

You have a lot of kids in the state who want to go to the University of Iowa. There's a lot going for the school. But Iowa needs to be figuring that out now. If that truly is the case, if commits are concerned about the age of Kirk Ferentz, Iowa needs to figure out a succession plan relatively quickly. It doesn't mean that Iowa has to have Kirk Ferentz retire next year. It just means they need to have a successor. Not that I agree with anything Jimbo Fisher has ever done, but Jimbo Fisher was named

the successor to Bobby Bowden a long time ago. He was at Florida State for quite some time, or I say two years, excuse me, I'm looking it up right now, 2007 and 2009, and he was named the successor to Bowdoin. And to me, that is what Iowa more than likely needs to do. And when you look at what Bowdoin was able to do in 34 years at the helm, he was able to develop a very strong football program. And what Iowa needs to do is to find someone who is passionate, cares about the program, possibly internally, and they need to have that selected either now or very, very soon,

maybe this upcoming off season. They need to find a guy who they feel like they can groom into that leadership position, into that head coaching role under Kirk Ferentz. If it's not Brian, figure it out. Find a new offensive coordinator. Let Brian go experience something else. I'm not saying we need to get rid of Brian, but if you want to make that job attractive, find a different offensive coordinator that you feel like could be the successor to Kirk Ferentz. I don't think you're going to want to. I don't think Phil Parker is going to want to be that coach. So you're probably not going to want to replace Phil Parker either because you want him as a defensive coach.

But still, find a guy who wants to be a successor to Kirk Ferentz. Find a guy who has that passion and the history of Iowa football. Find a guy who understands the program just like they did last time with Kirk Ferentz. He was understanding of what that program was and how it had been developed. Otherwise, you could be running into an issue, and Chad mentioned this as well, where Iowa crumbles just like it did under Hayden Fry late in Hayden Fry's tenure. Again, I don't think that's going to happen here, but Iowa needs to really look hard and evaluate within what they need to do to be able to secure commits. They need to really look

and say, why is this happening? Is it negative recruiting for racial bias? Is it negative recruiting for Kirk Ferentz's age and whether or not he's going to be around for a long time? Is it a lack of a succession plan? Is it honestly just poor timing? Is it the fact that we have not seen a lot of these players and Iowa is a very traditional recruiter in the sense that they're not going to be changing the way they approach this just because of a COVID year?

They need to heavily evaluate that and understand why is this happening? Is it just playing time even? Is the fact that Iowa has so many strong young guys and they haven't lost a lot, is that why? There are a lot of reasons, but I think Iowa does need to do a very thorough self-reflection on what is happening and why it's happening and make those changes. And I think it does have to do a little bit with Kirk Ferentz's age. And that'll be a very interesting topic of conversation, especially as these racial bias, this lawsuit plays out and whether or not they ultimately decide

that Brian Ferentz should or should not be that ultimate successor, who I feel like he has been trying to be groomed into that spot. Outside of those racial bias allegations, and I don't know everything that went into it, obviously Doyle was let go for a reason. I can only imagine that Brian Ferencz's actions were not as bad as that,

not saying that's a good reason to allow him to be head coach. But I think you do need to heavily evaluate why they let him be offensive coordinator if they wouldn't consider him to be a head coach, right? I mean, if they clearly are okay with him being an offensive coordinator, are they okay with him representing the program? Because it does feel like with him coming on after spending time with the Patriots, that this was really the next step for him was to take over for his dad and create that true succession plan. So a lot of interesting storylines coming out of this. It's going to be interesting to follow over the next year or two,

and especially seeing how that 2023 recruiting class goes. If Iowa starts off slow there, then it's going to be time to really sound the alarm bells and wonder what is happening and what needs to be fixed right now. That does it, though, for Segment 3 of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. I appreciate you all tuning in. As you all know, we'll be back tomorrow as we are dropping a show every single day this week.

We are back Monday through Friday and we got media days popping up as well. So we're going to make sure to be covering all of that. If you want some more Lockdown content, you got to listen to the Ultimate Mock Draft 2021 presented by Lockdown and Odyssey. presented by Locked On and Odyssey. Featuring analysis from the GOAT of NBA mock drafts, Chad Ford and Odyssey NBA experts, Brian Scalabrini and former general manager, Ryan McDonough,

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that matter to you. That's A-U-D-A-C-Y. Thank you all for tuning app. Odyssey is your audio home for all the sports, podcasts, music, and news that matter to you. That's A-U-D-A-C-Y. Thank you all for tuning in. Have a fantastic Wednesday. And as always, folks, let's go Hawks.