Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa falls again at Michigan State | Tristan Wirfs gets big measurement win | Why Nate Stanley is not Josh Allen

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

Iowa drops another game at Michigan State so we have a little bit of a vent session to open the show before jumping over to NFL Draft and NFL Combine talk. 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 am your host, Andrew Wade, and I wish I was taking on this show able to talk about Iowa beating Michigan State. Unfortunately, I am not, and I'm also recording this literally 15 minutes after the conclusion of the Iowa-Michigan State game. So if I sound a bit bitter or a bit pissed off, that's because I have not had an opportunity to cool down. It's one of those things where did I necessarily expect them to win? No. I mean, I predicted them to win. I thought Iowa had the mental capacity to come in there and beat them and had the wherewithal to come in there and win even despite all the odds. But at the core of it, the fact that, you know, Michigan State didn't blow them out is, you know,

maybe a moral victory. The fact that they kept it close for the entire game, maybe a moral victory there, but I'm still just a little bit annoyed. I wasn't exactly happy with the conclusion of that game, and I have a few things to talk about there. So we're going to be covering that on today's show. We're also going to be talking a little bit about the NFL Combine. Measurements came in for Tristan Wirfs and Nate Stanley, and they came back good. So we're going to talk about that, and then we're also going to break down whether or not Nate Stanley is a day two quarterback. I've seen some folks on Twitter,

Facebook, et cetera, wondering why in the hell Nate Stanley is not a day two quarterback. And I have some thoughts on that. And also, I'll step aside from the homerism. I would love to see Nate Stanley get drafted early. I just don't see it happening. So I'll be covering that a little bit on today's show as well. If you are tuning in for the first time and you do end up liking what you hear today, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you download this podcast at. And if you are on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, make sure to follow us there as well. And a forewarning, I got some interesting feedback on Twitter from apparently a listener who said, I pronounce every single name wrong and it's really hard to listen to the show.

Apologies to those who are offended by my inability to pronounce names. I honestly just suck with names. It's something I've been trying to get better at. If that disturbs you for the show, my apologies. I'm working to get better at it. But if it pisses you off that much, I'm sorry. I'm only human. I'm not going to be able to do that great at it. Like I said, I've never been good at names, never been good with names. So I usually struggle. And especially

when you're hosting a podcast, I think it becomes, you know, you're just starting to say this stuff and you're saying it out loud and you don't even realize that you're saying necessarily wrong at the moment until you look back at it. So neither here nor there, but let's get into the show. Like I said, Iowa fell to Michigan State 78 to 70 and it was a very frustrating game. And the reason why it was frustrating was because Iowa was up six at half, they had a 10-point lead at one point, and they blew that 10-point lead. Michigan State outscored them by 14 points in the second half. Cassius Winston went off in the second half, had a fantastic finish to the game, was really

all over the place, really great defense, got involved multiple times in the defensive end, forcing turnovers against Iowa. If you listen to the show that we talked about on yesterday, you know that Michigan State is not really a very turnover type of team. They don't force a lot of turnovers on the defensive side of the ball. But Cassius Winston put the team on his shoulders and did it for them. He also did it scoring as well. Went 5-9 from the field, 4-5 from three for 20 points,

and nine assists and five rebounds. Just a superb game from one of the best players in the Big Ten. A guy who probably could compete with Luka Garza for Big Ten Player of the Year, despite even having a relative down year. Xavier Tillman, another guy who we said was going to be a really key factor coming into this game for Michigan State. Not as much of a factor offensively. In fact, if you look at his box score, really not a factor at all. I mean, six rebounds, six points, that's okay. That's not bad.

But nothing to write home about. However, what he did against Luka Garza was truly impressive. One of the things, I think at one point, Luka Garza was three of 13 against Xavier Tillman and 5-8 when Xavier Tillman was not in the game. So Luka Garza, again, one of the best offensive players in the country, a National Player of the Year candidate, virtually shut down when Tillman was on the floor. So his presence was really felt defensively. Did a fantastic job of guarding Luka Garza and making sure he had to work for every single point,

which is frustrating. Another big frustration for me, and again, I'm happy that Iowa kept it close. This is a moral victory. Iowa playing again without C.J. Frederick. They want to make sure he's healthy. It looks like he'll be good to go against Penn State. But without playing with C.J. Frederick, you really have a limited bench, and it makes it very difficult to play a team like Michigan State

in the Breslin Center where they are notoriously bad. We talked about that on yesterday's show. Iowa just sucks when they go to Michigan State. A lot of teams suck when they go to Michigan State, to be fair, but historically just not a good team on the road against the Michigan State Spartans. But, you know, they still had an opportunity to win this game. And I feel like if we maybe got the real Joe Wieskamp to stand up, that would be a really awesome opportunity for Iowa to win some of these games. And I don't want to hate on players. I'm not saying Wieskamp sucks.

I think Wieskamp is a fantastic player, a really, truly talented player that Iowa fans are lucky to see play for their black and gold Hawkeyes. But he is having one of the worst stretches of his career the last three games without C.J. Frederick in the game. And you really need a guy like him to step up. I know he's getting a lot of pressure on defense. When he has the ball, he's getting a lot of pressure from the opposing team's defense. But you need him to step up if you want to win these games. He went 1 of 8, 0 of 5 from 3.

And those misses were not good misses either. He had a few open looks, blew those. Just, God, just really frustrating. Only five rebounds, no assists, one steal, two turnovers. I mean, you need more production from your star guard. There's talk about Joey's camp going pro. I just can't see it right now when he disappears in some of these big games. Iowa really needed this game if they wanted an opportunity to potentially win a Big Ten title over the regular season. That, to me, is all but lost at this

point because Michigan State plays Maryland next. You really needed Michigan State to lose this game and beat Maryland to give Iowa another opportunity. Is it completely out of the picture? I guess not, but it basically is. And again, I'm not looking directly at the standings right now, but that basically shoots Iowa's self in the foot. I think at this point, the best bet is to try to get one of those top four seeds and get that coveted double bye in the Big Ten tournament. But God, just a frustrating as hell game to watch. Whatever. We get a rebound game. We get to go against Penn State on Saturday at Carver. That'll be a good opportunity for Iowa to get another big win and get to that 20-win threshold, which is typically that threshold that the NCAA Tournament Committee looks for.

And it's kind of a nice gauge for whether or not a team can play in the NCAA Tournament if they do make that 20-win threshold mark. A couple other things to keep in mind from this game, a couple other points I wanted to cover for this game. Ryan Creener had a fantastic performance, 7-12 from the field for 18 points, 7 rebounds, a steal on a block. Joe Toussaint, I thought, played well initially. Had a really nice open look three. I thought he did a good job of moving the ball around and also finding space for himself, but got into foul trouble and was basically non-existent in the latter

half of the second half just because he was in foul trouble. We saw Bakari Evelyn play big minutes again. I believe he played 27 or 28 minutes on the night. Cordell Pemzel, I thought, had a decent performance. Again, he's getting his legs back. You can tell he's getting a little bit better. Put in 20 key minutes, had eight rebounds. Really being a force on the glass. I think

shooting-wise, there's obviously room for growth, but you've got to be happy with the development with Cordell Pemzel over the last couple games. I think one of the big things he needs to continue to work on is his back-to-the-basket game and whether or not he's going to go left or right. It's pretty much a virtual given which way he's going on that one. So you'd like to see him maybe develop a little bit more offensive moves. But again, you've got to be happy with the production you're getting out of Cordell Pemzel right now, playing some really big minutes when you have CJ Frederick out and the bench is down a little bit.

Connor McCaffrey, I thought he played an outstanding game as well. 11 points, 7 assists, three steals. Really, you know, he's just a really, really smart player and a guy that you have to be really impressed with throughout the season. The guy who doesn't get a lot of notoriety. People often want to pick apart his shooting abilities. And honestly, his shot kind of looks ugly, but it works and he does a great job. And he's one of the key catalysts for this Iowa Hawkeye basketball team oh man and then look at the I mean we talked about it yesterday Michigan State does a great job of defending the three-pointer Iowa shot just 22 percent Luka Garza went 0-5

Joe Wieskamp went 0-5 Bakari Evelyn went 1-5 need more production from them again not not a loss to hang your you know head on and be really pissed off about. I'm frustrated because I'm covering this right after the game ended, but this is not as concerning as the Purdue game. Again, not easy to go on the road to Michigan State and win that game. Iowa does need to bounce back, though, and have a big game against Penn State on Saturday. I think that'll get some of the momentum in your favor.

You'll get C.J. Frederick back, another big, big boost to that offensive lineup and the defensive lineup. He's one of the best defenders on the Iowa Hawkeye basketball team. So some exciting stuff, I think, in the future. You would love to see a win here, but we just didn't get it done, and it just sucks. But you go on, life goes on, and, again, you've got to be impressed with how this Iowa basketball team has performed over the season.

Given all the adversity they have faced. That'll do it though. For my talk on that coming up after the break, we're going to cover a little bit more on the NFL combine. Talk a bit about the measurements and talk a little bit about Nate Stanley and his potential as an NFL quarterback. All right. We are back with our second segment of the locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

And as I alluded to, we're going to be talking about the Iowa Hawkeye football team doing a little bit of a switcheroo from the basketball team to the football team and talking about the NFL combine that is taking place right now, the quarterback measurements are in, the offensive line measurements are in. As we're speaking today, we're going to get the defensive line measurements, and then tomorrow we're going to get the cornerback measurements, and we're going to start getting into some of the position drills as well.

We're going to be covering all that right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast to give you the latest news and notes on the draft pick for the Iowa Hawkeyes and kind of what they're doing. So that being said, a big day for the Iowa Hawkeyes who did get measured. Nate Stanley came in very, you know, very impressively sized six foot, just a little bit over 6'3", and 235 pounds. His hand size was 10 inches, arm span 32 5'8", and wingspan 78 2'8". The big thing here with quarterbacks is obviously the height, the weight, and the hand size. There's a long-held belief that your hand size can't impact you if you are playing in a humid climate, if you're playing in bad conditions.

And the smaller the hand, the worse off you're going to be. 10 inches is a very, very good size for a quarterback. 6'3", a little bit shorter than I thought he would come. I thought he'd be a little bit over 6'4". 235 pounds. I mean, he's got a big body, a big frame. So you love to see that. Nothing really unexpected from that.

The hand size, again, was kind of the big thing for Nate Stanley. And we're going to talk a little bit about his draft stock as well. But I also want to touch on Tristan Wirfs, the fact that there are some concerns about whether or not he can actually play tackle at the next level. And the concerns there really stem from the fact that they think he has kind of stubby arms, and he has a thick frame, or sorry, more of a stiff frame. And for some reason, there's this weird belief that he doesn't have as much athleticism as he does. But this kid is an athletic freak, as we've seen. A very strong kid. The arm length, I think, was it 33 inches or 34 inches? To me, I don't see the big deal. But obviously, there's a threshold for all NFL talent evaluators, and 34 inches is that threshold. Six foot four and seven eighths, typically you see tackles be maybe an inch or two taller, but you'll take that, 320 pounds. So I think a good showing for Iowa's Tristan Wirfs.

It'll be great to see him in the actual position drills and see how much he puts up on the bench press and whatnot. I think he's going to really shock some people with his strength, his speed, his quickness for a guy at that size. So love seeing that. Love seeing some good stuff come up with these Iowa Hawkeyes and just the measurements. And I know it's kind of a dumb deal that one measurement could really impact your draft stock, but it does. These talent evaluators find whatever they can to not like a player or to rate a player low or whatever it may be.

And they look into every little detail. So arm length does matter for, you know, these guys, you know, weight does matter. Height does matter. We're going to see that with AJ Ibaneza today. Depending on how much he weighs will really depend or kind of show where teams might want to project him at. If he comes in a little lighter, maybe he really, you know, maybe teams do realize he can play a 4-3 defensive end, which I think he'd be fine at.

Or if he comes in heavier, maybe he's a 3-4 defensive end or maybe a 4-3 defensive end that kicks inside on pass rushing downs. So it'll be interesting to see kind of how that all plays out today when AJ Paneza does get measured. Like I said, Geno Stone's going to be coming up as well, and so is Michael Ojemudia. A lot of stuff. I think the big keys here, the big guys who really need a lot of help this week

are going to be Michael Ojemudia and Geno Stone with a little bit of Nate Stanley. But quarterbacks, I mean, a lot of it's scripted, right? So, I mean, I don't think there's going to be a lot to gain there unless he just comes out and plays absolutely superb and shows off some of his arm strength there. But Geno Stone and Michael Ojemudy are probably the two guys who have the most to gain from their NFL Combine performances, especially Geno Stone, who didn't have a lot of tape coming on him or coming out of college because people did not expect him to actually leave school.

So interesting stuff there for the safety from Iowa. So interesting stuff there for the safety from Iowa coming up, though. We're going to wrap up the conversation by talking a little bit about Nate Stanley and whether or not he can be an NFL quarterback and where he might be drafted at. We are back with our third and final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And as I alluded to before, we took a quick break. I want to talk about Nate Stanley. And I saw some folks wondering, you know, Josh Allen and Nate Stanley have the exact same measurements or close to the same measurements. Why was Josh Allen a top 10 pick?

And why is Nate Stanley considered a day three pick? That's easy to answer if you truly want to know the answer. And that's because Josh Allen is an athletic freak. The guy's a quick dude. He's fast. He has a lot more mobility than a Nate Stanley does. There was so much potential with him. I think there's a ton of potential with Nate Stanley. So I don't think it's a completely, completely off base comparison, but to ask why these two are ranked differently, I think is a little bit ridiculous because again, Josh Allen is a freak. He's an athletic freak, a guy

who really is more of an athlete playing quarterback, whereas Nate Stanley is more of a baseball player playing quarterback. I do think Nate Stanley has a good career ahead of him. I think if he goes to the right system, he could be a fantastic day three pickup and a potential good backup to a average to below average starter depending on the system and depending on his accuracy as well. I know he's been working really hard with a quarterback coach, a very coveted and good quarterback coach. And I know he's working a lot on his accuracy.

And I know he talked about in a podcast on the Washed Up Walk-Ons podcast that he's learning how to throw the ball like a quarterback and not like a baseball player. He said before he was pitching the ball as opposed to throwing the ball. And I think that is really huge. We've seen his accuracy be a huge concern over the last three years as a starter at Iowa. And some of his decision-making as well is a concern. But this guy is a film warrior, a guy who's in the film room all the time, loves the game of football, loves playing, and loves to learn and study the game of football.

So I think from a decision-making standpoint, a work ethic standpoint, you've got to love that at least that he's going to continue to work at his craft and continue to try his hardest to make sure that he can be the best that he can be. Acc. You got to love the fact that he is working hard with a quarterback coach to improve on his accuracy and improve his throwing motion and whatnot and improve some of his dropbacks. And then the fact that he's coming from a pro style offense means that the development there might be a little bit expedited or a little sped up because he's going to be able to jump into a system and not have to learn how to make

reads or calls the line of scrimmage because he already knows that a little bit right now after playing in Brian Ferentz's scheme, which is actually a bit complicated, especially for a college football team. So that's kind of my thoughts on Nate Stanley. I do think he could be a very quality backup, if not a average to below average starter or below average to average starter. I think there's a lot of potential there. The ceiling is really high. I think the floor is also really high, though, as well. But you don't draft quarterbacks based on their floor.

You draft them based on their ceiling. And you would like to see their floor be significantly higher. When I say floor, I mean I don't think he's going to be a bust and out of the league in two years. You need a big arm, a strong arm guy who likes to work his butt off and is a good team player like him at all times. You need a guy like that as a backup quarterback. So that's why I say his floor is pretty high. I also think his ceiling is really high because he does have an NFL arm. His arm is big, big, big arm, strong arm.

I believe I heard that he pitched 90 miles an hour in high school in baseball. So having a guy like that play quarterback, you know he's got a strong arm, a big base. I think he reminds, you know, reminds me of times of Ben Roethlisberger with his mobility per se. He's not going to beat you to the corner, but he is going to do a great job of shaking off tacklers when he does have time in the pocket. And we see, we saw him for Iowa when he had time in the pocket, do a great job of picking apart defenses. So I'm playing with the right team and the right scheme, I think he could be a productive NFL quarterback. But he's likely going to go day three. I just don't see him really jumping up to that day two round range.

You see a lot of times quarterbacks who do make that leap, they might jump up. They might think they might be fringe first-round prospects. You might see them in mock drafts. But for some reason, it seems like a lot of times if you miss out of the first round, you kind of drop a few rounds from the quarterback perspective. And then the run starts a fourth, fifth,

sixth and seventh rounds and that day three range. So that's kind of my thoughts on Nate Stanley. And that'll do it for our show today. So we're going to wrap up today's episode of locked on Hawkeyes podcast. As always, I appreciate you tuning in and listening for our show today. So we're going to wrap up today's episode of Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. As always, I appreciate you tuning in and listening to our show today. I'm sorry for the rant that I had earlier in the show about the basketball team, but I was just really frustrated. I do really believe in this team, and I think once they get C.J. Frederick back,

this is going to be a team to reckon with come Big Ten tournament time and the NCAA tournament time. It just hurts and stings to see them lose a game that they had in their, you know, they had the opportunity to win. They were right in that game, a tough game on the road. They really could have won that game and put that away. But they did not. They have an opportunity to bounce back against Penn State.

So that is the last. I will talk about that until we get to the Penn State preview. Again, thank you for tuning in. If you like what you heard today, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you've downloaded this podcast at. And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thank you again, Hawkeye Nation. Appreciate the love and support, and go Hawks! We'll see you next time.