Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Football: Former Hawkeye LeShun Daniels on bowl trips, recruiting & Bowl Picks

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

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Countdown to bowl season on Lockdown Hawkeyes. We talk to a former Hawkeye, LaShawn Daniels, today stops by. What is a bowl trip like for the players? We'll get into that. Of course, recruiting signing day a couple of days back. Some of LaShawn and my favorite prospects. And we make some bowl picks presented by FanDuel. LaShawn got me in the regular season.

Let's see if I can bounce back here during bowl time. You are Locked on Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Come in. I'm Trent Condon. He's LaShawn Daniels. And this is the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Thanks for making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day.

We're available wherever you find podcasts. You can also watch us on YouTube. While you're there, hit that subscribe button. Helps us get in front of more Hawkeye fans. Today's episode is brought to you by the GameTime app. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKDOWNCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Well, as we get ready for Christmas, LaShawn, it is also bowl season.

And the opening bowl season hasn't exactly been exciting. In fact, the most football that I've watched, college football, since bowl games began, has come in the FCS playoffs. I watched North Dakota State, Montana. That was a great game. Even Friday night in a blowout watching South Dakota State and how good that program has built themselves into champions a couple of years back. It's been more FCS for me than the bowl games. It'll get a little bit better as we get to the weekend. We got Northwestern out there against Utah and the Vegas Bowl. It gets a little bit better, but boy to the weekend we got northwestern out there against utah and the vegas bowl it gets a little bit better but boy for me just as a fan bowl season kind of lost some luster how about for you yeah i agree um the fcs first off with fcs playoffs has been great it's always great um just you know what's on the line and all those teams get a chance at a national

title i really think it's a really entertaining product. And then now with the way how bowl games are, the fact that there's, first off, so many bowl games. And then you take into account the transfer portal and guys opting out and things of that nature. Like you don't get the type of games like that that you have come to expect over, you know, my time. I'm not as old as everybody else but over my time of watching bowl games and even participating in bowl games even though the ones that i did participate they weren't the best but overall just feels like yeah bowl season has lost a little bit of luster but there's going to be some good games um especially as you get

luck later in the bowl season um and to provide some pretty entertaining entertainment. But yeah, FCS playoffs, if you haven't been tuned in there, that's been a great, great watch, if you will. Yeah, you mentioned it. It didn't go very well. I was kind of looking back during your time period. There's some ugly ones in there. Well, the last time Iowa saw Tennessee in the Taxilier Bowl

after the 2015 season, the Rose Bowl. We know how that one went. Would have been nice if Christian McCaffrey would have sat out that bowl game as opposed to the following season in that one. Not sure if it was going to matter on that day. But what is it like? You are locked on Hawkeyes. Whoa. What is it like, though, for you guys?

As you're getting ready, you're departing, you know it's going to be there. We talked about what you do, the bowl prep, and for young guys, just how important that is. Guys that have been running scout team and actually get to run your own offense and defense and do those kind of things. But for the guys that are out there getting ready to play, they got some time off now. Just what the bowl destination and everything's like kind of leading

into when you guys depart. Yeah. and everything's like kind of leading into when you guys depart yeah um you know for so as we talked about a little bit on the pod before uh going into like right after the season ends you know you you've got finals week um you gotta get some time to kind of let your body recover um so you're usually in the training room a lot or you're with the strength coaches whether that doing um you know some some lifting some conditioning or some some stuff just help get your body back uh in in prime shape after you know dealing with a season of of you know battering with other teams and

other players so uh usually as a guy that's getting ready to play it's it's just focusing on on getting your body back whereas you, you know, some of the younger guys, developmental guys, you're focusing on running your offense, improving, putting yourself in a position to be able to have an opportunity to get some snaps, maybe even in a bowl game, especially now, like with the red shirt, with the new red shirt rules, and then put yourself in a position in the springtime to go ahead and uh show you know the coaches that yeah i am a player i am able to play at this level and then as you get closer to

the bowl games typically my entire time you play on new year's day or around new year's day um usually don't they don't let you go home for christmas or a holiday season which kind of sucks uh but it is nice to be being around uh you know your teammates and you know people you spend a lot of time with so you don't feel you know totally um alone and whatnot but especially like for for young players you typically are going to miss your family a bunch during that time but as you get um to your later years you you you adjust to it and then you know like you'll see them um you know, after the bowl game. And then going into the trip, usually we leave about a week before the game. So around, you know, Christmas, Christmas Eve is typically when we're going to head out.

We'll have we'll have a practice experience to bring out the Santa hat and whatnot, which is always fun. But, you know, we'll have a good practice we'll probably you know do some some you know nine on seven some short yardage some physical stuff before you get on the flight because you know it's going to be a couple days before you get back on the practice field again and then you know you get down to your destination and first off you're always hoping that it's a warm destination like you always want to be someplace south or wherever because being in iowa especially in december uh is not a fun time, or really winter in general.

So you're always hoping for that warm destination. And then you usually get about a day to kind of wander around, do different things and whatnot before you really start getting into, you know, your weekly game prep. And then depending upon the bowl destination, there's going to be different types of bowl events. Like for the Rose Bowl, we had like a million different things that we had to be a part of, you know, as a team and whatnot.

And then so it wasn't as much of like, you know, free time just to roam L.A. But for whereas, you know, maybe like the Outback Bowl, there's going to be a couple of things where you're going to have a little bit more time to kind of do that. So that's really what it's like with the bowl traps and leading to it. And I see that there's more than that,

but that's just kind of like the short and sticky version of it. So you guys go to bowl game, you're getting practice, there's a game. We know that even today, Kirk Ferentz puts a ton of emphasis on bowl games. They're important. They're important to him and he's old school and he's not one of the coaches that, you know, just treat it as an exhibition.

He wants to win this game and, and put this team in rarefied air winning 11 games in a season. Something that has not been something that's done a whole lot in Iowa football history, but you know, you're going to be able to do a little bit more I mean how much leeway do you guys get I remember an Outback Bowl well before you were around LaShawn back after the 2003 season seeing a lot of the guys having a really good time the night after the game and hoisted a few beers with those guys but what is it like kind of how much flexibility do you guys have at least before the game yeah um you know so say like if we get like so bull so game week prep doesn't really start

until i think it's like about like five days you know before the before the game so usually you get there about a week before so you got like a day um to kind of do your thing like obviously like they you get there you get checked in you know you have a couple team meetings and whatnot you know you kind of go and do blah blah um and then like first couple nights yeah you're gonna have uh it would be like a regular like a weekend weekend curfew so typically our curfew was 1 1 a.m um you had to be back into your room um and not out and about or you got in trouble for obviously. And then there's usually whenever we are at these destinations, they are usually shuttles, especially if you had like free time, like free time. You know, you'd have you'd have shuttles specifically for us that we could take to do whatever, whether you want to go to the mall or you want

to go out or do whatever like you had opportunities to do that like you know the first like couple days as you get there then as you get into the game prep you don't really have as much free time you know during the during the evening because you got to be you got to be back in your rooms a little bit earlier um but typically like a lot of times like we have you would have like all of our stuff in the morning so you would have you would have, you know, we'd have our practices, we'd have our meetings. And then like, kind of like the afternoons, like you'd have an opportunity to kind of venture around the city and hang out and stuff like that, which was, which was nice. It was definitely nice because again, it's not necessarily a vacation because, you know,

you're still there to win a football game and And it does matter. Every opportunity that you get to play a football game should be treasured because you only get so many. So it is important to know that we are still there to win a football game. But they know that, you know, after a long season, you know, players definitely do deserve to have some time to do some things on their own, take advantage of the site and whatnot. And then we also got a bowl kiss, which were also pretty nice benefit to that. But we know that we're there to win a football game, and the practices are treated that way to let the players know, like, hey, we're here to win a football game not

just to be on vacation and and you know uh enjoy the sights without uh worrying about the football game so and then afterwards you can have some fun yeah yeah yeah yeah it's definitely better like if you definitely better if you win uh for sure unfortunately we didn't get that but hey it is what it is you know you can't you can't stalk over uh too much but it is really crazy like it was like literally the following year they they got back on the ball game street but they were in new york and it was cool there well what's better a win in new york at the pinstripe bowl or a loss in tampa i think you'd argue both sides right yeah you can argue you can definitely argue both sides there.

But yeah, they definitely there win a football game, and it is really important to Coach Ferens to go out there and play well. Recruiting class is in for the class of 2024, everybody aside, on the dotted line. Iowa with a little bit of a roster crunch, some potential guys coming back for that super senior year. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about our guys, and LaShawn gets a shout-out in the press conference

in equation to one of the incoming running backs to LaShawn back in the day. We'll do that as we continue Locked on Hawkeyes. Today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast is brought to you by the GameTime app. You shouldn't have to worry when you're buying tickets for your next big event.

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Trey Connolly, Sean Daniels, back with you again on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. As always, thanks for making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day. Sean, recruiting, it is in the books, and there might be some additional additions to the 2024 class. Not very likely, though.

They're in a roster crunch. They're over the scholarship limit or very close to it right now. Plus, they have the potential of a lot of guys coming back for another year, from Nick Jackson to Jay Higgins, Quinn Schulte, one of those guys on the list. You just go on and on. There's a whole bunch of people. Obviously, Cooper DeGene, Luke Lachey, what their decisions are going to be.

So there's a lot out there. It appears that there are not going to be a whole lot more, at least as it pertains to the freshman class and with it, uh, likely much in the transfer portal. But that aside, talk about these guys a little bit, kind of what we've seen. We'll start with your position, obviously running back and got a chuckle. Listen to Tyler Barnes. All of a sudden he throws out LaShawn Daniels and the make of the same. I see it, too.

He's a little bigger than you were, obviously, coming out of high school, but he's got that physicality and he got the thunder and lightning combo, right, with him and Brevin Dahl. But your thoughts of what you've seen from Xavier Williams from out of Indiana. Yeah. So, let's see, for starters, it's always great when, you know, people give you a shout out. Um, you know, uh, it's always, always great feeling. Um, it means that you did a lot of good,

a lot of things really, really well. So it always makes you feel good. Um, but you know, when you look at a guy like Xavier, um, he does remind me of me. I mean, he's a guy, bigger guy, runs with great power, but something that you might not think of, you know, a guy, you know, our size in general is that their quickness in the hole and their feet in the hole, being able to, you know, kind of slide and find those gaps. And then when you see those gaps, able to hit it at a million miles per hour with physicality to break tackles

and, you know, create explosive runs. And I think those are some, some things that he's done. He does extremely, extremely well when you go ahead and you look at his tape. And then when you look at the flip side and you look at a guy like Brevin, who is a fast guy, fast, I mean, it jumps out on tape. And I mean, he's pulling away from guys left and right, people that have angles. You know, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't, you know, get caught in open field.

And when you have those type of combinations of players in your backfield, it makes your team better because, again, you're able to go ahead and you can pound a defense, you know, for four quarters for all 60 minutes, you know, get them tired of tackling. And then, you know, you bring in a guy that's minutes um you know get them tired of tackling and then you know you bring in a guy that that's got you know electrifying uh you know uh game speed so when you combine those two types of type of players in the backfield i think that's where you can have a ton of success and i think iowa has had a ton of success in the run game in the past you know relying on that uh

type of strategy in the backfield, you know, some of their best rushing teams, like those are some qualities that the backfield has had. And so I'm super excited for these guys to get to Iowa and get to work. And, you know, you never know with recruits, but, you know, with Iowa, they do a really good job of getting their type of people in the building and their type of guys that, you know, are going to at least have a chance at success here at the University of Iowa. So super excited for those two guys. Another guy really intriguing, a big offensive line class.

They brought in a bunch of prospects, a bunch of them also from Illinois. I got Cody Fox here from locally, a guy that had some big programs coming after him. He'd been recruited and had been verbally committed since his freshman campaign. But a guy from just down the street from you over in Arlington Heights, Will Nolan is at least on 3Media. He is the top-ranked guy there. Head offers, Minnesota, Vandy, Illinois, Syracuse, Duke, Iowa State, Indiana, amongst the offers there.

But sounds like one of those notable guys. 6'6", 275. And it's time to get back to get that butt kicker right on that offensive line. Hopefully, Nolan can be one of many up front. Yeah, for sure. No doubt about it. I mean, you look at him, he's got great size. And, you know, he's got some athleticism to him.

And those are the type of things that I feel like we really need on on the offensive line and again with the offensive lineman at iowa you never really know who's going to end up being being a star i mean you got guys over i mean in my class for example that that you know played tight end in high school and they'll become pretty good offensive linemen so you never really know but when you can when you can get prospects like that you can get guys that have that elite size, that play at a high level in high school, you're hoping to translate that to the college level. Being a guy that you can rely on on that offensive line to be a cornerstone for years to come. And that's the type of potential that, you know, you see in a guy like that. So, see, you never really know how offensive linemen is going to pan out.

I feel like that's probably like the toughest one to figure out when it comes to recruiting. But, you know, it is always encouraging when you can get, you know, top flight prospect guys like that in your building, especially at an offensive line factory like like iowa and you know you hopefully that a guy like that can continue to to bring on that iowa football tradition of you know being all around the offensive line and uh you know bringing back the offensive line play that we are accustomed to seeing quarterback with some speed uh, James Rezar comes in

from down in Jacksonville, Florida. Families from the upper Midwest, Wisconsin is where they grew up there. But a guy with some wheels, I guess the concern is accuracy and that has showed up at the high school level. But now we've seen it

a couple of different times. They got the class of 2025 already set with the quarterback in Jimmy Sullivan. Last year with Marco L Lyon as a guy that could move a little bit now Rezar maybe the fastest of the bunch that's intriguing at the very least yeah it's intriguing I mean you look at some of the the best teams that we've had over uh Coach Ference's uh tenure and I feel like one of the the traits of those teams is the fact that you

have a quarterback that is mobile and able to create things with his feet. And not necessarily you don't have to be, you know, a complete, you know, the explosive guy like Brad Banks. But, you know, you've got guys like, you know, CJ who can, you know, create and extend on a bunch of plays with their legs and then still create opportunities with the ball downfield. Those are the things that have had success, created success, offensive success for Iowa in the past. And it's good to see them starting to kind of get back to that mode of recruiting when it comes to the quarterback position. And you never really know how they'll turn out.

Obviously, you've had a bunch of quarterbacks over the past couple years that probably haven't panned out the way that we had been hoping that they would. But, you know, when you've got guys with mobile mobility in their legs and can create and extend plays, those are things that can help the offense get back to more of a standard that we're hoping for to go along with our great defense. So it's super intriguing, and it's not every day that you get a quarterback in your building

that can run 10-6 in the 100. So you can get a guy like that, you'll take it every single time. No doubt about it. All right, LaShawn, one final guy, and we did get a guy from Ohio, so I know that always makes your ears perk up when you hear that. Jalen Watson, a cornerback from over in Toledo, a guy that put up big numbers offensively,

but didn't play a whole bunch of defense, went to camp, and Phil Parker, I think, fell in love with him and what he can do. A guy with ball skills at cornerback. We know that's what Phil Parker likes. Yeah, yeah, Bill Parker loves it. And, you know, every time I always gasp, every time I have an opportunity to gasp for kids from Ohio, I do it. And especially with him coming from an extremely,

extremely good football program in Central Catholic over there in Toledo. I mean, they're really, really good on a year-in-year-out basis. So you know that they're coached really well. They play extremely good football there. So I'm sure when Coach Parker had an opportunity to see him in camp, he's just like, okay, yeah, this is going to be my guy. He might not be too known defensively yet, but we're going to go ahead and we're going to coach him up and we're going to get him right.

So you're super excited. I'm super excited about that um and you know to add to more of the ohio guys on the iowa roster so uh yeah it's definitely an intriguing move um and you know it's just one of those things that iowa does you know you you look at a guy and you they've been playing in a certain position in high school and then you look at them more and you're like, you're going to play this position, and you're going to be a great player doing this, even though it hasn't been what you're expecting.

So super excited for his development, and anytime you get an opportunity to get coached by Coach Parker, it's usually going to be a good thing. No doubt about it. We've definitely seen that throughout his tenure, both as a defensive back coach and now as a defensive coordinator. LaShawn, we'll come back and I gotta get some redemption here. You

throttled me during the regular season. I came back, made it tight at the end, but you got me in the final week of the season. Our picks contest presented by FanDuel. We will make them five bowl games coming up over the next week. We'll make our picks as we continue. This is the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast.

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back with you one final time on the LockedOn Hawkeyes podcast. It is time for our picks. We got five games here. We got a little Big Ten flavor to it. We got some good games as we make our way through the week. I decided not to just do like five games from Saturday because LaShawn, there's a bunch of yuck on there. But one of the games on Saturday is the Las Vegas Bowl. There is some time. I very much hope the Hawkeyes

are there. I love Las Vegas and would love to see the Hawkeyes playing in Sin City. Northwestern gets the call, though, for this one against Utah. Kyle Whittingham, great in bowl games, but he's got a lot of guys that are not part of it. What do you see as the Utes are favored by 6.5? Yeah, I don't think Utah will probably have the season that they were hoping to have, especially with them offensively struggling a little bit at times. I think they battled all year. But all in all, just didn't have the year they were expecting.

Whereas in the Northwestern, you didn't really know what to expect. I expected them to be, you know, probably one of the worst teams in the Big Ten. But they went and kind of proved everybody wrong. And they've done a great job with them. And they finished off the season extremely extremely strong and because of that reason i i kind of like northwestern to cover um you know uh they have been playing good football to finish the season and you know there was just a lot of just kind of up and downs with utah this season and it just kind of feels like they almost felt like all right let's just get this over with. Let's just kind of get to the next season.

So give me the Wildcats on that. I'm right there with you. And, you know, a big part of the handicap now that you have to do for these bowl games is who's going to be there, right, who's going to be playing. Now we know that Cam Rising is going to be back for another season with Utah next season. But the backups, the guys that played throughout the course of the year,

they're not going to be around. There is a whole lot of opt-outs there. And you kind of look through the list here and it is immense. And for that reason, I'm with you on Northwestern, Nate Johnson, their quarterback, Bryson Barnes, a backup. Both those guys are in the portal. Now Barnes is going to play in the game for Utah. And on the other side, Northwestern's got a couple of guys that are even in the portal. Only one of them, an offensive lineman, played a whole lot this season. So I'm going to grab the points.

I'm with you. Motivation there. I think Utah does win the game, but I think we get a good one. And I think that's all you can hope for in a bowl game. Pick number two. It is also on Saturday.

It is Air Force against James Madison. JMU was one of the stories of college football throughout the course of the season, trying to get the waiver in the Armed Forces Bowl. He got to take Air Force, right? Plus the departure of the head coach for Indiana from James Madison,

as Kurt Zanetti will not be there with the Dukes. I'm going to grab Air Force. I think they win this game outright. This is tough. This is a tough one on me. You know, I like Air Force a bunch. They didn't finish the year that they really wanted to. Star of the Year Strong was Dan Finner Strong, whereas JMU, they were strong throughout the entire year and then lost a tough one to Appalachian State in like overtime.

So they think they're a good football team. It's tough when you, when you lose your coach. But I don't, I like the way that they're playing and with the line being as small as it is, I honestly, it was like JMU on this one.

Going with James Madison. All right. Our first disagreement there. Let's go next to the day after Christmas. Detroit for Christmas time. Is there anything better? Well, for a Phil Flex program, I'm completely happy with that. They got Cole Kramer that they allegedly gave $30,000 to play in this bowl game as he was

departing. Calc Madness is in the transfer portal. He'll be leaving. They're looking for new quarterbacks. We'll see Darius Taylor if he's going to play this season. They're outstanding on running back. What's going to happen there. Tyler Newbin, they're great safety who might be a first rounder. I think that he would be sitting out of this one, but if there's one guy that can motivate his team with a whole bunch of crap, and that is the case

for Minnesota, it's that idiot Phil Fleck. Because of that, I'll lay it. Give me Minnesota minus the three and a half. Yeah. Uh,, I think I'm right there with you. You know, Bowling Green, they battled throughout the year, finished the year pretty strong. I think won like four out of their last five. But all in all, I think Minnesota is just a better team, and P.J. Flex is going to be able to motivate the guys, whoever happens to show up for them, even though it's Detroit in December.

It's going to be brutal, but I think PJ Flex does a great job of motivating his team and gets them up at any opportunity. Give me the Gophers on this one. We'll see if they disappoint me. Bad boy mowers a pinstripe bull. Miami is going to New York City. You played in this game. LaShawn, you know about it.

Both teams have some injuries, some opt-outs, including Rutgers, their best defense back. And Max Belton will not be playing in this game. They got a bunch of other guys in the portal. Miami will be playing without Tyler Van Dyke, their quarterback who's moving on to Wisconsin. A bunch of dudes opting out here. You know, I think the narrative for a lot of people is

going to be Miami cold weather, no chance. It's still going to be the Hurricanes. I'll take Miami in a flyer here. I probably look like an idiot because I don't think those guys will want to be in the cold, right? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, again, Miami had had some good games throughout the year. I mean, they played a lot of their ranked opponents extremely, extremely tough this year.

Whereas, you know, Rutgers, it seemed like they would play the teams tough and then just fall off at the end of the game and just end up getting, you know, blown out. So I like Miami a lot more in this than I do Rutgers, but it really is a toss-up. But I like Miami. They played tough the entire season, and every single ranked opponent that they played, I feel like they had an opportunity to beat them.

So we had a hurricane in this one. All right, we wrap things up with one of the more intriguing non-power bowls out there, the Elmville Bowl. Arizona, such a fun story as they just continue to get better and better as the season went on against Oklahoma. Your choice first up on this one should be a fun game down in San Antonio. Yeah, this is going to be a fun one. This will be a fun one.

And I think it's going to be really, really close. I do think Arizona will pull off just because I feel like the way that they finished the season this year, I think was phenomenal. I mean, they did an extremely good job defensively and then was able to obviously score enough on offense to keep themselves in a position to blow up these games.

But, you know, Oklahoma, I can never really count Oklahoma out of anything, even with, you know, some guys moving on the transfer portal. I just – something about Oklahoma that I like about them, and I feel like they'll definitely be able to keep this one close and not let Arizona kind of pull away on this one.

So give me the Sooners. Grabbing Oklahoma plus the three. I will do the same. Jackson Arnold, who we've heard a ton about, he's going to get the start here with Dylan Gabriel on his way over to Oregon. There's a reason Dylan Gabriel entered the transfer portal. Payday, yes, but Jackson Arnold is going to be there. I think we're going to find out a whole lot about him.

I'm with you. Give me the Sooners as we agree with our final pick. Those are our picks presented by FanDuel as we will make some more coming up next week as we get into bigger and bigger bowl games and including, of course, Iowa as they get ready for Tennessee. Merry Christmas, LaShawn. We'll talk to you again next week.

Yeah, Merry Christmas. Go Hawks.