Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Football: Mail Bag questions, Tom Kakert joins

Starting point is 00:00:00 Your Iowa football questions as we get ready for the big stretch here of eight games. It starts with Ohio State this week. Obviously the most difficult one. Plus we hear from Tom Kakert from HawkeyeReport.com. A busy Locked on Hawkeyes. You are Locked on Hawkeyes. Your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.

Starting point is 00:00:31 Welcome in. I'm Trent Condon, and this is the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Thanks for making Locked On 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. If you're on the audio side, Apple Reviews, whatever it is, five stars, that's what we're looking for. Helps us get in front of more Hawkeye fans.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Place your first $5 bet, you'll get started. With $200 in bonus bets guaranteed, visit FanDuel.com to get started. Well, I start today with a little bit of a frog in my throat, but we're off and running here today. And let's get the new week started with a lot of football conversation. Digging into the mailbag, your thoughts, your questions, your comments that come in on Twitter, social media, X, Facebook, and the like, and also what you say on the comment section over on YouTube.

Starting point is 00:01:27 So we're going to get into those here today. Tom Caker is going to join us. A lot of good insight into this Hawkeye football team, kind of what they went through during the bye week and what they're going to have in store with Ohio State this week. It is an incredibly difficult task against this Ohio State team. I guess the good news is Ohio State hasn't been tested, has not played a very difficult schedule to this point in time. We'll see what Iowa has, and we'll get into that more and more as the week goes on.

Starting point is 00:01:54 All right, let's get into your comments just a little bit and talk about some things. This one comes from UsernameInvalid. All right, there's a great start to things. The thing that's different about Lester is that he's an actual offensive coordinator. I loved how he was explaining things during media day. I felt like we never had anything from BF that was sniffing the depth of information and explanations that Lester gave us. Got to stay grounded and remember that it's his first year, better days are ahead. Just wait until he can recruit his own players. I think that's really well said and something that I've been continuing to try to relay here about this football team and what it

Starting point is 00:02:30 still can be. Yes, in the future, that's going to be great. And when he gets a quarterback that he wants, he gets the kind of system in place that he wants. But you just see that the leaps and bounds this team has made on the ground this season, and it is immense. He was able to move away from the old system of the zone blocking scheme. And though they were doing that recently, the big step forward that we've seen out of that, it just makes sense in today's environment, what they're able to do with the Shanahan offense and the zone blocking scheme. That's still a part of it, but doing it in a different way. And you're seeing that. And we've talked about in the past every day, or we talked about this a couple of times last week, where instead of that outside zone,

Starting point is 00:03:08 basically almost turning into kind of a sweet play to the outside. Now you're going off the inside hip of your tackle or even your tight end. So it's inside just a little bit more. And those creases have been absolutely huge. We've seen so many times in the past, an outside defensive end, an outside linebacker, being able to come from the backside of the play and make tackles and make plays. And because of that, that is something that overall has been a huge, huge component.

Starting point is 00:03:34 So we have seen definitely a big step forward out of this group, out of this team, and what they've been able to do on that side of the football. So that has been absolutely huge to this point in time of what we've seen out of this group. Continuing on with more of your comments here from YouTube, a couple more coming in.

Starting point is 00:03:53 How come the dean of coaches get it done? Not sure on that one, Holland's worth. What you're going for there. Did you see the right hash to left sideline pass to Gill followed by the opposite side to Gill? 32 ball yards, ball in the air. He's got plenty of arm strength. Just let it happen the next few weeks as the playbook gets deeper.

Starting point is 00:04:12 I think this is a great point. That's from Tom Nickel. And it's something that I continue to say. Guys, yes, he doesn't. Cade McNamara doesn't have a strong arm. We get that. But stop with the comments that he can't throw the ball 30 yards. It's just stupid. Stop

Starting point is 00:04:25 being dumb. He can throw the football 30, 40, 50 yards. That is not what it is. Does he have the arm strength to throw a deep out? Does he have the arm strength to do that deep stop route and just have the ball whizzing through the air? No, he doesn't. But that's okay. There are a lot of quarterbacks at the collegiate level that don't have the arm strength. You had arm strength Spencer Petras. He's a terrible quarterback. You had arm strength Deacon Hill. Terrible quarterback. Cade McNamara is still working off the rust.

Starting point is 00:04:52 He's still going to get better. And just you can say that this offense needs to get better. That the passing game has to get better. I say the exact same thing here. It's true. Yes, it has to get better. Yes, there has to be plays down the field. You can't go up against a team like Ohio State and as talented as that team is defensively and try to

Starting point is 00:05:10 do everything 15 yards and in from the line of scrimmage. It's not going to work. We all get that. But then to go a step further, well, you can't even throw the football that far. It's not true. Go back and watch the first game. Off his back foot, he threw on 41 yards into the end zone for a touchdown. Off his back foot, he can't throw the ball 30 yards. Knock it off. Just use a little bit of mental gymnastics. People continue to go down. It drives me crazy.

Starting point is 00:05:36 You can say he doesn't have a strong arm because that is a truthful statement. But the stuff that he can't do it. And if you think that there is a guy right now that's ready to play that has a stronger arm, I'd like to see him because it's not Brendan Sullivan. Brendan Sullivan's strength is not his arm strength either. Is he a better runner? Sure. Is his accuracy there? We don't know. He had one game against Northwestern, one game that he was accurate, that he was making plays again, outside a lot of scrimmage, screen plays, and little bubbles, and things like that. One game where he was able to go down the field.

Starting point is 00:06:10 But that is not part of his game either. Don't think that Brendan Sullivan's going to come in there and he's going to look like Jeff George. That's not what it is. You don't have it there. And Marco Lyoness, he's not there. And there's nobody else on the roster that's there. James Rezar is likely never going to play quarterback for this team. And there's a

Starting point is 00:06:28 reason this guy was recruited out of Florida and nobody from the ACC and the SEC basically wanted him. All right. So that's kind of what we're at, at this point in time, just use a little bit of reasoning, a little bit of thought process, and we will figure that out as we go forward. All right. Let's continue with your comments here again from YouTube as we're making our way. Sorry, my blood pressure getting a little bit higher there. This from Cody. Tim Lester definitely has me excited on what the passing offense could and can be. When Iowa gets the passing game figured out, look out. Go Hawks. Great stuff there, Cody. You're exactly right. And there are going to be more layers. And with this bye week, I think there is a real potential that we're going to see a step forward, that we're going to see

Starting point is 00:07:07 them take a big jump through. And we're going to see this passing game with more layers. I mean, we heard Tim Lester say this back last week during the press conference that they had some deep shots. They had some things that they thought they were going to be able to do some plays that were there. Caleb Brown, he runs the right route. Guess what? It's a touchdown. He was there. He played one play. And that was the reason he only played one play.

Starting point is 00:07:29 It's because he didn't run the route correctly. And when you don't run the round correctly, and there's a touchdown there and you miss on it, you're not going to play. Now, will he be ready to go this week against his former team, the Buckeyes? You would certainly hope so. But I want to keep an eye on that front too. All right, let's continue here going on.

Starting point is 00:07:46 This is from Mikey Mike. No, the passing game can't get going with that noodle arm back there. They don't have anybody on the roster that's going to be better, Mikey. There just isn't. This was the year that they should have went out and got a key B with arm strength to convert the third and 11 through the air. Kyle McCord was out there. They were.

Starting point is 00:08:02 They sniffed around. He's stuck in Syracuse. We're no running game. Instead, they reinvested in a broken down noodle arm who's really 5'11 instead of 6'1. Okay. That doesn't matter. Drew Brees is 5'11. I mean, his height, come on. That's where we're going. He doesn't have a strong arm. That's fine. But say that he can't do it. He can't make a third 11 play. Come on. He's made third 11 plays this year again use a little bit of deeper reasoning when it comes to that we can get frustrated i get frustrated just like you but let's not go off the path uh just join go hawks is from tom array thought from what i saw the game and the

Starting point is 00:08:38 coordinator comment lots of confidence in kade by the oc yes absolutely tim lester we know that he is in and kade McNamara special teams better and big Parker adjustment after the half. That's a great point. You're going back to the Minnesota game. Some of the buttons that were pressed, they're really bottled up everything they were trying to do. Minnesota had to go away from the run and that's going to be paramount this week against Ohio state. We'll see about Will Howard. Look like he got banged up a little bit in the game against Michigan state, how he's going to be where it is. There is another one there.

Starting point is 00:09:07 So a lot of good comments here. We got a few more we'll get into, but coming up next, we're going to talk to Tom Kakert, HawkeyeReport.com. I talk with Tom Kakert about everything happening with this Iowa football team, what the bye week is looking like as we roll through. This is Locked on Hawkeyes. Today's episode of Locked on Hawkeyes is brought to you by FanDuel. Hey, NFL fans, you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel.

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Starting point is 00:10:02 Guaranteed $200 in bonus bets when you place your first $5 bet with FanDuel. Just visit FanDuel.com for more. FanDuel.com. And, of course, not just NFL. They got you covered on the college front. How about Iowa, Ohio State? That thing all summer long. Buckeyes were more than a three-touchdown favorite.

Starting point is 00:10:20 Now inside of three touchdowns. Down to 20 over at FanDuel. Again, get started with $200 in bonus bets. Guaranteed when you place your first to 20 over at FanDuel. Again, get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet with FanDuel. Go to FanDuel.com. Here's Tom Kekert to talk about the hawkeyes tom i appreciate you coming on as always no football this week we'll recap what the coordinator said but i want to start with you know something remarkable that's taking place uh and that is the uh lingering effect of uh people going to i to iowa women's games last year and despite the fact that uh that caitlin clark has moved on to the pros uh they

Starting point is 00:11:06 sold every single ticket that is remarkable a year later that uh that obviously it moved the needle and a whole lot of women's basketball fans uh maybe have been born or coming back for more it's really cool and it's testament to the program program that Lisa Bluter built and the impact that Kaitlyn had on Iowa women's basketball. And I think both of those people are probably the most proud of anyone that this season has sold out because that's a lasting impact that they're having on this program, even though both of them are no longer involved in the program. Kaitlyn and Lisa, they're, you know, Caitlin's in WNBA, just wrapped up her season, and Lisa's

Starting point is 00:11:52 in retirement now. And, but they're, they built something. And I think what happened was fans came to those games and they just had a ball. They just enjoyed it. And they found out that it's a really good product. And now we'll see if it can kind of stand the test of time. But for this year, at least everybody's back and everybody's excited. And now we'll see how good this team can be.

Starting point is 00:12:23 Let's go back to football, Tom, and a breath of fresh air, hearing Tim Lester talk offense, being competent, knowing what he's doing. That aside, there was one concerning element, and I know it was kind of flipping. It was a little jokey, but talking about a couple of shots, but he got overruled. I know there was a lot of message board chatter about that. So you were there. I watched it. I read the

Starting point is 00:12:49 transcript and I just wanted to get a sense. How did you take that? How did you take that statement? Because certainly in script it is eye-opening when you see something like that. Oh, I don't 100% think that Kirk was probably on the headset and said you know what?

Starting point is 00:13:05 No shot plays. We're just going to get out of here with a win. And let's not mess around. Let's not take any chances. Let's just run. We're running the ball really well. Let's just grind this bad boy out. Grab that pig and let's head south.

Starting point is 00:13:20 And that's probably what the head coach said. And it was just, you know, maybe there's a different situation and a different game and everything where he's going to say, yeah, just go ahead, take the shot. But he just wanted to get out of there with a win and take no chances because, you know, as Kirk will tell you probably, the two out of three things that can happen when you, uh, when you throw a football like bad, you know, the incompletion, the interception, and you can catch it and that's

Starting point is 00:13:50 good, but two other things are not so good. So I think he just wanted to, wanted to get out of Minneapolis with the, with a pig and a win. So this is new to me. I'm not familiar with this story. Uh, so, so for our audience audience that's in the same boat as I am, what point of the game was this, Tom? It was third and fourth quarter is what Tim talked about on Wednesday or Tuesday when he mentioned that he had kind of thrown out the idea of some shot plays, a couple shot plays in the second half when things were going well. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:14:26 And he said I got, did he say outvoted or overruled? I can't, I think he got outvoted is what he said. Yeah, one to nothing probably. Yes. I don't know that there was a whole committee there. I think it was a committee of one. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome.

Starting point is 00:14:44 That's great. Go ahead, Trent. Well, a couple other components to that one. You know, Phil Parker, you get kind of grumpy, Phil, every once in a while. He seemed, I don't want to say on edge, but it's okay. Okay. It was grumpy, Phil. He was there because he was a little defensive on a couple of different things. I can't remember who asked the question, but about getting to the quarterback. Look, this team is playing really well against the run, but outside of the backups with Llewellyn and Brian Allen, who've shown an ability to get the quarterback out of the starters,

Starting point is 00:15:16 that's not really how this group is built. Do you anticipate starting maybe next week against Ohio State, they're going to have to dial up more blitzes, more pressure, and we saw a lot of that from Nick Jackson in the second half against the Gophs. Yeah. By the way, that was my question that I asked him. And it was really not even – he took it the wrong way. He took it the wrong way.

Starting point is 00:15:35 I was just like, do you feel like you're getting enough out of your pass rush right now? How do you feel about those guys and their development mainly? It was not a, hey, your pass rush stinks. What are you doing about it? It wasn't anything framed like that. But he was on the defensive from the get-go when he was rattling all those stats off about how they were okay. And I think he had heard enough noise out there about them giving up,

Starting point is 00:16:05 um, big plays. And so he wanted, he was going to come back and just kind of swat us over the head and say, look, all these other numbers are really good. So pipe down media boys, you know?

Starting point is 00:16:19 Uh, but that's your question. Yeah. I think the only, you know, the one guy that hasn't done a lot is Deontay Craig. He really hasn't. And I really, and Blair Sanderson brought this up this week, too, that in that pass situation,

Starting point is 00:16:36 I'd rather have Aaron Graves out there with Brian Allen at the deep tackle, then Deontay Craig, because Craig's just not getting any pressure at the, at the feet of the quarterback at all. It just, there's just not much there, but Aaron Graves has gotten, you know, the ability to get to the quarterback and we've seen what Brian Allen can do too. So that's what, that's one of the things I think would be smart to do right now. Uh, LeVar Woods was also part of it. I think one of the more remarkable stories of the first four games of the season, cause we just didn't know, right. How Drew Stevens was going to come back after the disappointing end to last year has missed a kick. I mean, hasn't missed. I think it's

Starting point is 00:17:21 remarkable. And whatever he did during the off season, I don't know if it was coaching. I don't know if it was sitting down with a sports psychologist, whatever it was, Tom. I'd love to know because boy, oh boy, what a difference that amount of time could make from when we saw him at the end of 23 season to what we've seen so far in 24 night and day. Yeah. And I wouldn't say, I don't want to say Drew's cocky, but Drew's confident in himself. And then the experience, his first kind of bump in the road as a college player, I think kind of humbled him a little bit.

Starting point is 00:17:57 And I think LeVar would tell you that. And now he's just smoking the ball. I mean, he's, in fact, I asked LeVar if they gave any thought to kicking a field goal at the end of the Iowa State game as opposed to trying to throw that ill-fated Hail Mary. And he said it didn't come up, but, you know, and I asked him kind of what's kind of Drew's ultimate range. And he said from the logo. So we're talking 60 plus where he feels comfortable.

Starting point is 00:18:31 And, you know, we've been told that Drew could max out at about 67 yards, which would have put him in shouting distances and probably within range on that last second field goal against Iowa State. Could you imagine that? Oh, unbelievable. Oh, my gosh. And one of them being like 65 yards or something. That would have been nuts. It would have been nuts.

Starting point is 00:18:57 It's been buts, candy nuts. We don't get to see it. No, no, no. It would have been more exciting maybe than that Hail Mary turned out to be at the end in the way that that one finished up. The wounded duck? Not good. Yes, yeah. That looked like something Bill Kilmer used to throw up after the day, right?

Starting point is 00:19:18 Just throw it up there. That football looked a lot different back in the day, too, as opposed to the one that we have today. I continue to hear it on my podcast, on the comments section comment section oh you can't even throw the ball 40 yards Kate McNamara can throw the ball 40 yards he did it against Illinois State in the air off his back foot he's not a strong warm quarterback but it feels like this narrative that Kate McNamara can't throw the ball more than 20 yards down the field. I think we're getting a little bit too far. How about you, Tom? Oh, it's crazy. I think so many people just kind of checked out on him because of the outrage after the kids' day thing.

Starting point is 00:19:59 And I think people were just checked out and they were just going to look for things that he did wrong. I thought it was just fascinating that Tim Lester came out and just like basically shot everybody down and said, look, that was his best game against Minnesota. Mind you, he threw for 62 yards and he went back for all the throws. And he was like, yeah, about six of them were bad routes and guys dropping football.

Starting point is 00:20:24 So it was really 11 of 13. And, you know, he just took up for, and Tim Lester has done something that I didn't think was possible at the University of Iowa, which is he's a popular offensive coordinator right now. And I never thought that would be possible because I can't remember a time where the offensive coordinator was, was well-liked and respected and enjoyed.

Starting point is 00:20:51 And, um, uh, you know, this hasn't happened very often. So I think that's helping. And I think the way he explained it was basically they've had like eight weeks with this offense, and it's complex, and so it's going to get better. And I think it's helping that they're obviously Caleb Johnson's having an epic season, and that's certainly helping things right now. HawkeyeReport.com, part of the On3 Network. Tom, anything you'd like to promote

Starting point is 00:21:25 before we let you go? Nothing this week. But if you're into the winter sports, we've had a really busy week with all the highlighting men's and women's basketball and basketball recruiting and men's and women's wrestling and recruiting for both those sports. So a lot of good content up there this week from us for the winter sports. So a lot of good content up there, uh, this week from, from us for the winter sports. And back in action next week, we'll catch you. Will we catch you driving to Columbus on Friday? No, flying over there. That's a, that's a little, uh,

Starting point is 00:21:56 too far out of range. Gotcha. Tom, have a, enjoy the bye week. Uh, which I guess starts tonight. I'm going to watch Washington too with a week after Ohio State. They'll be at Kinnick Stadium, so we'll get a look at the Huskies. Tom, have a great week. Talk to you in seven days. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Yep. See you, buddy. Tom Caker. There he is. Tom Caker, HawkeyeReport.com,

Starting point is 00:22:15 talking some Iowa football bye week and what we heard from the coordinators last week. We continue on here. A couple of news and notes to still get into, including a change for Iowa and some start times being announced for the kickoff times. Coming up, we'll get into that as we continue. This is Locked on Hawkeyes. Today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast is brought to you by GameTime. GameTime has a new feature called GameTime Picks that

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Starting point is 00:24:12 Wrapping things up here and kickoff time. Now, we've been telling you since the summer that the Iowa-Washington game was going to be an 11 a.m. kickoff. And it will be, as that was announced on Monday. So we have that one already in the books. We know that that is happening. It'll be 11 a on Monday. So we have that one already in the books. We know that that is happening. It'll be 11 a.m. kickoff for that one. And you look towards the future.

Starting point is 00:24:30 We're going to talk about this a little bit more tomorrow, the scheduling that went into play. So instead of Florida-Atlanta coming up next year for a non-conference game, it's going to be Albany, the Great Danes. What do I remember from Albany? They pushed UConn one year in the NCAA basketball tournament. 16-1. They had a couple of Iowans on their roster.

Starting point is 00:24:48 Brian Wilson from Lower Cedar Rapids. Was it Brian Wilson? Wilson and Lillis. Jenny Lillis' brother was on that Albany team. Outside of that, who knows? They made the trip out to Hawaii this year. That was a disaster. They had to go commercial because somebody didn't pick them up.

Starting point is 00:25:04 Their bus didn't get there. That's all I know about Albany. It's going to be an absolute blitzkrieg. There should be domination, even with a completely new roster. It looks like for Iowa football next season. But I think there are some other layers that are incredibly important to this and some layers to what the new conference is going to look like, scheduling agreement, a meeting set up again next week with the SEC and the Big Ten. They're pushing for automatic bids for their league, for the Big Ten, for the SEC, for automatic bids for each of those leagues

Starting point is 00:25:35 in a 12 or potentially 14-team playoff. That definitely is going to be significant, really change the course before we even see the way that it happens. So we will talk about that a little bit more again on tomorrow's program. We are out of time for today. Thanks for being with us, and thanks for making Locked On Hawkeyes your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:25:54 We've got more on the schedule. We're going to start breaking things down. Coming up later in the week, Jay Stephens from Locked On Buckeyes. He's going to join us. We'll do a crossover edition, get a deep dive into Ohio State and figure out what it's going to take to take down this behemoth in Columbus. Is it unwinnable?

Starting point is 00:26:11 No, but it's going to take a lot. I'm talking about threading the needle. That's what it's going to take for Iowa football. We'll get into that. And we got you covered from all angles each and every day here on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Thanks for making Locked On Hawkeyes

Starting point is 00:26:23 your first listen today. For your second listen, find Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Thanks for making Locked On Hawkeyes your first listen today. For your second listen, find Locked On College Football. From NIL deals to never-ending conference realignment rumors, Spencer McLaughlin gets you ready for an exciting season on the gridiron. We got Grahams here now, and he's got a full breakdown of all the big ones out there. Find Locked On College Football on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts.

Starting point is 00:26:43 We'll be back with you tomorrow on the Hawkeye front until then go Hawks.

Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Football: Mail Bag questions, Tom Kakert joins

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