Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Football Mailbag on the Ferentz family, Iowa Men's Basketball thoughts

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Trent Condon returns with a mailbag edition of the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast.Plenty of thoughts, comments and questions on the firing of Brian Ferentz, the rest of the Iowa football season and what is next for Kirk Ferentz.Then some thoughts on Iowa basketball after the win in exhibition play and what to expect from the Hawkeye hoops team this season.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.Athletic BrewingGo to AthleticBrewing.com and enter code LOCKEDON to get 15% off your first online order or find a store near you! Athletic Brewing. Milford, CT and San Diego, CA. Near Beer.PrizePicksGo to PrizePicks.com/lockedoncollege and use code lockedoncollege for a first deposit match up to $100! Daily Fantasy Sports Made Easy!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins!  Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's a Hawkeye mailbag edition of Locked On Hawkeyes. Your questions, thoughts, and comments. And, yeah, basketball started up. We talk about the exhibition game all today. 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. Come in. My name is Trent Condon, and this is the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Thanks for making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day. We're available wherever you get podcasts. Make sure to hit us up with a five-star while you're there. Or if you want to watch us on YouTube, you can do that and hit that subscribe button. All that helps us get in front of more Hawkeye fans.

Today's episode is brought to you by PrizePix. Go to prizepix.com slash lockedoncollege and use code lockedoncollege for a first deposit match up to $100. Daily fantasy sports made easy well we are a day away from our appearance at merkels in wrigleyville we will be there both friday and saturday i'll be doing my radio show uh tomorrow from 11 until one o'clock and then we'll be live with locked on hawkeyes from merkels in wrigleyville it's the hawkeye bar chicago people you know about it, I'm sure. If you're coming from outside the area, want to find a fun place to be,

fun place to watch Hawkeyes, hang out with other Hawkeye fans, and maybe meet some Hawkeye dignitaries. Dallas Clark, San LaPorta, possibly going to be in town for that one. Going to be stopping by Merkel's along with a whole host of other people. We got Tom Kakert stopping by from Hawkeye Report, Brett Ridge from the Hawkeye Huddle,

lots of other people going to be down, going to be a great time. And of course, myself and LaShawn Daniels, a former Hawkeye running back, will be doing our show there Friday, two o'clock, and we'll be there throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Plus Saturday morning, getting ready for the game and get lubricated, right? Get those vocal cords ready for the matchup. Let's get into it today. And so many comments, so many very good comments, some comments that left me thinking, some comments that left me scratching my head, but I love the comment page and what you guys do over on the YouTube side of things.

You can also hit us up on Twitter with your thoughts. Always appreciate everybody's thoughts. Either find me at Trent Condon, or you can find us at Lockdown Iowa is where you can find us on Twitter X. But let's get into it here and start with the comments. We're just going to run through here and talk about a lot of different things. Obviously, most of the comments have been about Kirk Ferentz. And we'll start right here with Charles Nehas. KF and his son-in-law working for him too.

It's a shame what Barta and KF did for Iowa football. Well, there's where my stepping off point is. Gary Barta was a terrible athletic director, which is bad. There's no doubt about it. But Kirk Ferentz has done a lot for this program. And the 25 years of success, being bowl eligible, what, 22 of the last 23 years. That's, it's unthinkable. Michigan has had downturns.

Penn State has had downturns. Alabama has had downturns. Go across the country, and this is the most consistent winner, short of Wisconsin maybe, in the country and Ohio State. That is something to be said about that, and Kirk Ferentz has been at the helm. Do we want more? Absolutely. As a fan,

do you want more? There's no doubt about it, but there's a lot done. Agree with you with Barta and the son-in-law, different than your son. It just is. And a different making him not a position coach, making him the offensive coordinator. From Bieberz99, how do we know Ferentz and Getz are actually adversaries? Is this like a confirmed thing? No, it's not confirmed, but it's just reality. Look, when somebody makes a decision to fire your son, you know there's going to be some friction here. And I anticipate once you lower the temperature of this, when an ability to look back and understand more of the reasoning behind this, I think this is something that's going to make sense.

Look, Beth Goetz has been somebody that every coach, and in fact, Kirk Ferentz before this, has been very much somebody that has been well-celebrated. And that's why many people believe that it's a foregone conclusion that she's going to become the athletic director. She stood up to Kirk. And standing up to Kirk is not an easy thing to do. You're talking about a hall of fame coach. You're talking about a coach that has a lot of

success. You have a talking about a coach that has a lot of power and not just power running a football program, but power within the university power with the board of regents power with the people that are writing checks to make this thing all go. That's where he has a lot of power. And Beth Goetz stood up. On the outside, it looks easy. Winner, especially the interim role, not as easy. Drew, there's nothing special about this team or program. Disagree there, Drew. There's absolutely something special about this program. The consistent nature of winning is special. It doesn't happen across the country.

There are very few programs that have something like this. Let's see, what else do we got here as we scroll through your comments on a mailbag edition of Lockdown Hawkeyes. Sammy, 2840. What this pathetic offense. What if they had to play Ohio State and Michigan this year? Wow, slaughter.

The schedulers have been kind to us. No doubt. And Sammy, that was one of the big reasons that I was all in on this season. The schedule set up beautifully. The only difficult game was against Penn State. The home schedule set up incredibly well. The road trips were not overly daunting. Even this game in Wrigley Field, just on and on and on. Sammy continues next year. The party's over with USC Washington joining the fun. There's no doubt this was the year to do it. And there's still four games to go. We will see if that is the case.

From Liberty Farms, Iowa, Kirk should also go. There's been a lot of this. His mantra of, I'm just after wins, no matter how ugly and dependent upon the defense and special teams, which I believe at this point is a philosophy to pad his most winning coach in Iowa history, just doesn't cut it for the whole program. Look, I got to step away there.

Kirk is not in this to become the most winning coach in Iowa history. That's not what this is about. It is to win games. And that's the bottom line. Now, I argue that with a more competent offense, that there would be more wins here with somebody that actually knew what they were doing as a play caller, that the success that we've had would be even more over the last six and seven years and that's where my frustration lies it's been good when you look most wins over the last five ten years and i was right up there in the top 8 10 12 in the country and that's great but i continue

to go back what about what it could have been with somebody better as an offensive coordinator with an evolution offensively? That is something that definitely frustrates me. Jack Rifleman, five, six, two. Don't know if you think in terms of Bob Cummings here has the worst case scenario. Yeah, that's a scary one. And old timers will tell you just about that, that it was bad. Look, I was born in 1980. I know nothing but really success. When I was in college, my freshman year at Iowa, it was Hayden's last year. My sophomore year was Kirk's first year. So I saw the downturn, but that was two years. And by year two of Kirk, you could see at the end of the season, they were making strides. By year three, they're bowl

eligible, go to the Alma Bowl and win. And then, of course, the illustrious 2002 season and what that all was. So old timers will tell you the Cummings era was awful. Frank Lottemotter, brutal. It was a long time, even going back to Jerry Burns and the transition for Shevsky, maybe having his hand in there too much or not making it great. Yeah, lots of frustration there. Kevin Downey. The more I look at it, the more I think KF is done.

He effed up and is tired. Probably somewhat embarrassed, as he should be. Agree with that. At an NIL Big Ten changes, he's gassed. I thought that during the press conference on Tuesday. I thought the same thing, Kevin, that he was done. That this was going to ultimately be his swan song. But after hearing his comments last night during his radio show,

seeing the statement that he put out on Twitter, well, not him because we know he doesn't do Twitter, but you know where I'm going. Yeah, I definitely agree where you go and what you say on that front. I thought that, but it definitely changed and evolved for me during that. Let's get a couple more in here. We're going to also talk some Hawkeye hoops coming up, but lots of great comments out there.

Let's see here. Love your pod. That's from Kyle Stille. Absolutely appreciate that, Kyle. Appreciate all of you for listening, even the ones that don't like me very much. Hey, I love having you guys out there listening, and we can debate, and I love to debate. This is from Donald Countryman, 7878. I'll tell you, he isn't willing to get off his overpaid butt and blank and blank

and go out there and recruit Iowa four and five star quarterbacks. Look, he's tried. Iowa staff has tried to get those four and five star quarterbacks, but they're not coming. This goes to another point. Of course they try. They go out there and they offer Justin Fields. They go out there and offer the who's who of quarterbacks at the high school level. They're not coming to Iowa. They're not coming because of the system. They're not coming to Iowa because of what they have become offensively. Another part of that is the mismanagement of the quarterback position because they're going to try Deacon Hill out there one more time coming up on Saturday against Northwestern. And yes, they went out and got Cade McNamara.

He was damaged goods and we saw that and they should have had a better plan in place, but we're supposed to be led to believe because Kirk's a practice and this is what he tells us all the time. We're to believe that this is the best option while we see it in practice. There's a difference between practice and games. A Deacon Hill certainly does not have it in games. The most turnover worthy plays in college football. He is a bad quarterback. So it either says that you evaluated poorly or the guys that you brought in, the kids that you're recruiting at the high school level with Joe Labus, with Marco Lyon, are brutal too. And that's another indictment on the staff. Look, the decision to make Brian Ferentz offensive coordinator was a bad one.

I said it at the time and I maintained it over the last seven years. However, what is more egregious in my mind is after Ken O'Keefe retired, not going out and bringing in a real quarterback coach, just letting Brian become the quarterback coach. He knew nothing about it. He knows nothing about the mechanics involved.

He knows nothing about quarterback play. We can argue he doesn't know a whole lot about offensive systems as well. But that aside, the quarterback development and the recruiting of quarterbacks, he got something there. Absolutely. We continue on Locked On Hawkeyes

with more of your thoughts, more of your comments. Love these kind of episodes, getting everybody's thoughts out there. You can always hit us up as well. We will continue with the conversation. A whole lot going on in the world of the Iowa Hawkeyes. We're here for you each and every day. Again, we will see you tomorrow, Friday

at Merkel's 2 o'clock. Myself and LaShawn Daniels with the live Lockdown Hawkeyes. Looking forward to that as we will come there. Stop on out, say hello, hang out with us, and maybe I'll even buy you a cold one. That's coming up tomorrow. We continue Lockdown Hawkeyes looking forward to that as we will come there. Stop on out, say hello, hang out with us, and maybe I'll even buy you a cold one. That's coming up tomorrow. We continue Locked on Hawkeyes. Today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast

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We continue with the mailbag and continue with your comments going through and talking about this Iowa football team and the situation this week as Brian Ferentz is out as offensive coordinator, though he will continue through the end of the season. This is from Larry Waltman. Trent, you have proved how you know little of Iowa football history. Well, Larry, bring it. I would maintain that I have a pretty good grasp of Iowa football history, and I think anybody that's listened to this podcast for a while would know this.

Little of what caused the offensive trouble the last two and a half years. What was it, Larry? Offensive line play, brutal. Quarterback play, awful. Wide receivers, not good. System, broken. They're all parts of it. All of them work together. Yes, it wasn't one singular issue. It was not just Brian. That's right. But as the offensive coordinator, it's on him. He's the one that brought in these players. He's part of the development of the offensive line. He's the one that's calling plays. It does come back to a guy. There has to be a scapegoat

and there's no doubt Brian Ferentz has to be this guy. Larry continues, my guess is you'll be calling for Fran to be fired as you and other Hawkeye podcasters have been calling the last six years. Well, Larry, you're a new timer. That's fine. If you've been listening to me either here on Lockdown Hawkeyes for the last year and a half or on radio for the last two decades, you know that's not the case. I am very much a Fran McCaffrey fan. I believe that he is absolutely underserved and the amount of praise that he deserves getting this team to nine

tournaments in the last 10 seasons is not easy to do in Iowa basketball. He has got them back to a level that they have not been in a very long time. Everybody loves to point at Dr. Tom, his final season, getting to the Sweet 16 in his lame duck year. I remember what happened before that. A decade without making it to a Sweet 16. This is what Iowa basketball is, and I think people should absolutely praise Ray McCaffrey for what he's done. Now, is this team going to be good? We'll get that. We'll get to that a little bit later on. Liberty Farms, another one from Liberty Farms, Iowa. Just one more Ference to remove with the Pac-12 teams coming. Yeah, we talked about that. And absolutely, it's a changing

environment. Now, I am not a proponent of Kirk going out I hope that this is the push that he needs to bring in an offensive coordinator with the background look I could afford to pay the new television contract I was one of the top 15 revenue making departments in all of college athletics no excuses here no chance to go cheap and look if we get through this and it's just an ascension of john budmeier i'm gonna be raising hell you can't do that you just can't this fan base is so upset this and it goes deeper than just the fan base look the big money donors they know and the people that make these decisions at the highest level know it, it cannot just be, we're going to run it back again with same old, same old. It has to be a change philosophically in what they do offensively.

Eric Baker, he blames the players for getting hurt. Yeah, that was a, that was an odd moment. And it leads down to this. I think there was a very real chance if Beth gets, did not make the decision that she did in the firing of Brian Ferentz. If she didn't do that, that Kirk very easily would have said, we had injuries. The excuses would have continued. And though maybe some roles would have been changed, that Brian would have been back in some capacity.

Yeah, he didn't hit the benchmarks. Didn't get to the 25 points per game. However, could they reassign him? Become tight ends coach, offensive line coach, whatever it may be. I think there was a possibility of that. And this took away all that ambiguity. It took away any ability for Kirk to go that direction. That's why this needed to happen.

In today's environment, with recruiting the way that it is, with the transfer portal opening up in a month, you absolutely had to be at the forefront of that. i would did and beth gets did it and that is a great thing hair trigger at 83 17 should have happened after last season but better late than ever completely agree with you there hair trigger my concern now is who kirk will hire yeah we talked about that or does he slide in john byer all right we just got that one you're absolutely right me and hair trigger on the same wavelength of that. Village idiot.

Will Brian still be calling plays the rest of the year? Unfortunately, yes. He is still going to be the guy there. Now, maybe this is, I don't know. Maybe this is a motivation where he lets it rip. We'll see. The offensive line is still not great. It's okay.

Past blocking has been okay, but if it's still Deacon Hill out there, it's very difficult to envision that this looks a whole lot different for the final four games of the regular season. From Kirk Rabb in 94-95, didn't the head coach hire his son as offensive coordinator? He did.

Why would he not personally dismiss him? Seems odd to me because the way that it's set up and the way that they got away around state nepotism laws in order to make this happen is they made the athletic director the direct supervisor to Brian Ferenc. So that's why this comes down. Seems the offensive struggles further reflect negatively on the head coach. It's his philosophy of team play and responsibility for wins

and ultimately is. Absolutely, no doubt about it. And the reason, though, is just that. From Rex Stratton, Kirk Ferentz has, in the last 15 years, had issues arise at the team with drug use, drug sales, alcohol abuse, acquisitions of sexual abuse. On the field, his conservative play calling,

not going forward on fourth down. The quarterback's situation was only stable with Stanley, and he continues on. There's a lot going on. I thought at today's presser, he was pissed that Bryant got the ax. There's no doubt. He was upset. And I think he was most upset that it happened in season. What he said to the reporter who asked him if he was going to go to, his teeth were gnashing.

They were. And considers the next game. That's it, folks. Good stuff there from Rex. Lots of good comments in here, and I'm not going to be able to get through them all, but absolutely. Keep hitting us up with the comments. We'll continue with these a whole lot more. These are coming back from Tuesday in the press conference reaction. From the middle ground with Ben, I have a feeling after watching Kirk's presser today, he's going to retire after the season. Again, talked about this a little bit earlier, Ben. And yeah, I thought the same thing afterwards.

I read it the same way. Ultimately, though, after the response we saw on Wednesday, both in his radio show and in that release that they put up on Twitter under Iowa football, that changed my opinion on that one just a little bit. Lots of football. We'll continue to dissect. We'll get LaShawn's comments on this coming up on the tomorrow podcast again, live from

Merkel's in Wrigleyville. But as we continue here on Lockdown Hawkeyes, the basketball team started off their season with an exhibition win. I got the BTN Plus app once again and paid the $9.99 to watch it. The thoughts? We might be looking at a long season of

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Trent Cotten, back with you one final time on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. As always, thanks for making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day. Lots of great comments there. Let's get into a little basketball to wrap up. So watched it on Monday night and didn't get it to it late

because us here in Central Iowa in the Des Moines area, we do trick-or-treating the day before Halloween. They call it beggar's night. It's weird. I know for you in eastern and western Iowa, you're like, what is wrong with you? I have no idea. Look, I've lived here now for 17 years. I still don't get it, but it's the way it was, so wasn't able to watch

it live. Had the kids out trick-or-treating. Had a great time, but we get the kids down to bed. Wife goes to bed. Time to watch a little Iowa basketball. And right away, Hawks get down 16-6. Look out.

Or take it on Quincy. It's an exhibition game. And the final score of 103-76 I don't think is indicative of the way that this game really looked. Iowa came back, got the lead. It was a lot of the freshmen that helped get them the lead back, or not even get it back, get it for the first time. Price Sanford was hitting some threes. That was good to see.

I've told a lot of people this. Price Sanford, at this point in his career, has a more well-rounded game than his brother Peyton. There's more to his game than just a shooter, though on Monday it looks like he was just a shooter out there, and that's what he did. But he can put it on the deck a little bit better at this point in his career, post up a little bit more. He can do a few different things than we saw Peyton early in his career. Peyton's Peyton. He's going to hit shots. He's going to be really good this year. In fact, I think he might be the leading scorer.

If it's not him, Ben Kricke is going to be right there. Kricke, first time seeing him in live action since watching him last year in the Missouri Valley Conference at Valpo. He's thrifty. He's nifty. He's not a high riser by any means. He knows how to use his body, though. He can also knock down an open shot from the outside. That'll be good to see. And a really good free throw shooter. Shot 81% from the free throw line a year ago at Valpo. He's a guy that's going to get to the line a bunch, and he's going to score when he gets there, which is a good thing to see from the post guy.

We still felt for Bracha, how good he was last year, but free throws, not exactly always a strength for him. And hopefully what we saw last year from Crick, he continues this year in the Big Ten. My biggest disappointment was the point guard position and what we saw from the starter for the game in DeSante Bowen. DeSante Bowen had a bunch of careless turnovers. And though he's quick and he's agile and he can get to the rim and he turned the corner a couple of times and got a couple of buckets, got to put back in there. He's a good athlete, not a great shooter,

but the careless turnovers, it's just, you can't have it. And I thought we were going to see more out of DeSante Bowen. In fact, it came as a surprise to a lot of people. A lot of people believe that the starting lineup was going to be Crickey, Sanford, Patrick McCaffrey, Josh Dix, along with Tony Perkins. Not the case. It was Bowens over Dix that was out there. Mention one of the freshmen in Price Sanford, incredibly impressed by Owen Freeman. That dude's going to be a stud. And I never could understand him in the recruiting ranks. This is a guy that had offers from Michigan State and Purdue and Illinois and Indiana and Wisconsin. Basically the who's who of the upper Midwest was after him. And yet he was ranked in the early in the top 100, you know, in the 90s, and then just kept trickling down.

Now, the reason for that, he didn't play in a lot of the big AAU events. That was a part that I heard was one of the reasons for it. But the dude just knows how to play. Springier than you would think. Not to put him at the same level at this point. He reminded me a bit of a young Jess Settles. And a little bit taller than Settles. Maybe not quite as athletic, but there's a

springiness to his game, really like Owen Freeman and like what he's going to be able to do with this team. And they're going to need him. They're going to need him for another body inside. They're also going to need him for rebounding because this team is going to struggle to rebound the basketball this year. Tony Perkins is fine. Tony Perkins is TP. You know what you're going to get from him. Hopefully that three-point shooting gets a little bit better this year. Brock Harding, he's going to get eaten up at times when he's playing the point guard position for Iowa. Dude weighs 160 pounds. I mean, he's little. And see him on the floor even against a game against Quincy. He looked little out there. There's going to be times that he might even be unplayable on the defensive end just because of

that. And defensively, this team, I think, is going to struggle. Look, Frank McCaffrey, as we talked about a little bit earlier, deserves a ton of credit. Got this team to the tournament nine out of 10 years. Yes, I'm counting the year that will end away because Iowa would have been a tournament team in 2020. Dr. Tom never did that. Lou Dolson never did that. George Raffley never had the opportunity to do that.

Ralph Miller never did that. Now, again, those guys' tenures were not as long as some of the guys that we talked about here, but still, this program, it's at a sustainable level. They're not going to have the star this year. No Keegan Murray, no Chris Murray, no Luka Garza. There's not going to be that one star, but you know they're going to score, and this team, I think, has a chance to be a better three-point shooting team than they were a year ago. I'm hopeful that they can at least fight their way to the bubble. The matchup early in the season against Creighton, it's going to be a dogfight. They go to San Diego for the exec tournament. Going to be two tough games there. Got to go to

Iowa State. I think the Cyclones are going to be pretty good this year. Top 25 good. So it's going to be a difficult stretch here. Beat who you're supposed to in the non-conference. Cannot afford a loss like against Eastern Illinois. And the end of the Big Ten schedule is incredibly daunting. And because of that, Iowa needs to find a way to get off to a good start in Big Ten play, including early in the season. Now, one of those games that they play in December is against Michigan. Got to get that win because the other ones against Purdue have to be one and one before we finish up non-conference

and then get into the final 18 games of conference play. That is a little basketball. We'll have more. In fact, the basketball season starts. Of course, lots of women's basketball talk and anticipated season for the Iowa women's team and Iowa wrestling also getting ready. And it's that crossover season. It's a fun time, no doubt, because we got a ton to talk about and we wrap up the football

season. As always, thanks for making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day. We'll talk to you again tomorrow live from Merkel's. Two o'clock. Stop on by if you're in Chicago heading out. You're going to be there Friday or Saturday. We'll be at Merkel's getting ready for the game. Should be a lot of fun tomorrow.

Myself and LaShawn Daniels talking Hawkeyes with you. We'll talk to you again tomorrow. Go Hawks.