Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Football transfer portal opens, Instant Reaction: Hawkeyes clubbed at Purdue

Starting point is 00:00:00 The transfer portal opens for Iowa football and across college football. Some big names already in there from the Hawkeyes and Iowa goes on the road in men's basketball and is throttled by Purdue. We break it down 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. Hey, welcome in.

Starting point is 00:00:38 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 get podcasts. You can also find us on YouTube. While you're there, hit that subscribe button. Just takes a moment and helps us get in front of more Hawkeye fans. Today's episode is brought to you by the Game Time app. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLGE for $20 off your first purchase.

Starting point is 00:01:02 Well, the portal's open as we sit here on a Tuesday, and that means there is going to be a whole lot of wheeling and dealing happening across college football. A couple of big names yesterday in the college football ranks, including Kyle McCord of Ohio State, Dylan Gabriel of Oklahoma, a couple of big quarterback names in there, Cam Ward last week of Washington State, we saw Riley Leonard of Duke. This is the new age of college football that is here, and this is the new reality of what you look at each and every time we talk about the transfer portal, what it's going to be, and what it's going to look like. So, you know, Iowa, when we start and talk about the quarterback position,

Starting point is 00:01:41 we know what next season likely is going to look like. And it's going to obviously start at the quarterback position with Cade McNamara. McNamara coming back off the season, off the torn ACL, a guy that had an injury a year ago, his season at Michigan, his season came to a close as him and J.J. McCarthy early in the season were fighting for the starting job, ultimately went to McCarthy, and then the injury to McNamara led to where he ultimately entered the portal and very quickly became an Iowa Hawkeye. We go back to, obviously, August camp, the injury at Kids Day, and what happened there. We never got to see a full-cade McNamara.

Starting point is 00:02:17 But really my concern about this and the way that this is set up, we know McNamara is going to be the guy. Lately Deacon Hill is going to be the number two. Perhaps Marco Lyon is your number three. James Reaser comes in next season as a true freshman. Joe Labus has entered the transfer portal. We'll get to that here in a moment, but to go into a season next year with Cade McNamara, a healthy Cade McNamara, I think you feel good. New offensive coordinator, hopefully new passing scheme, hopefully a push forward to the 21st century and what they're looking to do in the passing game. That would be something that would be definitely a positive. And you have a competent quarterback, a guy that, though he's not a game changer, he is definitely a game manager. And McNamara,

Starting point is 00:03:00 at minimum, is going to be a competent quarterback. It did not go very well for him this year. You look at the overall numbers, they're not good. We'll talk about Deacon Hill and his numbers, which have proved to be very poor this year. Some numbers that come out and just show you statistically how ugly it is. But overall, when you look at the quarterback position for Iowa, the concern with McNamara is the frailty. This is a guy that has dealt with major injury multiple times now in his career. This is a guy that has dealt with two major injuries here already at Iowa during his short tenure as the Hawkeyes quarterback. And to go into a season with him as your starter, okay, but what else is behind him? Deacon Hill, we saw throughout the course of the

Starting point is 00:03:43 season, just is not good enough to be a Big Ten quarterback. He just isn't. A nice kid, but with the accuracy issues that he has, even the simplistic offense that Iowa ran, trying to keep things as simple as possible for him, it wasn't good. His biggest strength was taken away by the Iowa coaching staff. We saw early in his tenure to actually taking some shots downfield. That got coached out of him. God forbid you take a shot down the field. I mean, you're playing Michigan. Yeah, let's just play this thing in a phone booth. We'll be able to beat the Wolverines that way. And we knew that obviously was not the case. It was a deplorable game plan by Brian Ferris. But that aside, that happened throughout the course of

Starting point is 00:04:22 the end of the season where Deacon Hill was not able to use his best attribute, that big right arm. And he is your backup. Well, he's a backup that isn't good enough. Not good enough in the new Big Ten for Iowa to compete at the highest levels. And we see that gap continuing to grow between Iowa and everybody else. The defense right there. Special teams most times right there. The offense so bad, so hideous, there's nothing that you can do. And that's where we are at this point in time with this Iowa football team and what they're going to be. I believe that Iowa should be definitely shopping in the portal, be it for a guy that is fine being a backup, understanding the reality that Cade McNamara is going to be the starter. But looking at a young guy, you know, there's going to be a lot of redshirt freshmen, sophomores that are going to be entering the portal.

Starting point is 00:05:14 And maybe not even names that we know because they haven't seen the field yet. But I think Iowa is doing a disservice to themselves if they're going to go into the season with Deacon Hill as the backup. You have to be looking. And not only that, knowing that Cade McNamara just has one season remaining of college eligibility. And because of that, you have to look towards the future. We talked to Brian Smith here, our lockdown recruiting expert. He's from Florida. He's seen a lot of James Reaser. He's not a believer in James Reaser, and he's not alone. There's guys that believe that ultimately his best destination is not the quarterback position. It'll be a position switch for him down the line. Look, Marco Lyoness couldn't get a snap on this team.

Starting point is 00:05:55 And Kirk says, well, we watch him in practice. Look, if you watch practice and you come up, the Deacon Hill is your only choice to go at the quarterback position. From what we saw from him this year, you got a problem. That means Marco Lyon, even as a true freshman, probably is not good enough to be a Big Ten quarterback. If he can't get snaps in this team, on this offense, from what we saw over the final seven weeks of the season, that shows you he's probably not good enough either. And that's where you are. Iowa needs to do their due diligence. They need to at least explore the option of going out and finding another quarterback and a guy that can be a backup for next season or perhaps be your starter for 2025. That's what Iowa needs to be doing.

Starting point is 00:06:36 Joe Labus, he is in the transfer portal. He is in there along with Deontay Vines. As he announced yesterday, I saw Deontay Vines already with a Pittsburgh offer, back closer to home, the Connecticut kid. Deontay Vines felt like he should have been better than he was during the course of his season. Antonio Thompson, that's one that stings. You know, we saw Thompson play on special teams this year, a couple of block punts. Obviously, that's going to be a headliner right there. But a couple with what Thompson, you know, I think still can be as a defensive lineman

Starting point is 00:07:08 down the line, helping up in the middle. We look at towards next season, Logan Lee departs at the defensive tackle position. We hope that Y.A. Black is back from a selfless perspective, but I'm sure that he is going to at least take a look at the NFL and see what the advisory says about him. He played some great football on the back half of the year. He did it for a long time with an injured shoulder. I thought Y.E. Black took a big step forward and all of a sudden that defensive tackle room, yeah, Aaron Graves will be back next year. They got a guy like Pittman if he sticks around, but overall that's something that definitely needs to be looked at for this Iowa team.

Starting point is 00:07:44 Ontario Thompson on the way out and won the Stings. Brendan Dees-Fernandez, he is also in the transfer portal and a guy that unfortunately for him, probably best remembered for having the punt bounce off him out of Penn State in that game when I was at least still hanging around in that football game in the first half as that one went off him. A special teamer. He was a Phil special, right? A Phil Parker special. A guy that he recruited very late. Thought maybe they found something there. Never translated to a cornerback. Helped out on special teams. He's in the portal. And then, of course, finally, Spencer Petras. And very quickly, Spencer Petras has signed on to play at Utah State, a Utah State room that looks to be the quarterback room, pretty open there. And we'll see what Petras, if he sees the field in his final year of eligibility.

Starting point is 00:08:29 So as we speak here today on Tuesday morning, five guys in the transfer portal for the Hawkeyes. We'll talk more about some shopping. We talked about that last week. You can always go back, catch any episode here of Lockdown Hawkeyes, one of them last week. We really talked about the position groups that we believe is going to be the most important for Iowa to be targeting in the transfer portal. Last night, it did not go well for the Iowa Hawkeyes as they made their way to Purdue. Mackey Arena, normally a house of horrors for the Hawkeyes, and oh, it continued last night. We will talk about that as we continue. This is the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast.

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Starting point is 00:10:28 As always, thanks for making Locked On Hawkeyes your first listen every day. All right, time to talk some hoops in. No surprise last night of how things went out at Purdue. Taking on Zach Eadie and that squad, always a difficult one. There is no doubt about it. It is incredibly difficult overall of when you're taking on a team like that, the way that they're built and things outside of the Big Ten championship game a couple of years ago have not gone very well for

Starting point is 00:10:55 the Hawkeyes when they face the Boilermakers. But this one, hanging around early on, what is it, 13-9 early in the basketball game, but it just got ugly, and it got ugly very, very quickly, and we saw that continue throughout the course of the game. They run out of the gym, and when you run out of the gym like that, it's frustrating. It's disappointing. You hope that you can see an Iowa team at least hang around for a little bit. That was never the case. They get down with 35 points at one point. Ben Kricke giving up seven, eight inches inside to Zach Eadie, a 7-4 against 6-9. He saw the way that that turned up. 7-12 from the field, a 7-13 overall, 0-1 from three. Had four rebounds in the game, but turned it over three different times. It was just, they can't compete at the highest level.

Starting point is 00:11:44 turned it over three different times. It was just, they can't compete at the highest level. Edie was playing well. And then maybe the frustrating aspect that stands out most is when Edie exited the game. That's when Purdue went on their first big run and really stretched that lead out. And it got ugly in a hurry, 27-14. And you knew the game was over really at that point, getting doubled up 32-16. They made a bit of a comeback late in the second half, but at that point, it just didn't matter. Patrick McCaffrey, what a five from the floor. Did have five rebounds, at least did that, something we don't see a ton of from Patrick. Two assists, one turnover. DeSante Bowen, 13 minutes. Now the point guard spot still remains, I think, the most interesting point of this Iowa basketball team is what they're going to do. DeSante Bowen plays 13 minutes last night, and we're almost falling into the same

Starting point is 00:12:30 kind of trap that we saw a year ago with the starting point guard when it was Aaron Ulis. Although Aaron Ulis, yes, was the starter, he didn't play starter minutes. This is what we've seen here as of late during this last four- game stretch for Bowen. He plays 24 minutes against Oklahoma, 15 against Seton Hall, 17 against North Florida, and then just 13 minutes last night. Look, if you're going to make a change, make a change. And be it, if you're going to go with Josh Dix and see if that works and you put Dix and Perkins together in the backcourt, those guys share the point guard duties. You go that direction. If it is going to be Brock Harding, you say, look, we're just going to go out there and have Harding be the guy.

Starting point is 00:13:10 He's going to be the guy of the future at the point guard position. We'll take our lumps and understand that. Then go that direction. But if DeSante Bowen is your starter, then let him be a starter and let him make a mistake and not get pulled out of the game. a starter and let him make a mistake and not get pulled out of the game. Last night, four assists in 13 minutes at a game where not many guys were playing even at that kind of level. An offensive rating of 116. Owen Freeman went in, banged there. And then we have, of course, I was surprised that Evan Bronze didn't get more run. They bring in Bronze from Belmont, a banger, a guy with some

Starting point is 00:13:43 physicality, and a guy that I believe, A, that Owen Freeman should be starting along with Ben Kricke. Now your starting lineup should be Ben Kricke, Owen Freeman, those are your big guys, and then Sanford, Perkins, and then whatever you decide at the point guard position. I'm sorry, Patrick McCaffrey should not be a starter on this team. He just does not add enough to this team to be a starter. Rotational play, sure, but he should not be a starter. Rotational player, sure, but he should not be a guy last night getting the fourth most minutes. Just simple as that. Josh Dix, okay. Misses a couple three-pointers in the game. Price Sanford, I think he's a guy,

Starting point is 00:14:22 the younger Sanford, he's going to be a guy that is eventually squeezed out of the rotation. But if there was ever a game to see a little bit more Evan Bronze, when not only you're taking on Zach Eaddy, a big power forward in Kaufman Wren, when you've got two guys like that out there, they're being first off the bench, I mean, this would be a game where you're definitely playing more bigs. And Evan Bronze just played late in the game and gets four minutes there. Look, Evan Bronze is not a great offensive player, and I guess that's where the rub is because, you know, Fran's always looking for offensive players. But I thought if there was

Starting point is 00:14:48 going to be a time, it would be last night. And unfortunately, we didn't see that from Browns. Bad effort, bad game. Got to flesh it because very quickly, you get Iowa State and an Iowa State team that the Cyclones are, I don't want to say they're fledgling, but this has not been the Iowa State team that I certainly anticipated we were going to see coming into the year. You know, I thought they were going to be a fringe top 25 team, and though they've gone out in their by games and dominated, and that helps you in the net rankings, what happened to them when they went down to Florida in their exempt tournament, barely getting by VCU, getting beat by a very average Virginia Tech team,

Starting point is 00:15:27 losing to Texas A&M, which is no problem. It's a problem when you're up 21, though, and blow that kind of lead. Texas A&M playing without two of their top three players also in that game. It's just an Iowa State team that is not exactly clicked here. It's not impossible, I guess is where I'm saying. And coming into the year, impossible is not the right word for it, but a very, very difficult game, 80-20 chance, something like that, of winning. I think there's a better chance now than there was, but Iowa's got to shoot the basketball a whole lot better.

Starting point is 00:15:55 Iowa's got to be clicking, and they've got to get some stops. Taven Lipsy's playing at an incredible level on the point guard position for Iowa State right now. We'll break that one down a little bit more. Of course, also the Cy Hawk game coming up with the women's side on Wednesday evening. We'll talk about that one coming up here on Locked On Hawkeyes. Final thoughts, though, on the game against Purdue. As I said, got to flush it, got to move on.

Starting point is 00:16:18 There's not a whole lot that can be said. You're dominated. The saving grace here, though, is overall in the Big Ten this year, after Purdue, it's a whole lot of yuck. This conference overall has been a huge disappointment this season. You take a look at the rankings right now, and you're seeing after Purdue, this is just a group that is overall pretty average. So Purdue is ranked right now at Kempom second in the country. Illinois 16th.

Starting point is 00:16:45 Ohio State 24th. Yeah, Wisconsin, Michigan State. It's a down year in the Big Ten. And I think there's a real opportunity here for Iowa to pile up some victories, to give themselves a shot. The projected records right now in the Big Ten has Purdue at 16-4, followed up by 13-7 for all. Illinois, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Michigan State.

Starting point is 00:17:08 So that comprises, if you will, kind of your top five. And then you get into the next tier, and I was in that next tier with Northwestern, who had that nice win on Friday night against Purdue. Also teams in that mix, 9-11 for Michigan, Nebraska, Indiana. That's that next tier. Rutgers, Maryland at 8-12. Those are projected Rutgers again from Ken Pomeroy. So the good news is this is not a behemoth of a conference this year.

Starting point is 00:17:32 There's still a path, but we know what's coming up for the Hawkeyes after Iowa State, that game against Michigan. You talk about a must win. I don't think there's any doubt about it. That home game against Michigan on Sunday, that goes in must-win category. Mentioned, coming up this week, it's a big one. It's Cy Hawk Week for Iowa, Iowa State, both on the women's and men's side.

Starting point is 00:17:53 We'll take a quick peek at that one. And some final thoughts as we continue. This is the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast. When you're hiring for your small business, you want to have as many top-tier candidates as possible to interview. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs has the tools to help find the right professionals for your team faster and for free. I've used LinkedIn Jobs to help find some people for my small business.

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Starting point is 00:19:24 the week, Iowa State, we talked about the matchup on Thursday. That'll be a 6.30 tip-off, and it'll be a difficult environment in Hilton. We know how that's going to be. The day before that, though, the Iowa women, who remain number four in the AP rankings after last week's performance, they are sitting at number four. Iowa State will be ready, but this is not the Bill Fennelly teams that we're used to in the past. This Iowa State women's team has struggled at times shooting the basketball from deep, something that you're very surprised by. They're very young.

Starting point is 00:19:56 Addie Brown might be their best player already with Ryan out at this point in time. So she's played really well, had maybe her best performance on Sunday and went against UNC, what was that? UNC Wilmington that they beat on Sunday. So she's played really well. Adi Crooks, if you follow girls basketball here in the state of Iowa, you probably remember her from Algona Garrigan. She's inside. She is a very, very talented post player. Need to get up and down the floor. You need Hannah Stolke running the floor. Sounds like Hannah Stolke is going to be back for that one. Certainly necessary in a game like this.

Starting point is 00:20:32 This is going to be one where the post player is playing well. Kaitlyn Clark probably going to get the booing treatment, I'm going to guess, from the Cyclone fans. Is there ever been a fan base that has a player get under their skin more than Iowa State and Kaitlin Clark. I don't know if there is. Anything Kaitlin Clark does, it is just derided by that Cyclone fan base. There is something going on there that they are not pleased about all the pub that Kaitlin

Starting point is 00:20:56 Clark got. Hey, she's changed the game. She's changed women's basketball. Yet, for our neighbors in Ames, it is too much for them apparently to handle. Should be a fun week of basketball. Mentioned the transfer portal. We got a whole lot coming up here on the lockdown Hawkeyes on that front. We'll continue to break things down and talk more about that in the coming days. And we'll dive back in, take a little deeper look as we get more names in the portal and find out exactly what it's going to look like, what Iowa needs to be shopping for, and hopefully start to get a couple of names. I know there was a wide receiver that I

Starting point is 00:21:29 had Iowa listed as one of, I don't know, 15 teams that have already reached out. You can't get real excited to be one of 15 at this point in time. And then the pending question of what Iowa's going to do at the offensive coordinator position. Is this something that Kirk Ferentz is going to be willing to get outside of his comfort zone, go out there and actually, you know, make the move that needs to be made? Or is it, well, we still have a game in front of us. We'll do it afterwards because Iowa, I don't think they can afford to do that at this point in time. That'll do it for today.

Starting point is 00:22:01 Thanks for making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day. Don't forget, Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. It's Lockdown Sports Today for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Lockdown, plus our national shows covering every league. Go to Lockdown Sports Today on YouTube and subscribe to the first ever National Sports 24-7 streaming channel. While you're here, hit that subscribe button for us, Locked On Hawkeyes, with you each and every day.

Starting point is 00:22:33 Your team every day. That's what we do on the Locked On Hawkeyes Network and across the Locked On Network. We'll talk to you again tomorrow. Go Hawks!

Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Football transfer portal opens, Instant Reaction: Hawkeyes clubbed at Purdue

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