Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa gets their 2021 QB | Men's basketball has an interesting neutral court game added | Why the Iowa way might not be the right way

Episode Date: June 12, 2020

Iowa lands a 2021 QB commit and we get more information on the direction of college football preseason. The men's basketball team adds an interesting non-conference game in South Dakota, and we wrap up the show by discussing whether or not the Iowa way is the right way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of the U.S. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off right away! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith!

Oh! He's got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. High on. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.

It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeye Nation, to another episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked on Sports Network.

As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade. Excited to be with you for this Friday morning episode of the show today, and I do hope that you got a chance to check out yesterday's episode. It was a very moving and I really thought just a fantastic show all around that we were able to air across the network. So really hope you got a chance to take a look at that and listen to that show. On today's show, we have some good content to cover. We're going to continue some of the discussion on the movement within the Iowa football program. We're going to be touching on that on segment number three.

But before we get into that, some news along the positive front. Joey Labasse, he has committed to the Iowa Hawkeyes. We're going to break down his recruitment just a little bit. We're also going to talk about the NCAA preseason extension. And then we're going to wrap up by talking about the Iowa Hawkeyes neutral court basketball game that was announced by John Rothstein. So we're going to cover all that right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. If you are tuning in for the first time and you do like what you hear today,

make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, whether that is Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or the brand new Himalaya Podcast app. And also, if you are on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please make sure to follow us there as well. So let's jump into the content for today. Iowa did land its quarterback of 2021. Iowa really likes to have at least one quarterback in every single recruiting class.

Obviously, with the fact that most Iowa quarterbacks typically play two to three seasons, we don't always see these quarterbacks take the field. However, it does provide competition, and this quarterback room is stacking up to be a pretty darn good one. This quarterback, though, came along pretty late. So Iowa did land three-star recruit Joey LaBosse. He just recently decommitted from Ball State. He decommitted from Ball State pretty much right after he got the Iowa offer. And from there, it was pretty much the writing on the wall. He was going to commit to the Hawks at that point. Very tough to pass up an offer from a D1, you know, Power 5 school

when you have the opportunity to. And just to run you through that timeline, so on May 11th, he committed to Ball State. On May 20th, Iowa offered him. On June 3rd, he decommitted. And seven days later, after visiting the campus on his own accord, Joey LaBasse has committed to the Iowa Hawkeyes. And it sounds like, according to the guys at 24-7 Sports, his ranking is going to be going up soon when the new rankings are released. This is a 6'4", 190-pound quarterback, a pro-style quarterback

who is ranked the 1,324th prospect in the nation. He has a.8336 24-7 Sports composite ranking. So not a high-ranking prospect compared to a Deuce Hogan, for example. However, it does sound like this is a guy who could be a guy to watch out for in the future. He comes from Ohio, has that Ricky Stanzi type of vibe, and it sounds like he has a connection to Ricky Stanzi even just a little bit, obviously having that Ohio connection. But at 6'4", 190 pounds, he does have a bit of mobility, which is a little bit, obviously, having that Ohio connection. But at 6'4", 190 pounds, he does have a bit of mobility, which is a little bit surprising. Wasn't expecting to see that on film.

Also played shortstop in high school. A competitor, a guy who broke his hand last season. Tried learning how to throw left-handed. I mean, this is a guy who's going to be really interesting to see play at the Hawks. Obviously, might be interesting given the fact that he's going to be sitting behind Spencer Petras and Alex Padilla and Aduse Hogan. So, it'll be interesting to see where he comes out based off of that. However, that being said, really excited for the Hawks to get another commit in the class and obviously get Joey LaBosse to commit to the Hawks. Currently, their ranking in the nation is 9th and their Big Ten rank is 3rd.

They have 16 hard commits at this moment. So, exciting stuff nonetheless for the Iowa Hawkeyes to get a commitment from Joey LaBasse. Great to get their quarterback a little bit later than they probably would have wanted to get their quarterback. I know they typically like to get their quarterback pretty early. Obviously getting Deuce Hogan pretty early was really huge for their recruiting efforts. He was a big player in the fact that he was able to help, I think, push the narrative of the Hawks and get a lot of people to jump on board. He's been kind of a catalyst and a guy who's really moved that.

So I'm really excited about the recruitment of Joey LaBosse, even if it's a bit later in the game. A guy who I don't think you should be sleeping on at all. So that being said, let's hop into some other news with the Iowa athletic program. The NCAA has done or basically is finalizing a preseason extension for football and what what this means for the Hawks I'll kind of run through what the proposed plan is and then on segment number two we'll kind of talk about how this impacts Iowa but it sounds like the NCAA so I'm gonna read this verbatim so I don't mess it up the NCAA's football oversight committee expects to

finalize a plan on Thursday to allow teams to conduct up to 12 unpadded slow speed practices, also known as walkthroughs, during the 14 days before the typical preseason begins in August. Teams will be permitted up to 20 hours per week of what the NCAA calls countable athletically related activities during those extra two weeks leading into the normal 29-day preseason practice schedule. Players will not be permitted to wear pads. During these workthroughs, they can also do weight training, conditioning, film study, and meetings. So sounds like this is something they've been talking about. Was expecting to hear some more news today.

I haven't heard it at the point of recording this, but we will certainly be covering that if it does get finalized right here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast as soon as that happens. But definitely big news for the Hawks. Obviously, the program's in a little bit of a turmoil, you know, tumultuous time at this point, dealing with the kind of the big allegations about racial inequality within the program. And I know Kirk's trying to handle that. Obviously, not having an opportunity to run through the playbook and see player development

in the spring was a huge issue. It sounds like with 14 practices, there's not really an opportunity to see that growth and development and do a lot of player evaluation. More or less just an opportunity to continue to get guys up to speed on the offensive playbook. Obviously continuing to get Spencer Petras ready to play as the starting quarterback. As I mentioned before though, fortunately for the Iowa Hawkeyes, they have a good handle on the situation simply for the fact that they have a lot of returning guys on the offensive side of the ball, and a lot of the defensive guys have been alternating in and out.

That's kind of what Phil Parker does. He does a great job of getting guys playing time early. However, they are replacing a starting safety, a starting linebacker, a starting corner, and three starting defensive linemen. So lots of work to do on the defensive side. Thankfully, Phil Parker does do a good job of rotating guys in. On the offensive side, just replacing, obviously, Nate Stanley and Tristan Wirfs to the big losses.

Obviously, the Paulson twins, but not as big of a loss as the other guys there as well. But it'll be good to have those extra practices, obviously get the system in place and continue to develop the Iowa football program and give the opportunity to have guys training together a little bit longer. And I think more than likely breaking in a new strength and conditioning coach.

I just cannot imagine Chris Doyle is returning. Obviously we talked about the Dylan Doyle transfer news. I just cannot see it happening with Chris Doyle coming back to the program. So that'll get a bit of time for an acclimation period to the new strength and conditioning coach as well with the Iowa Hawkeyes. But that'll do it for segment number one. Coming up on segment number two, we're going to touch on the Iowa Hawkeyes neutral court basketball game

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RockAuto.com We are back for segment number two of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. And as I teased a bit, I wanted to talk about the Iowa Hawkeyes announcement of their neutral court basketball game. This was first reported by John Reithstein. The Iowa will be playing Oregon State in a neutral site game at the Sanford Pentagon in South Dakota on December 2nd. I'll be honest, this was not exactly what I was expecting for the Hawks to have for a non-conference schedule. Kind of an interesting game all around. And the reason why is, first of all, they're going to South Dakota to play this game. So I just find it very difficult to imagine that there's going to be a big home court advantage from people being in South Dakota.

Overall, it does have an advantage to Iowa playing this neutral court game. I would say slightly less than Penn State's advantage playing in Philadelphia, but more than playing in a pure neutral court game, such as playing in Hawaii, for example. The Stanford Pentagon, though, is in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which I'm doing the math right now, is approximately five hours and 45 minutes from Iowa City. So there's a good opportunity that I think the coalition of Iowa basketball fans, especially with how hyped up this upcoming season will be, there will be a pretty big coalition of Iowa basketball fans.

Again, though, I find the announcement pretty interesting that there's a neutral side game with Oregon State. Not something anyone expected. Not sure how that all came to be. Hopefully we'll get some more information from Fran McCaffrey on how that happened. That being said, let's take a look at this series and the history of the series. Over the course

of the entire program's history, the Iowa basketball program, Iowa has played Oregon State literally just seven times. And in those matchups, they have gone two and five. They played twice in 1983, winning one, losing one.

They're ranked fifth. Oregon State was ranked 10th and 18th. And then outside of that, their last games were 1974, 1962, 1962, 1958, and 1957. So it has been, holy crap, almost 40 years since Iowa has played Oregon State. And they're not really getting a very good non-conference opponent. This is, to me, Oregon State would be probably one of the bottom six teams in the Big Ten. And the Big Ten is tough. So, I mean, it's definitely not a shoe-in game by any means, right?

Oregon State this past season had a solid year all around. They went 18-13, 7-11 in the Pac-12. They were on board to get into the NIT. However, they are losing two of their top three scores. Tress Tinkle, senior forward, 6'7", 225 pounds, averaging 18.5 points per game. And Kyler Kelly, a 7-foot forward who's averaging 11.1 points per game both those guys are gone the interesting thing about this team is they do have their next their top three returning guys are all going to be seniors they've been guys who are in the program they are

tall guards and small forwards so we have Ethan Thompson a six foot five guard Zach Rachel or Reichel a six foot five guard and Alfred Hollins, a 6'6 forward. It'll be interesting to see if that senior experience is going to benefit them. But outside of Ethan Thompson, who was a top 50 recruit, not a ton of previously recruiting talent, I should say. And it's not like they have a ton of reinforcements coming in either. When I look at Oregon's basketball class for the class of 2020, they have four guys. One is a transfer from Nebraska, which, or sorry, excuse me, Nichols State. And then they have a unranked guy out of Kilgore Junior College, 6'8", 230 pound kid. They have Tariq Silver, a three-star recruit who is coming out of Tallahassee, Florida. And then they have Isaiah Johnson, a top 400 prospect, joining the program.

So this is not a program that is really giving me the heebie-jeebies by any mean. Also, Tariq Silver is a junior college transfer. I should note that as well. But not a lot of major offers on his offer list. I'm looking at this and it's mostly mid-major programs. In fact, it is all entirely mid-major programs. So,

not a team to be super concerned about. I think what's interesting about this is the fact that Iowa's going to be playing a Power 5 school. Not that that matters as much in college basketball, but playing a Pac-12 school that isn't a top-tier school, likely if they make the NCAA tournament, it's going to be a 12 seed. But I think we're probably looking at an NIT type of team

this upcoming year for Oregon State. So it's not going to be one of those key wins when you look at your NCAA resume. And losing that game could be one of the big losses for them depending on how the Iowa season shapes up that being said it is a better test than playing you know a team that's ranked 350th in the nation early in the season so it'll be interesting to see how that all plays out I do think the Iowa Coalition of fans will travel hopefully for for that game

being in Sioux Falls South Dakota not too not too long of a drive. After watching the turnout for the Las Vegas Invitational last year, I'm excited to see Iowa fans show up for a team that does have national title aspirations. I mean, by most top 25 rankings, they are in the top 10. And if Luka Garza does return, that should stay that way for hopefully the entire preseason into the regular season. I think this team really could be the best team that has been assembled in Iowa City in nearly 30 years since the B.J. Armstrong days. So lots of fun stuff obviously happening with the Iowa basketball team.

And not the ideal non-conference game, but it'll be fun to watch. We still have the news of the ACC, or excuse me, the Big East, Big Ten crossover tournament. Hopefully Iowa does get a game against Creighton. It'll be something we'll be on the lookout for as well as they decide who will be taking each other on in that Big Ten, Big East

challenge that will be happening. That being said though, that wraps it up for segment number two of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Coming up on segment number three, I'm going to be giving you a brief clip, a six, seven minute clip of my time talking to Ben Stevens, the host of the Lockdown Big Ten podcast. We had a great conversation just basically covering everything that's happening in the Iowa Hawkeye program. I really had a great time doing the show with him, had a great time having the conversation. And I want to give you a piece that I thought was really powerful that we talked about,

which is, is Iowa's program intentionally racially biased? Maybe not, but it is without a doubt culturally oppressive based on the Iowa way. And so I want to talk about that on segment number three. So I hope you tune in for that as well. Before we jump into that, though, I do have a message from one of our sponsors of the show. We have Built Bar sponsoring our show today. And I love Built Bar. It is the protein bar that tastes like a candy bar.

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for you to use for your first order of Bilt Bars. Use the promo code LOCKEDON for $10 off your first order of Bilt Bars today at BiltBar.com. That is promo code LOCKEDON for $10 off your order of Bilt Bars at BiltBar.com. We are back for our third segment of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast today. And as I said, I'm going to be playing you a brief clip of when I was on the Locked On Big Ten podcast. That episode airing today with Ben Stevens. We talked a lot about what's happening within the Iowa football program. So I wanted to play you the ending of that interview.

I'm hoping that if you liked what you heard there, please make sure to go check out Ben's podcast, the Locked On Big Ten podcast. He covers all the teams in the Big Ten, so it gives you a nice, well-rounded idea of what's happening across the league. And also, as always, we do talk about the Iowa Hawkeyes on there as well.

I hop on periodically. But coming up, though, I'm talking a bit about, you know, does Kirk deserve to be fired? What needs to change going forward? Will Chris Doyle be fired? So that is taking place right now. Mentioned this earlier in our conversation. Kirk Ferentz does have blood on his hands because you can't allow this to go

on for 20 years and nothing to happen. And now you have seen with more than 50 players, former Hawkeyes coming out and speaking on it. It's not a one-off circumstance. This is clearly something that has affected generations of the Iowa football team. Will there be any repercussions against Kirk Ferentz moving forward? I honestly don't think so. I believe that within the program, they feel like he has earned the right to correct his actions. He has taken most of the right steps so far. He immediately announced, you know, put a statement out there announcing that, you know, Chris Doyle is being put on leave. being paid or put on leave. He immediately got on a Zoom call and started talking about this. I actually didn't really like his responses on the Zoom call. You know, Rob Howe from Hawkeye Nation does a really great job was answering or asking some very pointed questions. I thought Kirk did a pretty piss poor job of answering them to be completely honest. But he is being proactive. He has reached out to all the players on the team and their parents to talk about the situation.

He's reaching out to former players and that's where change begins. He mentioned, you know, he's been a teacher for his whole life. He needs to be someone who he needs to be the student now. And if he really means that and does begin taking those actions and is listening to the former players, I do believe he deserves a second chance of being able to make this program different. Being compliant with Chris Doyle's behavior is not acceptable,

but given everything else and given the fact that a lot of, a lot of the athletes are saying it starts in the weight room and we still love Kirk. I mean, that, that to me is that there's very contrasting things there. And I think the fact that they can get over get over is the wrong word if they can see the difference between Chris and Kirk and see that Kirk truly does care about them and maybe wasn't being as responsive as he should have they are already willing to give him a second chance I think you know us as fans have to be willing to give him I've tried to follow every player and I have not seen a single player say Kirk should be fired right and I support whatever the players say if Kirk was let go though I mean I get it yeah I don't think he should yeah I mean that's a great point too a lot of this has

been pointed criticism at Chris Doyle but at the end of the day it is Kirk Ferentz's program and the culture that has been underlying some of those racial tensions that have been happening in Iowa obviously have to fall on the hands of the head football coach. So Andrew Wade, you are not a super genius who can look into the future and exactly know what's going to happen. But in your mind, we talked about Chris Doyle, we just talked about Kirk Ferentz, what needs to happen moving forward for Iowa? Yeah, I think Chris Doyle needs to be fired. I think Brian Ferentz needs to be placed on leave as well and have an internal investigation conducted on his behaviors as well. They already started a leadership group led by former Iowa Hawkeye and current Detroit Lion Mike Daniels, where he's going to be meeting with players, former and current players, to talk through some of these things. I think Kirk does need to continue to follow up on his comments of meeting with each player and really understanding what the responses were and how they felt about certain things. Tyler Goodson's mother has started a foundation that is, I think it's called the minority of the coalition of

minority athletes or something along those lines. Um, but they're starting a foundation that is designed to help decrease racial disparities in programs. I think he needs to be working hand in hand with her as well to begin having those tough conversations. I think they need to do a internal review of what is happening each year. And, and I also think they need to understand that the Iowa way, while this is probably the biggest one that I think is going to get a lot of people, the Iowa way is not, I don't personally think Kirk has designed the Iowa way to be racially biased. However, it is culturally oppressive by its design.

And I think he needs to listen to his players and trust their process and vetting through the recruitment of these players that they have recruited individuals who can handle the responsibility of being a d1 athlete and open up the reins a bit on these players I think that I mean yeah sorry i would say like i think that means allowing them to dress the way they want within the building being okay with having tattoos that's not an issue that should not be an issue in this day and age allowing them to speak up on social media allowing them to have interviews i think it's okay to coach them up on behaviors and talk about what is the right way to respond to certain questions and whatnot, but I don't think it's appropriate to just deny

them the ability to be themselves and call it the Iowa way, especially not now. I think that was so beautifully said because I think that although Kirk Ferentz may not have been malicious in his intent to make this a solid solidified football program it's kind of an old school football mentality that like there's the way we do things either get on board or get out just because something has happened for many many years does not mean it is the right way to go moving forward and I think that can speak to the greater context of what we're speaking about here and for Kirk Ferentz to lead the change in Iowa, a state that only has 3.3% of their population overall in the black community,

but 46% of their scholarship players are black, that can be a great positive change moving forward. And the Iowa football program that a lot of the state of Iowa follows can be that leading charge. So Andrew Wade, thank you very much for your thoughts. I appreciate your time. This was a poignant conversation,

not exactly the schedule breakdown we were doing just a few weeks ago, but I think an important conversation. So thanks very much for taking your time. Definitely, man. I appreciate you having me on the show. All right. And that will do it for our show today. I hope you all did enjoy that third and final segment. And if you did, please make sure to go check out Ben Stevens podcast, the locked on big 10 podcast right here on the locked on sports network.

And if you want more Locked On podcast material, please make sure to go check out the Locked On NFL Draft podcast with Trevor Sikama and Benjamin Solak. They do a fantastic job of breaking down the NFL draft year round. So you want to know about some of the Iowa prospects they are looking out for? Check it out now. They might be talking about that any given day. So if you want more content, make sure to check out the Locked On Big Ten podcast and the Locked On NFL Draft podcast.

And as always, if you liked what you heard today and you are not already doing this, please make sure to go like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at and give us that five-star review. And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. As always, Hawkeye Nation, have a fantastic day. Be safe and be the agent of change. And obviously, go Hawks!