Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Hawkeyes defeat Colorado State reaction with LeShun Daniels Jr: Why Spencer Petras isn't the problem; Charlie Jones is a mad man

Episode Date: September 26, 2021

The Iowa Hawkeyes defeated Colorado State yesterday to move to 4-0. We are joined by former Iowa running back LeShun Daniels Jr to break down the weird Saturday win for the Hawks. Offensively, Spencer Petras put together arguably the best game of his career but the offensive line struggled including All-American candidate Tyler Linderbaum and the rushing game couldn't get much going despite Tyler Goodson's best efforts. Defensively, the team was put in bad field position but the linebacker trio of Jestin Jacobs, Jack Campbell, and Seth Benson did a phenomenal job of holding things down as they combined for 35 tackles. And we saw that Tory Taylor is actually human, but Charlie Jones may not be.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!SweatBlockGet it today for 20% off at SweatBlock.com with promo code LockedOn, or at Amazon and CVS.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back 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. After that interesting win over Colorado State, and of course, we are always joined here by LaShawn Daniels, who is here every single Sunday after an Iowa game, win or loss.

Yesterday felt like a loss, I think, mentally to a lot of people, but we still come away with a victory, and that's ultimately what matters. So, LaShawn, we're going to break that all down, but first, how are you doing today, man? I'm doing great. Again, Sundays are always good when the Hawks win on Saturday, even, you know, the game didn't quite go as you may have expected, but, you know, I can't complain about that.

So we're feeling good on this Sunday. Absolutely. I bet on Iowa four different ways yesterday going into the game, which was not good for my wallet. I bet on Iowa to win the first half. I bet on Iowa to win, cover the spread. I bet on Iowa and Colorado State to go on the over. I mean, everything was just not hitting for me yesterday. However, thankfully, after Colorado State got that touchdown,

I got Iowa minus six and a half. I jumped on it and I was able to win all my money back, thankfully. So that was at least a nice little victory for me. Iowa beats Colorado State 24 to 14. And I think coming into this game, a lot of the perception was that Iowa was going to blow out Colorado State. Colorado State, to me, on paper, is kind of like a Big Ten team without Big Ten talent, right?

They run a lot of 12 and 13 personnel. They run a 4-3 defense. They're going to line up and try to hit you and play some smash-mouth football. I thought Iowa can do that better than any team in the country. However, Colorado State was throwing Iowa around a little bit in the trenches. That was very interesting to see early on. But as we do with every show, we have to talk about Spencer Petras first. I think there

clearly is a natural inclination to blame the quarterback when things aren't pretty, when things don't go well, when Iowa only puts up 24 points against a Colorado State team that is now one in three and lost to Vanderbilt and South Dakota State. Spencer Petras was not the issue. Spencer, I honestly, I think Spencer Petras had the best game of his career yesterday. So I wanted to turn it over to you. Did you have any concerns about what you saw from Spencer yesterday? No, I mean, I thought he played a pretty good game to be quite honest. I mean, you know, the stats aren't jumping, you know, off at you. I mean, I thought he played a pretty good game, to be quite honest. I mean, you know, the stats aren't jumping, you know, off at you. I mean, he was like 15, 23 for like 200 yards, two touchdowns.

And then he had the one interception, which I talked about in my friend group chat about. Personally, I didn't really like the call um at that point in time and um you know receiver was covered um and it wasn't a great pass wasn't a great ball um unfortunately you know spencer decides to make that throw you know it is what it is um so i didn't have too many issues about the way he played i mean i like the way how he tried to stretch the field a little bit more yesterday um which definitely showed some positives because he was pretty accurate. I felt like down the field. So, you know, I think Spencer's playing well and I think that he's getting better every single week. So I don't think, you know, a lot of the blame, if really

any of the blame should, you know, really fall on Spencer in the way that they played yesterday. Completely agree. You mentioned the play call, kind of a little bubble screen action there that Spencer throws the ball, play action screen. Again, interesting play call down in the red zone area. The cornerback, I thought, made a phenomenal play on it as well. I mean, it was just a collection of everything going poorly on that play what would you have rather seen from a play call perspective

in that that situation um i mean you know anything else honestly besides the screen um uh like i like i like screens um whether they are bubbles, wide receiver screens, halfback screens. Um, and they work well at, you know, certain points I feel like in the game. Um, but I feel like at that point, right. Our just traditional offense was doing, you know, a good job moving the ball, you know, getting that ball down the field, um, a little bit. So, um, and then know that we hit a couple uh big shots right and then um I see Colorado State did a great job on the run game so

um I'm always fine for running football even if you know we're not having you know success with it but I mean anything else besides you know I think a wide receiver screen especially um the way that that cornerback kind of bounced back from um you know being thinking think a wide receiver screen, especially the way that that cornerback kind of bounced back from, you know, being, I think he was beat like maybe four plays later. Right. And then I think like to like the following, like two out of three plays after that, he was the one making a play, you know, on it. So I think they try to take advantage of him, you know, being a little bit more aggressive, which I do understand. But, you know being a little bit more aggressive which i do understand um but you know honestly probably you know anything else whether they got into a little you know traditional play action

maybe you did a rollout or something um or just try to hammer it in there at least because uh you know try to get some positive momentum going and then from spencer's side of the ball spencer's side i mean they just kind of just throw that ball in the dirt, right? I mean, you see that guy is kind of just blanketed, right? Don't make a bad play worse. Don't try to force it in there. You can just throw it on the dirt and then come back and, you know, live to play another down.

Absolutely. I mean, when you look at the play sequence leading up to that play, right? So Spencer Petras has a beautiful throw to Keegan Johnson, 49-yard gain. Tyler Goodson stuffed for minus five yards. That defensive line on Colorado State was doing a phenomenal job all day. Spencer then gets a ball out to Sam Laporta for four yards, gets another ball to Sam Laporta, and there's a penalty. And then, as you said, the guy who was covering Keegan Johnson

makes the interception, first and 10 at the 14. You have a minute and 47 seconds left. Yes, hindsight is always 20 20 but you're right that's a that's a 14 point swing we went from possibly being up you know 10 to 7 14 to 7 to being down 14 to 7 going into the half however i felt like our halftime adjustments i mean iowa came out and they were playing pretty well offensively i really liked what i saw we saw a few more end rounds. We saw them take some more shots.

You mentioned Spencer Petras. The stats don't jump out at you. 15 completions on 23 attempts, but four throws over 20 yards. We talked about that on last week's show. We wanted to see explosive plays. And y'all, we finally got it. And I got to be honest, I'm a big fan of Nate Stanley. But those are a lot of throws that Nate Stanley wasn't. I mean, it was, it was very hit or miss when Nate Stanley was going to make that throw.

And Spencer has been money on those deep throws as of late. So very impressed from that angle. I want to talk about the pass blocking because there was, they graded out so poorly and there every time Spencer Petras got sacked, I think there was three sacks in the game. It felt it wasn't it wasn't just a coverage sack it was a communication issue I mean the Tyler Goodson let's talk about the Tyler Goodson sack because the the blitzer comes through the a-gap untouched right at Spencer Tyler's on the left side and I couldn't tell if he didn't see him should Spencer have been on or should Tyler have been on the right side of Spencer?

I mean, can you maybe walk us through that? Because that was bizarre, man. Yeah. So depending upon the protection, usually the back is on either side of the quarterback. But typically it doesn't matter, especially in our offense. Running backs have quite a pretty decent responsibility when it comes to uh blitz pickup in the past game so my guess is that tyler just didn't see him um which can happen sometimes especially like you can kind of get lazy in your in reading your keys and making

sure that um the thing theitz is being taken care of. Because the way that it was looking, like the guy, it's like he looked like he was like staring right at him, but the blitzer just comes right through the middle, right through the A-gap. And he's just kind of like standing there, almost like watching him like he was like frozen. So I'm not sure like if he didn't see it if he didn't uh if the if the quarterback

mispointed the the man he's supposed to be blocking or mispointing um who the key that the line is supposed to be blocking i have no idea what happened there was obviously some type of miscommunication or it was just a mental error error by tyler which we don't see too often so that's definitely something that will be corrected today in film. I'm sure, you know, he'll hear definitely from the coaches, like, we can't have this, so on and so forth. But, yeah, yesterday in the past, as far as our past blocking, and just blocking in general, I just didn't think was really up to the Iowa standard.

And I think they all know that. Yeah, I just didn't think was really up to the Iowa standard at all. And I think they all know that. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, even Tyler Linderbaum had an error. And Tyler Linderbaum is our most consistent player. I mean, he's the best player on this roster. I mean, he's a guy who could be a first-round pick, the best center since your brother, James, right? I mean, this guy is phenomenal. And he even had what I would consider

looked like a communication error where he didn't – we'll talk about that in a second. I'll get to it here in a second. I do want to tell everyone, though, about PrizePix. College Bowl fanatics, have you heard about PrizePix? PrizePix is daily fantasy made easy. I love this, and I know that you will too. PrizePix is a leader in college sport daily fantasy.

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And they graded out so horrendously bad. And I'm going to talk about that on tomorrow's show. Tyler Linderbaum even had a miscommunication where the guy he was literally lining up right over top of him, Tyler just goes to the right and then realizes the guy is coming right past him and tries getting a hand on him. Before you know it, Spencer is down. Spencer is not a guy that we can allow blockers to go untouched at because, let's be honest, the dude's not very athletic. He's not very fast. That's not a knock on him.

It's just who Spencer is. He's a tree back there. He has a good arm, but he's kind of a tree. Tyler Linderbaum just let the guy go right by him. That was just so weird to me to see. Can you maybe – do you remember that play? Yeah, so I remember the play that you're talking about. And I want to say, man, I've only showed the replay like one time,

and I might not have got the best look at it. But now I'm thinking about it, I don't know why he would have decided against blocking that man. Again, they're probably doing something. Again, I'm not in their meeting rooms you know throughout the week i'm not um figuring out you know how they are blocking certain looks and different things and i'm sure that tyler must have thought again another it was a different look than what initially happened or maybe um you know just a brain fart or whatever

um and then obviously the play the play starts and you know it's a brain fart or whatever. And then obviously the play starts. And, you know, it's already too late to try to react to it. So there was just something that was kind of going on that was just miscommunication kind of all across the board. And I'm not sure, like, how Colorado State, you know, does on defense side when it comes to blitzes. I mean, some teams are very complex with blitzes, and some teams, you know, are a lot more basic.

So I'm not sure what they saw on film, on tape, you know, at the weeks leading up to today. I mean, yesterday. But yeah, it was a weird game for us. I feel like in the communication side on pass blocking, because I just felt like it just wasn't up to our standard at all. And again, I think the players and the staff know that, that they are going to be better in communication

and they're going to be better on their own one-on-ones, right? I mean, you know, Big Ten play is really as obviously going to start back up for us, you know, next week. And it's going to be very important to make sure that those things are hammered out, right? That we have the right communications going on. That Spencer's doing a great job of marking who the Mike linebacker is and all these different things to make sure that he can keep clean so the offense can keep moving because, you know,

sacks and negative yards plays will kill, kill, kill drives. Absolutely. I mean, I give credit to Colorado State, right? They're deep. They had a good defensive game plan. And I thought offensively, the things that we wanted to see improve did improve to a degree, right? We saw the explosive plays. We saw Spencer throw the ball really well.

The pass blocking, the run blocking, those are staples of Iowa's offense that we expect to get better. They are still rotating a bunch of guys around that offensive line. We have a true freshman starting on the interior. We have a redshirt freshman starting on the tackle spot. I mean, a lot of these guys are young guys. We're still getting that experience. And Colorado State's defensive line is one of the better defensive lines in the nation, so definitely something interesting there.

Overall, just again, like you said, a very weird, weird game. Beating Kent State, looking back, I'm like, not too bad. Colorado State, I'm like, what the heck just happened here? Even on the defensive side of the football, I felt like Phil Parker, do I dare say, got outcoached in the first half? And I don't like saying that because Phil Parker, I love Phil Parker. I think what he does with his defense, as as you talked about having a very simplistic defense that is incredibly effective I thought Phil Parker's defense struggled a little bit in the first

half granted I think it's worth calling out that Colorado State was getting the ball like the 20 yard line based off of a Torrey Taylor shank which uh it was bound to happen at some time right we were bound to see the great punter from down under Shank a ball, and wow, that was a bad time to do it. And then the interception that they took all the way down. I mean, these were tough plays for the defense to be put into. But my question to you, and that's a long-winded way of asking one question, Todd Sencio runs in a – there's a passing play.

No one's open. He just runs it in, 10 yards untouched. He's a scrambling quarterback, there's a passing play. No one's open. He just runs it in 10 yards untouched. He's a scrambling quarterback. He's an athletic quarterback. Why are we not spying the quarterback on that play? Did that seem weird to you as well? I mean, the middle of the, the middle of the defense is wide open there. Yeah.

So, you know, sometimes we have spies. Sometimes, you know, you just don't, right. Sometimes, you know, they just have the, a better play call. Right. I mean, it looked like that. They are obviously in some type of man coverage, especially being that close to the goal line. So, you know, a lot of backs returned, you know, seeing, you know, what's happening with the quarterback. And then, you know, defensively, I know that I mean, on defensive line side that, you know, we had a defensive end up the field.

Right. And then when you have a defensive end up the field and you have you know when your interior guy is kind of walled off i mean it makes it very easy for the quarterback to be able to get in there and run so um like thinking back i don't know if um you know putting spies is something that they commonly do i mean because i know a lot of times that you're in they're in zone coverage so like there's always eyes on the quarterback anyway. So I just think it was one of those cases where, you know. The other offense coordinator just had to have the right play call up and then Coach Parker, you know, just got caught in an unfortunate call with his defense, because obviously a lot of backs return, you have eyes back on the quarterback so the quarterback can if no one's open especially with the athletic guy like that um you know he can easily you know run and scamper for for some big runs which we saw happen quite a bit um especially

in that first half so um i know that they ended up making adjustments in the second half because they held them to zero points um the second half So, yeah, the first half I think was definitely one of the weirder halves I think we've had in a while. And it just felt like the game plan that, you know, that you had in place just wasn't it, right? So they had to go in and make a lot of adjustments at halftime. And, you know, obviously they came out a lot stronger for the second half. Absolutely.

And like I said, if Iowa wins 24-14, that's what ultimately matters here when we're looking at it. It doesn't matter how you get the win, you get the win. And for better or for worse, Kirk is not going to be a guy who's going to ram it down your throat and put as many points on the board as possible. The last couple drives, you could tell Iowa was not trying to score. They're like, let's just get out of this game.

Let's get out of this game healthy. Let's move on to Big Ten football, which is on Friday night. Iowa gets a Maryland team that has had a pretty good start to the season. We get a Maryland team on Friday night in Maryland, so that's going to be interesting. Let's talk about some of the good things that happened overall. Offense, defense, what are some good things you noticed on offense? What I did love was, obviously we already kind of touched on it was the off um explosive plays uh you know

we have you know that long touchdown to keegan johnson you know and a few plays before that um tyler rips off a nice um thing almost like 30 yard run um and then you know on that the drive when we do the interception um you know we had again another big play to keegan johnson as well and then there was a couple other throws like where he threw to nico regani who makes amazing amazing catch yeah and it's just it's just an incredible catch which was you know fantastic right so seeing those type of plays are really encouraging you know moving ahead here because um explosive plays um can help you win football games right i mean um that's that's one of the biggest um you know goals as an offense besides you know know, scoring points. Right. To create those explosive plays. And, you know, seeing that and seeing us do that was very encouraging.

Right. And then also, I like the creativity that Brian brought when, you know, we had the interception where or interception. I think it was a fumble. Right. Yep, and Colorado State's on territory. And, you know, you come back with, you know, reverse to, again, create. The mini Statue of Liberty. Nice little Statue of Liberty, yeah, for a touchdown, which was – I like that. So I think, you know, there's a lot of good things that happened in the game, the explosive plays, and then I liked the creativity. I think that the offensive staff ended up bringing

back for that second half of football so those are a lot of good encouraging things that I saw couldn't couldn't hear more I think a lot of people get upset about Brian Ferencz's play calling but they don't understand what all goes into his play calling and then you see stuff like that I mean Brian has incorporated some new principles this Iowa offense that were never even thought imaginable. Heck, even back when you're playing only, you know, five, six years ago, right? Those are things that Iowa just wasn't doing. And I think he, there are times of just absolute brilliance where he just gets the defense caught completely off guard. That statue of Liberty played to Tyrone was just one of those examples of that. And I thought for what I thought was a pretty well-called offensive game plan to only put 24 points on the board is just bizarre to me.

I just don't know how to describe it. I thought we were moving the ball pretty well outside. I mean, passed the ball pretty well. They had some good end-around action. Arlen Bruce got in the game. We have a true freshman just burning guys on the perimeter. I mean, if you had told me that Iowa would have had four passing plays over 20 yards, including two over 40, I would have been like, wow, we destroyed Colorado State. And then we're here

talking about a 10-point win. So very interesting stuff. We're going to talk about the defense and what we saw that was good on the defensive side of the ball here in a second. I do want to tell you all about sweat block. The sweat block has been revolutionary for my life. I used to pick out shirts based off the color to make sure I wasn't sweating through it, or I'd wear hoodies even when it was 80 degrees to make sure you weren't going to see the sweat from my t-shirt.

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We've talked about that. Arlen Bruce, I want to see him get the ball in his hands in creative ways. This is a guy who in high school played quarterback, running back, and wide receiver. He's a do-it-all kind of player, an athletic little dynamite package of a 5'9 or whatever he is. And Keegan Johnson, I mean, this is a guy who's a four-star recruit. We don't get a lot of four-star wide receivers coming to iowa and he has made a name for himself to this point his first

catch is a touchdown uh i want to ask you what was your first college catch or touch from a running back perspective do you remember let's see my first run uh i think we were playing like Missouri State or something, some like FCS school. I think it was like an outside zone play. I think it went for like seven or eight yards for a first down or something like that. I think it was my first actual touch. And then I know my first touchdown came the following season

when I was a sophomore on my first carry of the year when we played um northern iowa again on an outside zone play of course right i mean it's yep it's only right right either outside zone or a power player to score on so um yeah so that now was my first touchdown um that's awesome again it was great right um so yeah yeah you always you always remember the first you always yeah. You always, you always remember the first, you always remember that first touch and you always remember that first touchdown. Um, for sure. Yeah. And Keegan only has to remember one now because that all came in the exact same, same place. That was, that was awesome to see. Uh, nonetheless, um, I thought

Tyler Goodson was trying to do as much as he could, given the fact that he was getting just, I mean, it felt like every time he touched the ball, he was getting blown up in the backfield. SpinShady was trying to get out of that stuff. But, I mean, you can only spin so many times before you're going to get tackled because Colorado State's defense was swarming. Anything you notice from a running game perspective? I mean, I felt like Tyler Goodson did as good as he possibly could, given what was happening on that defensive line.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought he played as well as you know he could i mean there might have been some runs in there where he might have maybe tiptoed too much and he could have got more positive yards but i mean it's hard it's hard as a running back to to get back in that mode of you know just hitting everything like full speed like when you are being tackled in the backfield, you know, quite a bit. I think they Colorado State had like seven or eight tackle for losses yesterday or something like that. So and I know a few of them came on run place. Right.

So I thought Tyler, you know, played well for what he was given. I just thought Colorado State's, you you know the line was just kind of just obviously punching us in the mouth and their um guys on the edge were doing a great job of playing support and getting in there and helping stop in the run so um you know a whole bunch of credit still has to go to colorado state um and their defense again because they came out ready to play and i don't think you know i will will really match that same intensity for most of the ball game. So they're going to come back. I know today won't be a fun day in film whatsoever,

but I thought Tyler did, did a great job for what he was given. And, you know, obviously he's, he's our guy, right? So, I mean, it doesn't really matter, you know, how, what happens or anything like that, but cause he's going to be, he's going to be in there. He's the guy that we know is going to provide the most spark there at the running back spot. So yeah, I thought he played well. But you know, overall as a whole, obviously the run game was disappointing.

I think for a lot of us, for sure. You mentioned something and this might seem like an ignorant question, because I didn't play running back, right? But I didn't even think about that. When a running back is getting hit so often in the backfield, is that something that happens where you kind of get happy feet almost, and you're like, you know what? I'm not trusting that the hole is there because I'm literally just getting blown up.

So even when you're not getting blown up, you automatically start, you know, kind of doing a little bit jittery. You're kind of moving around a little bit. You're not attacking with the purpose. Is that something that actually happens for a lot of running backs? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it can happen quite a bit.

I mean, because obviously like, you know, as a running back, you know, game times change, you know, all the time, right? I mean, there'll be times where, you know, holes are just there. You don't got to do anything. You just jog through. And then there's other times where, you know, you time right i mean there'll be times where you know holzer's there you don't gotta do anything you just jog through and then there's other times where you know you're getting tackled right like a half a second after you get the football right and then you know i know that you know tyler kind of probably felt like hey like things really aren't going our way so i'm trying to he's probably like thinking his head like okay there's gotta be a way for me to try to create a play and it does happen as a running back, even though like you might like say like, yeah, you know, I wasn't doing that.

But I think like it's a subconscious thing where it's like, you know, the last time we ran this play, you know, the guy was right in my face. Right. So I'm going to try something different this time. Right. Instead of just sticking with, hey, these, this is, these are my keys. This is my assignment. And only time I'm supposed to deviate off that is if something were to get in my way instead of, you know, thinking of it beforehand. So yeah, it is something that, that happens subconsciously. I don't know if that was, you know, the reason why that happened, but I know that it's a reason it's something that does happen because you know i've experienced it you know myself right so um this is my my thoughts there and i think um

you know as time goes on and the season goes on right there's gonna there's not every single game is going to be perfect right not every hole is going to be there and i think uh the coaching staff was telling like hey you know it's not always going to be perfect so just try to get what you can get right you obviously want to score on every single play but not every single play is going to go for a score so just try to get positive yards if you can and avoid trying to be being not trying to be but avoid being tackled in the backfield absolutely lashaun i appreciate your insight there that was awesome i think uh none of us anyone most people listening to this probably didn't play uh college football or play the running back position so

bringing us inside kind of what tyler is feeling i think that was super amazing i really appreciate that let's talk about the defense side of the ball um any good things you wanted to call from the defensive side of the ball um you know, really just the way that, you know, they came back and played in the second half. I think that was the biggest thing. I think early on, I felt like, you know, they Colorado state was able to make a lot of different plays, you know, especially from the quarterback position.

I mean, that guy was doing a great job as far as, you know, extending plays with his legs and as great job as far as you know extending plays with his legs and as well as well you know completing passes which you know obviously put his team in position to actually you know win the football game um i thought that uh justin jenkins did a great job you know yesterday trying to uh what a terrible boot like they're just so bad um yeah that was that was not good and i don't think they even corrected into like the fourth quarter so um but yeah i mean um you know i thought that he was he was he was definitely flying around all over the place i know that there was a couple times where he put pressure on the quarterback

um and i know that he was uh you know where he put pressure on the quarterback. I know that he was working to cover their star tight end, Trey McBride, who is obviously a really good player. He's going to be playing on Sundays. He's 260 pounds. Yeah. I think he always

stands out. Jack Campbell, who probably felt like he had like 100 tackles yesterday, was literally flying all over the field. It was like every single time that someone was on the ground, he was like right there. Right. And, you know, Seth Benson. I know I called out all the linebackers by name, but they all feel like they all played a really good game. I feel like they were all kind of flying all over the field and doing whatever they could to make plays. I think that's fair, though. When you combine those tackles, Jack had 17, Seth had 10, and Jessen had 8.

That's 35 tackles combined between those three linebackers. They are going to be the bread and butter of our team this year. I mean, that linebacker group is underrated and is only going to continue to get better. I mean, Justin Jacobs, he's only had three real games of playing time since being on the Iowa Hawkeyes, since joining the Iowa Hawkeyes as a four-star recruit. And he's been getting some tough matchups, man. I mean, happened to go up against trey mcbride and say you know what have fun with this all-american potential first round tight end

and coming away unscathed i thought he played pretty well trey got a couple catches he was gonna get a couple catches they force feed the ball into him they had 11 targets he's only had six catches i mean that was actually a pretty quiet day for trey mcbride and a lot of that came down to justin jacobs jack campbell like you said an absolute madman i also thought defensively i mean one of the the keys i was had the last well ever since being under phil parker is really creating and forcing turnovers yes we had that fumble that was not a i don't consider that a forced turnover that was more of a right place right time bad communication from an offensive perspective but it felt like iowa had 10

opportunities to pick the ball off and they were just a little bit behind. I mean, a lot of tip balls, uh, Todd Sencio known for he's had, I think nine or 10 balls batted down the line of scrimmage coming into this game, uh, had a couple opportunities there. We just couldn't get our hands on it. So I know that's kind of a weird positive, but we were very, very close to picking off and taking away several footballs and we just couldn't make it happen. And again, coming away 24, 14 with the wind, uh, the second half, as you mentioned, absolutely shutting down that offense, the adjustments were made and that offense did not move at all in that second half. Um, you have to be happy about that, especially going into a game against Maryland.

Those breaks are going to happen, right? We're going to get more of those breaks from a turnover perspective. So those are some of the good things I saw as well. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. So special teams-wise, I quickly want to call out Charlie Jones again. I think we have some recurring segments on here,

I feel like, every time we talk. Is Spencer good enough to be our quarterback. It's we always got to talk about pass blocking. And then we got to talk about Charlie Jones, man, because this guy is just absurd. So my question before I get into Charlie Jones is, did you ever return punts?

I don't remember you returning punts or kickoffs at Iowa. No, nah, nah, nah. I returned like a few punts in high school, but no, never was on that return game life.

I mean, they never they never tried me back there. So who knows? Maybe I could have done it. Yeah, who knows? But yeah, I mean, I love the way Charlie plays back there. I mean, he's a fearless guy and basically tries to return every single ball. guy and basically tries to return every single ball i'm trying to think when i was when i was there um especially uh i want to say he might have returned a couple i think and like um maybe riley mccarron i know returned a couple before before you know we ended up settling on desmond um for the last two years i think but it felt like we never got any returns i felt like we always it was like the ball would be punted and then like by the time i

even looked down there he had already bear caught the ball and then like we were just gonna get the ball there so i love the way that um charlie is fearless back there i mean he's not afraid to to make a mistake because i mean mean, and, you know, frankly, he hasn't made too many, you know, while he's been back there for the past two years. And I love the way that he returns to football. He's always trying to make a play, right? He wants that return to be an offensive weapon.

And I think Coach Woods is definitely doing things to help that out as far as guys blocking and coming up with different returns and things like that so uh I love Charlie Jones back there I think he's obviously a huge huge weapon weapon for us um in the return game but to come back to the original question nah never tried me up on return never practiced it or anything I rarely even practice catching um kickoff returns which would have been fun to be on, but hey, that's what it is. Yeah, we're here now. That's funny. Yeah, so Charlie, I mean, he's such an advantage to the offense. I mean, he's an offensive weapon in his own right.

When you look at four returns for 66 yards, 16 and a half yard average per return, that's such an advantage for the offense. At some point, these punters have got to stop kicking the ball to him. But you mentioned the limited amount of mistakes as well. I mean, typically, if you get a guy like that, I'm a huge Broncos fan. And I remember it was a couple, like 10 years ago, they had a returner they claimed from the Texans. I can't remember his name, but he's like 5'5", electric, fast, came out of LSU, and he had a – do you know who I'm talking about?

Trenton Holliday. Trenton Holliday. Yeah. The dude was electric when he had the ball in his hands. It was either he was going to score a touchdown or he was going to fumble the football, but you appreciated the touchdowns with Charlie though. You just get these phenomenal returns in limited amount of mistakes. I think he had one fumble last year.

And then this year, uh, this, you can't even necessarily classify this as a mistake, but he chose to not return a ball yesterday, which was weird considering I thought he had plenty of time, but he's like, Oh, this will probably bounce into the end zone. It bounces lands at like the seven. I'm like, Oh crap. That was, but even that that's a, a minor, minor mistake. Um, he probably thought the ball was going to bounce a little different, but nevertheless, uh, and Charlie Jones, in Charlie Jones we trust,

taking on the special teams, Torrey Taylor, he'll bounce back. Probably his worst day punting we've seen, but you expect that for a guy who's literally played 12 college football games in his entire career. LaShawn, that pretty much, I think the takeaway from this game is, wow, that was weird, but we saw some good things we want. What are you hoping to see out of Iowa versus Maryland? So I think offensively we got to see consistent offensive line play.

I mean, I would love for, you know, the coaches to settle on a group of five that they feel confident in, because I feel like sometimes when you, I see, I think they, they know that they're being rotated in, but I feel like that can sometimes throw off confidence a little bit, you know, within,

you know, those offensive line groups. So I want to see consistent offensive line play and helping keep the pocket clean. Cause as you mentioned, Spencer's not a mobile guy. So I want to see that shirt up. I want to see, you know, less enemies. I would much rather these guys just get flat out, just beat, you know, on pass blocking assignments instead of, you know, having those mental errors

for sure, because, you know, mental errors are, are, you know, easily correctable. So that'll tell me like a lot, like, Hey, they were were in they were able to correct everything and they're able to move on so that that's one of the most important things for for me and myself and then um defensively uh i mean they've been doing such a great job um but you know i do want them to continue the play that they've been able to do and actually capitalize on some of those turnover opportunities because again turnovers help you win football games. You know, when the ball's in the air, right, that's got to be our ball, right? So I want to see us capitalize a lot more on that as far as, you know, defensive side of the ball goes. And then special teams just keep doing what they're doing.

Yeah, Caleb Shudock, I think we don't ever talk about Caleb Shudock, but that's because whenever he goes out there, he just kicks field goal, goes in. We're good to go. We get three points. I mean, he's an automatic three. Again, Corey Taylor, just so good. I mean, I love, I just love special teams

and it's just so fun to see us be so dominant in every aspect of special teams. Agreed though, offensive line. I think we need to figure out that rotation. I think they're getting close. I'm going to talk about on the show tomorrow, the snap count breakdown. Really at this point,

it seems like they've kind of locked in on who their, who their five guys are just kind of depends on how they want to continue to rotate Kyler shot in as he continues to get healthier and healthier. This week playing 27 snaps last week, playing 19 snaps. The explosive plays, I think is huge as well. As you mentioned, I want to, I want to see more of that. I want to see a little bit more involvement of Arlen and Keegan. I mean, when they have the ball in their hands, it's been a lot of fun.

Keegan blowing past two guys, you know, on Saturday's game, which is awesome. Defensively, you know, I think it's unfortunate that the defense is so good that the bar is so freaking high, right? Like, what more can they do to be a dominant defense? And I'm over here upset about how the defensive defense played. I'm like, Andrew, you're being an ignorant, a jerk about this. They played pretty well and they have such short field position.

I would like to see, obviously the defense get a better opportunity to start in the right spot of the field and not 30 yards from, from their own goal line. So I would like to see that. I think that will in turn help the defense play better. LaShawn, it's always a pleasure having you on the show. Any last words before we close it out for today? Nah, I don't really got much. It was a blast, as always, and go Hawks.

I love man. All right, we want to tell you, make sure that betting on your team doesn't have to be a guessing game. If you listen to the new Locked On Bets podcast hosted by your boy Q and handicapping expert, Lee Serling, get daily picks, blowout specials, wrong team favorite picks, and Lee Serling's lock of the day.

Follow the Locked On Bets podcast brought to you by betonline.ag, wherever you get your podcast at. And if you were listening to me last week and you took my advice on betting, maybe you go back to Lee because Lee does a little better job apparently because I went 0 for 4 on my Iowa bets this week. We'll be better this next week coming up against Maryland. LaShawn, it's a pleasure as always. Have a fantastic Sunday for listening to this

or Monday for listening to this. Hawkeye Nation, and go Hawks.