Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa makes final push in 2019 recruiting | Takeaways from big win over Michigan | Fran is the right coach, and fans need to R-E-L-A-X

Episode Date: February 4, 2019

The Iowa football coaching staff is making a final push in recruiting individuals to the class of 2019. They received a big commitment from a graduate transfer punter and have a few offers outstanding that they are waiting to hear back on this week. Segment two has us discussing the Hawks huge win over #5 Michigan Friday evening and giving our three takeaways from that victory before I head on a soap box about fan's treatments of players and also why I think Fran is a great coach. He may not be the best coach in terms of winning, but he is the kind of coach I would want to play for, and that should mean something. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your University of Iowa Hawkeyes. I'm your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at dearoldgold.com, part of the fan-sided network where you can find analysis pieces on all things black and yellow. I cover a lot of content over there, all in the writing form, so it makes perfect sense to also cover the Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network's Iowa Hawkeye podcast, The Locked On Hawkeyes. We have another exciting episode for you today. As we do the rest of the week, we have some fantastic content coming up. I want to first give you an apology

that this is coming out a little late. I understand, well, I hope you understand at least, that with Super Bowl Sunday, it's a little bit difficult to get a podcast out. Wanted to obviously watch the game. So I'm recording this obviously today, Monday morning, as opposed to when I would normally record this on Sunday afternoon. So my apologies again for the rest of the week. You can expect these pieces early, first thing in the morning going forward.

For today's episode, though, we have a lot of stuff to cover. We're first going to cover recruitment. Recruitment day, or sorry, official signing day is Wednesday. Obviously there was the early recruitment period, but this is kind of the official signing period day where a lot of players are going to ultimately commit to their future programs. And although Iowa had 20 guys commit in December, there's still a lot of opportunity for them to bring in guys, whether that's graduate transfers, walk-ons, or just scholarship athletes coming from high school. So we're going to cover that on segment number one today, who's kind of in the running going forward. On segment number two, we're going to be talking about the Iowa-Michigan game and a few of our takeaways from that game.

Obviously, if you didn't get a chance to watch it, it was an incredible game. A game that really put Iowa on the map, gave them that signature win beating No. 5 Michigan, especially in the fashion that they did it. So we're going to be talking about that on segment No. 2. And then finally on segment No. 3, we're going to be talking about Fran McCaffrey and the Iowa basketball team and the fan base that supports them. I think it's really important to cover some of those things just because Fran's been catching a lot of slack from people over the last couple weeks about this team. Obviously, I think fans are a little bit frustrated watching the football season unfold. I think that frustration is carrying over into basketball, and I think unnecessarily, too.

I mean, this team is very strong, and we've been through a few tough times but people need to realize that you're playing in the Big Ten. So we're going to be covering kind of our thoughts on Fran and some of the you know the fan base not the whole fan base just some some fans and what we want to kind of do going forward. So let's jump right into it with segment number one but before we do that I want to make sure you understand that you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at. And that will be the easiest way to ensure you get every single episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast downloaded directly to your mobile device or however you're listening

to podcast. Also, if you have a smart speaker at home, it's really easy to listen to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Also, if you have a smart speaker at home, it's really easy to listen to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. All you need to do is tell Siri, Google, or Alexa to play podcast Locked On Hawkeyes. It's that easy. I do it every night or anytime I'm really cooking dinner. I just tell my Amazon show, hey, Alexa, play podcast Locked On Hawkeyes or play podcast Locked on NFL Draft with John Ledger and Trevor Sikama. There's so many options that you can listen to on the Locked on Sports Network, and I hope you take the time to obviously listen to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast on a regular

basis. So let's go right into it on segment number one. Big news. Obviously, a lot of things are coming up with recruiting, and you're going to be hearing a lot about this over the next couple of days. We'll try to keep you up to date on this going forward. The first thing I wanted to cover though, is that Iowa got a big graduate transfer, Michael Sleep Dalton. He's a punter from Arizona State. He is a senior this year. And if you may have watched any Iowa football

games, you realize that the punting unit was terrible. Colton Rastetter, you know, I'm not a big, I don't want to rag on college players. I just want to point out the statistics and kind of what's going on. He averaged 38.9 yards per punt, which was 112th out of 124 teams. And for a team like Iowa, you cannot have bad special teams units. They rely on making no mistakes, flipping field position, playing strong defense. And when your punter is only kicking at 38 yards, that isn't going to do it. So getting Michael Sleep-Dalton's huge. He averaged 43.6 yards per punt last season, which was 26th best in the nation. And that'll be, that's just a fantastic upgrade for Iowa, at least for one season to try to figure out what the heck

to do about this punting situation he's not the only graduate transfer that Iowa had their eyes on though there was a report put out by 24-7 sports that Jonah Jackson a Rutgers offensive lineman he is a graduate transfer as well and that Iowa may be interested in him that being said I haven't been able to find any confirmation of this from any other sources. So take that with a grain of salt. I don't think that is even really a possibility, though. He kind of has Ohio State and Oklahoma as the frontrunners for his services. And to be honest, Iowa did lose Keegan Render and Ross Reynolds, but they have some guys stepping up.

They have the Poulsen twins. You know, they have Linderbaum. Like, they have a lot of guys who could really take and fill those voids that I think they're excited about. So unless Jonah Jackson wants to be a deaf player, I just don't see it really happening. But neither here nor there. As we know, Iowa isn't really big on the kind of modern day recruiting front in terms of graduate transfers at some other universities such as Miami is. So not a big deal. It's just how Iowa works their system. There are a couple guys, though, that they do have kind of plans for that they've been working on as of late.

They want to obviously fill out this recruiting class. And so we're going to talk about those guys now. The first guy is Jamari Harris. And this guy kind of came on late. And I think it's really a play to get someone who could play that Imani Hooker role at some point that's going to be a big gap for Iowa in their secondary this upcoming season playing that cash role allowing Iowa kind of transition to that modern 4-2-5 Iowa has you know Stone coming back as a safety he's not exactly Imani Hooker type he's more of an over

the top type safety so Jamari Harris is a guy who guy who could come in and step in in a few years and play that role. And this was reported by Rob Howell that he was coming in this weekend for a visit. He should have a decision this Monday. So excited to hear on what to expect from him. He has a 6'2", 175-pound prospect. Iowa scholarship offer is the only Power 5 school at this time

that's offered him. So I kind of expect him to commit. But it sounds like a lot of talent from this kid. Another guy, Jakardia Wright. He actually had an offer a long time ago. He didn't sign during the early signing period, but all signs are still pointing to Iowa. He's a 6'200 safety from Decatur, Illinois,

and he holds currently six offers, but no team really with as much prestige as Iowa. So I do expect him to sign on February, or sorry, February 6th. So we should be seeing that. Another guy that Iowa is currently kind of listed as the top place or destination is for Kobe Myers. He's a six foot, 190 pound athlete from Michigan. Currently, like I said, on 24-7 sports, he has Iowa at the top of his list, or they have Iowa at the top of the list. But he also received a walk-on offer to Michigan.

And that, you know, based on his Twitter, he seems pretty excited about that. That's a pretty big deal, especially being an in-state kid. That may be something he's more, you know, leaned to doing. So it may be an opportunity. I don't think Iowa, it sounds like Iowa hasn't really been pursuing him as a late so I definitely could see him kind of switching gears there and going to walk on for a program that's in his state another guy I'm going to butcher this name Nick Nawasa he is a safety from Texas big thing here he did he hasn't received a scholarship offer, but Iowa was visiting with him. He did, however, commit to another program earlier this weekend, so he is no longer on the trail for Iowa.

And then finally, Tajir McCall. He's a two-star defensive lineman from Florida. He received an offer from the Hawks late last week, according to Rob Howe at Hawkeye Nation. He also currently holds six offers, but the most notable ones are Army and Navy. So definitely something to keep a lookout. A couple of guys that obviously could come in and impact the Iowa football program. Although Iowa got a good class in the first 20, there's always opportunities to keep improving, especially when Iowa had four early departures, which is the most they've ever had in the program history. There's also a few walk-on guys. I want to quickly touch on them, not to leave them hanging, but Jackson Freericks, he committed

to Iowa out of Cedar Falls. And again, these names are a little bit more difficult to pronounce. Keontae Luckett, he's a running back from New London, Iowa. He also committed. Javon Foy committed. He's a running back from New London, Iowa. He also committed. Javon Foy committed. He's a wide receiver from Moline. And then Jackson Ritter, he is a wide receiver tight end prospect from Illinois. He is likely to commit in my personal opinion.

He's still taking a few visits, but seems pretty excited about the opportunity to go to Iowa. So we'll keep you posted as these things kind of keep coming up. There's going to be a lot of movement and news over the next couple of days. Maybe there'll be a few surprises. You never know with Iowa Hawkeye coaching staff. So stay tuned for that. And just a reminder that on segment number two, we're going to be talking about the Iowa-Michigan game.

So stay tuned to that after a few messages from our sponsors. All right, we are back with segment number two. I hope you enjoyed those messages from our sponsors of the show today. We are covering three takeaways from Iowa versus Michigan, just talking about that game in general. And then reminder on segment number three, we're going to be talking about Fran McCaffrey in a piece that I feel really passionate about that I really want to make sure we're talking a lot about. And I would love to hear your thoughts, opinions on that. Definitely received a lot of good commentary on Twitter at the LockedOnIowa Twitter account and the Dear Old Gold Twitter account about folks and what their thoughts are on Fran. So I would love to continue that dialogue and discussion. So please feel free to tweet at me on there.

Or you can tweet at my personal account at Wade underscore Andrew. So let's jump right into Iowa versus Michigan. Huge win for Iowa, beating Michigan 74-59. A couple things. I just want to throw out some caveats there, though, real quick. Michigan shot the ball terribly. And some of that has to do with Iowa's defense. But Michigan definitely was not playing their A game, but you can't really decipher whether that's because of Iowa or that's because Michigan was pressing and wasn't doing a good job.

Either way, big win for the Hawks to get a win over a top five seed, their first since 2016 when they knocked off Michigan State in 2016 during those Jared Uthoff years. So big win nonetheless. That brings Iowa to 17-5. They are three wins away from that magical 20-win threshold that kind of almost guarantees them a spot in the NCAA tournament. But I think it's pretty obvious this team has the ability to do even better and go even further as opposed to getting an 8 or 9 seed. This team really has the opportunity to maybe get a 4 or five seed and get an easier matchup in that first round granted

no easy matchups in the NCAA tournament but just potentially a team that maybe has a little bit lower of a ceiling so what we learned from this team that was a lot of things I think the first thing is Iowa has a high ceiling they have the opportunity to do something great there's a lot of talent when things are clicking, they do fantastic. And keep in mind, not everything was clicking for them. Defensively, they played outstanding, but Luka Garza got in foul trouble.

Jordan Bohannon had a very 2018-2019 Jordan Bohannon season, and shot two of six, and then Isaiah Moss went zero for seven. So this is not a team that was firing on all cylinders. They played well, but imagine if they have a true offensive outbreak and they can put that all together. So this team has a very high ceiling, able to beat the No. 5 team in the nation by 15 points. I know it was at home. The fans were electric. The crowd was fantastic.

Harvard was bumping. But still, this really gives me a lot of hope for this team going forward. Another big thing we learned, and I think we already kind of know this, but Joe Wieskamp is a freaking star. This kid is going to be insane. I'm going to be putting out a piece on Daryl Gold, and maybe I'll talk a little bit about it on the show later on this week. But I want to talk about the top five players in the Fran McCaffrey era,

and there's been some real good ones. Seems like every year there's kind of one guy who kind of steps up. Joe Wieskamp is going to be that guy for the foreseeable future. He is incredible, and in arguably the biggest game of his career, he went 6-10 for 16 points. He held in seven rebounds, and he dished out two assists and managed five steals. That is freaking impressive. He's just 22 games into his Iowa career, and he's clearly one of the best players on the team and is going to be the star going forward.

Fran McCaffrey had this to say about him in his postgame press conference. He said, you know, kind of high praise too. He said, it's great for him. It's great for us. I'm happy for him. I told him after the last game, I said, you got to recognize when you walk on the floor, you got to view yourself as one of the best players out there. Wouldn't trade you for anybody.

So go out there and attack. Be aggressive. Shoot threes. Drive it. Dunk it. Rebound it. Kick it. You make a mistake.

Run back. Guard your man. I'm not going to yank you. I'm going to let you play through it. I'm going to tell you to shoot it again and develop confidence. But develop that swag that you need to be one of the premier players in this league and ultimately in the country. That's what he is.

That's some pretty high praise from Fan McCaffrey. And that's, we'll get to this on segment number three, but that's one of the things that I really can appreciate about him. The other thing I really want to bring up is the fact that this team is pretty resilient. I mean, yes, they've had some bad losses. They, you know, you look at resiliency and it's kind of a spectrum, right? They get their butts kicked by Michigan State late at Carver. They turn around and get their butts kicked by Minnesota. I know the score was closer than the game actually was, but that's not really handling adversity well, but they've done it for the most part throughout the season.

I think if adversity kind of goes and ebbs and flows and they lose to Michigan State, they lose to Minnesota, they're now facing the toughest opponent on their schedule and they managed to win. Just like when they started Big Ten play 0-3 and they went on a five-game winning streak, beating two ranked teams and taking on Northwestern and Penn State on the road while missing key players. That's how you handle adversity. Even in this game, they handled adversity well. I mentioned it before. Isaiah Moss went 0-7.

Bohannon, not exactly a hot shooting streak. And Luka Garza got in foul trouble early. And we know Fran is not keen on playing guys in foul trouble. So he sat for a lot of minutes. But Ryan Creener came in and had a fantastic game. He had six of nine field goals for 15 points along with 10 boards. The last thing is Michigan tried cutting into their lead. They got it down to five.

And that still prompted me to think, oh, God, here we go again. But Iowa managed to close it out. And, yes, there were some issues towards the end of the second half. I think not really truly closing out strong. Just good thing they had a big lead. But still, this is a team that has dealt with adversity already this season, knows how to do that. And it's something that they've experienced now. So they're able to maybe handle this when it comes March and they're in the NCAA tournament. So something I really found kind of crucial about that was just their ability to handle that and be

resilient in times that are kind of getting tough. But that'll do it for segment number two. If you didn't get a chance to watch the game, if you did record it, I would highly recommend checking that out. It was a fantastic game to view as an Iowa basketball fan. Iowa has another game coming up later this week against Indiana. We're going to be covering that as well. Also, just a reminder that we're not covering the other sports today, but we're going to be covering women's basketball, wrestling, tennis, swimming, all those sports on tomorrow's

episode. So stay tuned for that on our Tuesday podcast. Before we jump into segment number three, we have a few messages from our sponsors. So stay tuned. We'll be talking about my opinions on Fran in just a few moments. All right, we are back after those messages from our sponsors of the show today. On segment number three, we're going to be talking about Fran McCaffrey. And we talked about this last week.

I did some analysis on his record versus some of the other legendary coaches. Not legendary, but the most recent coaches in Iowa basketball history. And it kind of came out pretty solid. I know I got a lot of flack for that on Twitter, but I stand by my statement. I think Fran's a good coach. And it's not just the records. It's not just the wins and losses. I love him as a coach. He's the kind of coach that I would want to play for. He's the kind of coach who stands up for his players regardless.

He might, he was kind of like a parent in that sense. To me, it kind of reminds me of, you know, let's say, this isn't an actual occurrence, but let's say Jordan Bohannon messes up, right? Frank McCaffrey is going to defend him to the death. Behind closed doors, he's going to probably tell Bohannon what's up. And I love that. You know, he wants to instill some sense of responsibility, but also he's going to shield those players from media and unnecessary speculation and unnecessary criticism. And he does a fantastic job of that. Just like what happened earlier in the season with Macy Daly.

I don't necessarily agree with Fran's reaction, but he had a side to pick or he decided to choose and he chose the side of his players. And as a player, as a former athlete, you want to be with those coaches who are going to stick up for you. I remember, and this is a long time ago, playing in a baseball game and I got thrown out of the game. One of my coaches got thrown out of the game literally 10 minutes later for arguing. And that made me feel so good that he had my back that I wasn't, it wasn't me being an idiot. It was, you know, he really supported me and stuff. And you can go to bat for players like that. So, or for coaches like that, I think Fran's the kind of guy who can do that. He cares about these players. He cares about this program. I mean,

even in his post-game press conference, you know, he talked a lot about Iowa versus Michigan state, but he also, he had the, you know, State, but he also had the ability. He talked about the Dance Marathon group. If you don't know what Dance Marathon is, make sure you check that out. The University of Iowa does Dance Marathon big. They raise tons of money for this incredible charity. It's basically a 24-hour event where they are just standing the entire time, moving, dancing, hearing speeches. It's an incredible thing.

I wish I could have done it when I was in college, but really, really cool opportunity for those kids and those students. And Fran, despite beating the number five team in the nation, still talked about that and mentioned it multiple times, whether it was in on-court interviews or his post-game press conference. So pretty cool. He even said this in his post-game press conference. I just want to say I want to commend our dance marathon group.

A lot of these kids showing up tonight. They're heading over to dance, and it's amazing what they do every year. I know some of you have been over there to see it, but it's truly one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in all my years of coaching and being at an institution. I've been at a number of institutions. What they do just warms your heart. So I just want to give a shout out to those guys.

Thank you. He also said, I mean, he loved the storming of the court. He loved the fact that the fans were excited and enthusiastic. I mean, you can just tell how passionate he is about this program, how passionate he is about the Iowa Hawkeyes in general. And, you know, it's hard to find guys like that. This is the kind of guy who he has, you know, one kid there and Connor and one kid on his way and Patrick,

and he's here to stay. And I know it can be tough, right? We want to see Iowa contend for national titles every single year. And I know you look at our neighbors in the same state, Iowa State, and you think, well, they're contending. But let's be honest. Iowa State hasn't won a national title. They've had some pretty darn good teams, but they're not, you know, they're not Kansas every year. They're still a good team, don't get me

wrong, and they've done it a different way. But I love the way Iowa's doing it, getting players in there, you know, and building them into that program, getting three and four star players and turning them into solid starters. It's very similar to how Kirk Ferentz runs his program. And I know it can be frustrating for basketball fans, but also keep in mind that, man, the Big Ten's tough. This conference is not easy. And that's not an excuse. You see Michigan State and Michigan doing it every single year. But Fran's still building this program, in my personal opinion. I think, you know, when he came in, the program was crap. It was absolutely crap after the Licklider era. And then, you know, he built it up. He got a fantastic recruiting class with Gazelle and, you know, Woodbury and brought in Jared Uthoff and those

guys, right? That was huge. That was a fantastic recruiting class. They all graduated in the, the bottom kind of fell out. We had Peter Jock for a year. He's able to kind of hold the team together and then it all went downhill. But now I will say that's kind of on Fran. He should have been more prepared for that happening. But in just two more years time, this team is ready to contend again and for a long time. Also, this team isn't made up of a bunch of similar class players, right? We have Tyler Cook, Bohannon, Kreener. They're all juniors. But Garza's a sophomore. Wieskamp's a freshman.

McCaffrey's a freshman. Moss is a junior. There is still talent below that is coming up. We have Patrick McCaffrey coming in next year. So there's a lot of players. You forget about Jack Nunn, Corden Pemsel. Those guys are younger guys who are now redshirting this year. So these classes are getting a little bit more staggered, and Fran's still bringing in good players. So he's starting to really build this

program to be successful for the longterm, not just two year runs, two years off, two years run, two years off. So it's exciting to see that. I think, you know, he obviously deserves a chance to stick around. He actually, with the win over Michigan moved into a tie for second place all-time in wins in program history, toppling Lou Olsen. So fantastic stuff. I'm interested to see kind of how the rest of the season plays out, and hopefully that'll kind of start changing some Iowa basketball fans' opinions. Also, just as like a reminder, guys, do not talk crap to players.

These are college kids. These kids are 18 to 22 i saw there's an isaiah moss no i want to say tyler cook tweet and it and this isn't the exact words but it basically said like don't be a bandwagon fan like support us the entire time and that's absolutely what we should do i actually saw someone have the audacity a grown man have the audacity to tweet back at him and say if you've been a fan as long as I have you would be it is okay to be upset I have the right to be upset okay man first off I don't disagree with having the right to be upset I get upset when Iowa loses I'm upset at the outcome I'm not upset at those players and yes it's my job to do some analysis and say whether or not Bohannon had a bad game. And I've been tough on him,

but I also think I'd be happy to meet Bohannon and tell him he's a great player. And I do enjoy watching him. I think he's probably a good guy. Some of the stuff he's done, especially with the Chris Street free throw thing, seems like a really great dude. I'm not hating on him as a person.

I'm just critiquing his game, but I'm not also going to tweet at him and say, yo, Bohannon, you suck. First of all, that's not true. And second of all, that's so inappropriate and unethical and unmoral. If you do that, honestly, I don't want you listening to this podcast. I think it's okay to not be happy with the results. You don't want to expect mediocrity, but to tweet at a player and basically argue with him about what you should think of the program. Come on now guys, grow up. So I'll get off my soapbox. That's kind of my thoughts. I just saw that and it really triggered me. So I wanted to at least share my thoughts on that to you all Hawkeye nation, but that'll do it for segment number three. And that'll ultimately do

it for our show. Again, my apologies on getting this show out late Superbowl Sunday, yesterday game got over. I just kind of wanted to go to bed. So I got up this morning, didn't get a chance to do it right away. But here we are. We're getting it out at some point. You can listen to this on your Monday morning commute. You can also listen to this tomorrow as well on your Tuesday morning commute. We'll also have another episode coming out tomorrow morning, as we will with the rest

of the week. So make sure to tune into that and listen to all the fantastic content that we're producing on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Just a reminder as well, make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts at. And please leave us a review. Let us know what you think. You can also tweet at us at LockedOnIowa.

You can also tweet at me at Wade underscore Andrew. And if you have any comments or questions, you can email me at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com. But that'll do it for our show today, y'all. Thank you for joining us on the LockedOnHawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and we'll be back tomorrow.