Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa ranked first in power rankings | Hawkeyes show out on MNF | The B1G continues to do nothing

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

It's college basketball power ranking season, and the Hawkeyes are at the top, as expected. Here's why this makes sense and what teams to be worried about in the B1G this season. On the football front, the B1G continues to make no decisions regarding the future of Fall football. With time being important, when can we expect a decision and what would a decision look like? And in the NFL, three Hawkeyes performed well on the big stage of Monday Night Football. What did Michael Ojemudia, Josey Jewell, and Noah Fant do in their season-opener for the Denver Broncos?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get $10 off your first order. 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, and on today's episode, we're going to be breaking down last night's Monday night football game for the Iowa Hawkeyes. There were four Iowa Hawkeyes in that game, making plays all over the field. Want to talk a lot about that.

Then we're going to talk about the Big Ten and the fact that we still don't have any news. But there's lots of rumblings coming out of the Big Ten to want to cover that as well. And then we'll wrap up with a discussion about the Big Ten basketball rankings that were just released by a few analysts and how I feel about them and how I really pissed off the Illini fans. But that's pretty easy to do these days. They seem to be pissed off about literally anything that says anything bad about the fighting Illini. So we'll be covering all of that on today's show. If you haven't done this already, make sure to subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

But with that being said, let's hop into the show. I was going to record this last night after the Denver Broncos game. As any of you probably know, if you've listened to this show before, I am a huge Denver Broncos fan. And it helps that they also have Michael Ojemudia, Josie Jewell, and Noah Fant on the roster. So it's nice seeing some Iowa Hawkeyes on that Denver Broncos roster. And last night they played the Tennessee Titans. If the Broncos were to have won that game, I would have probably recorded last night. However, they did not.

So here I am recording in the morning a little bit later than what you would have probably have gotten the episode out. So I do apologize for that. But let's get into that because all those guys made an impact on the field last night, save for Imani Hooker, who didn't really get as much playing time. He definitely was in the game for a few situations, but didn't get as much playing time as I would have hoped. It seemed like Christian Fulton really took that nickel corner spot that we thought he was going to be locking down. However, on the Broncos side, you saw multiple big plays by all those guys. Let's start with the rookie though, Michael

Ojemudia, a guy who people kind of thought was overdrafted by the Denver Broncos last year, or this past draft, excuse me. And given the Broncos' recent or this past seat or the past draft excuse me and given the Broncos recent draft history with third round corners it was safe to assume that John Elway might have made a mistake with that at least from a Denver Broncos fan perspective having been a Michael Ojemudia fan I thought you know it's still a little bit early earlier than I thought but he definitely had the potential and he showed that potential last night for the Denver Broncos. Made a couple nice pass breakups. Also had an interception that should have stayed an interception. However, the refs called a bogus, unnecessary roughness penalty on Alexander Johnson

for just pushing the Tennessee Titan player during the play. However, Ojemudia did have an interception, but obviously they called it back. So, in my opinion, it should have counted, but it did not. The only downside on that final drive where the Titans drove down the field, Ojemudia did have a relatively big pass interference call. However, that entire Broncos defense was pretty gassed at that point. And it was to be expected. You're expecting that from a rookie, but overall, I liked what I saw from Michael Ojemudia in the game last night. Josie Jewell, another guy who kind of surprised me, had the starting spot late in his rookie season, lost it last year, and then got it back due to people being injured and ultimately being released this season. He really balled out, I thought. Early in the game,

he bit on a play action that allowed an easy completion across the middle. Outside of that, he did pretty darn well, especially in run support. Especially considering he's smaller than the Titan, Derrick Henry. There was one play where he kind of went up to the lineman and then read where Derrick Henry was going and just smashed him right in the hole. He did that another time as well. Had, I believe, two tackles for losses in the game. Let me actually just confirm that right now. Sorry, just one tackle for loss. Also, it's eight total tackles in the game. But I also thought defensively as a pass, you know, pass

cover, he did a pretty solid job. There was one play where Jarrell Casey got his hand up and knocked the ball down, but Josie Jewell was in a position to make that interception, so it would have been a pick had Jarrell Casey not knocked that down. And Noah Fant started showing out pretty early. Didn't have the second half we were hoping for, but in just one half of play, had five receptions on six targets, 81 yards, and one touchdown. He appears to be that number two guy for Drew Locke.

Last night, Courtland Sutton was out. Obviously, Drew Locke's number one, and you could tell that he was going to Noah Fant quite a bit. I'm not sure why the play calling was a little bit skewed against Noah Fant in the second half, but regardless, it's great to see him make an explosive debut in his first game of his sophomore season. That just bodes well for things to come for the sophomore tight end out of the University of Iowa. But that's what happened last night from the Iowa Hawkeye perspective on Monday Night Football. Like I said, we're going to be doing some recaps of the NFL games going forward, and I do want to hand out a game ball over the course of each week based off of the performances. And my game ball this week for all Iowa Hawkeyes, without a doubt, goes to Tristan Wirfs on

the offensive side of the ball. The fact that as a first game, as a starter, first game as a rookie, locking down Cameron Jordan against the Saints, I thought he did a really impressive job there. And on the defensive side, I've got to give it to Christian Kirksey to come back from a couple injuries, getting released by the Brown side, I got to give it to Christian Kirksey to come back from a couple injuries, getting released by the Browns and going to the Packers and getting 12 tackles

in his debut game for the Pack. Those are my game balls on the offensive and defensive side of the ball in the NFL for the Iowa Hawkeyes. So let me know who you think deserve those game balls, if anyone else deserve them or if anyone deserve them

over Tristan Wirfs and, you know, Christian Kirksey. But that's who I'm giving the game balls to this week in the NFL. balls if anyone else deserved them or if anyone deserved them over Tristan Wirfs and Christian Kirksey. But that's who I'm giving the game balls to this week in the NFL. We'll be doing that every single Tuesday this upcoming season or during the season, excuse me. So coming up, though, on segment number two, I do want to talk about the Big Ten and what is currently going on because it's hard to make sense of all the news coming out.

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Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need, rockauto.com. All right, we are back for our second segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast today. I was hoping to be doing this segment talking about the return of Big Ten football, but as has been the case with the Big Ten, there's a lot of smokescreens, a lot of misinformation out there, and no one quite knows what's going on. When I talked to you all on Monday or yesterday, it seemed like the Big Ten was going to be voting pretty soon to reinstate football, fall football. However, that vote has not taken place yet, and there seems to be a little bit of contentious behavior coming out. yet, and there seems to be a little bit of contentious behavior coming out. I think the big news here is the fact that if they are targeting an October 17th start date, they need

to hurry up. That is a month and two days away. They need to get that decision in place because there are teams that haven't had a lot of prep work. All these teams have really not gone through their traditional practice, and right now they're currently just limited to 12 hours a week. So they need some time to warm up and get into the groove of things. Wisconsin hasn't been practicing for the last two weeks, so there's a lot of buildup that needs to happen to be able to get these games in order, and if they're not going to do a vote soon, they're ruining the chance of having these games played in or starting in October and having them finish in December. Like we talked about yesterday, uh, more concerning

though, is the fact that the chancellor for the university of Wisconsin, uh, Rebecca blank came out and basically said, um, this is not going to be a team by team thing. Either everyone's going to play or no one's going to play. Um, there's two ways to take that. I took it a little bit more pessimistically, basically saying, if Rutgers doesn't want to play, then the conference isn't playing. Others took it as, if we vote nine to three or whatever, well, it sounds like those other three votes are going to be playing regardless. It sounds like if everyone wants to play except for Rutgers, Rutgers has to play. I don't feel like that's the case. I feel like that would be if Rutgers doesn't want to play for whatever reason, probably, you know, for safety first and foremost, but also due to, you know, they're just not it's not as big of a deal for them to get a get a season in this year.

That should be their choice. I think the idea that it's all or nothing is a little bit ridiculous. Let the teams play the one they want to play. Let the teams you don't want to play lose that money and not be able to perform. I still think there will be eight or nine games or eight or nine teams, and that would be actually pretty fun to watch those teams battle each other out. It would probably eliminate some of the bad teams like a Rutgers. So I'm a little bit against, no, I'm actually completely against the concept of all or nothing.

And hopefully we do get that vote soon. I don't know what's taking so long. I know they're trying to go through all the necessary precautions to make sure that this is going to be as safe as possible. through all the necessary precautions to make sure that this is going to be as safe as possible. But the fact they continue to let this just drag out without giving any information, and apparently they're a little bit upset about some of the leaked information. I'm sorry. What is your problem, Big Ten? Figure your stuff out. Figure it out and get a season in line.

Or come out and say, we're just not doing it. Stop doing this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. One day we have football. One day we're not going to have football. One day we're just not doing it. Stop doing this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. One day we have football. One day we're not going to have football. One day we're going to have football. What the hell is going on within the Big Ten? This honestly, again, falls back on the fact that I think Kevin Warren is doing an atrocious job at leading the Big Ten currently. Just look at the current landscape of college football. It hasn't been perfect, but teams have been getting it done. I know there's some general concerns, but the fact that there is rapid testing and that can allow you to do a better job of ensuring the safety of these

players. Make sure you have some plans and protocols in place for contact tracing as well. If one player gets infected, who is he seeing? What house is he living at with other guys? What guys are there? Figure out a protocol for that. You can make football work right now. And I think, honestly, that would actually help out these players as well because they're going to be tested so much more often. And it gives them something to play for this fall.

It gives them something to look forward to, gives them something to work towards. So I just I don't know why they're not making this decision sooner. That being said, if they, you know, if this decision goes wrong, if they decide to return football and something goes wrong, that looks even worse than the Big Ten. So I get a little bit of the precaution, but I'm just getting very frustrated by the back and forth that is seemingly happening with the Big Ten right now. Again, I'm all for the safety of the players. It just seems personally like the other conferences have figured it out. It seems personally like most of the players and coaches and parents want to play.

If they can do it safely, I'm all for it. A lot of the things that have come out, like the rapid testing, seem like they can. So it'll be interesting to see. Hopefully we get a decision today, and we can talk about that on tomorrow's show. However, we'll be keeping you posted on what is happening within the Big Ten every single day right here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. But that'll do it for segment number two. Coming up on segment number three, how I pissed off Illini fans

and why I pissed off Illini fans and where I think Iowa deserves to be ranked heading into the college basketball season. We are back for our third and our final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And as I teased before we took a quick break, right now I pissed off a lot of Illini fans. Not as many Wisconsin fans getting pissed off and that's because they're normal human beings and actually don't really talk trash on Twitter, which is why I've actually come to

respect Wisconsin fans quite a bit, considering the Illini fans that I don't know where they seem to get off on thinking that their team is so darn good and that they are the best team ever. I mean, they have some really good players, and they are going to be making the Big Ten quite tough. Don't get me wrong. I think the Illinois Fighting Illini are going to be a tough team this year. However, to come out and say we should undoubtedly be the number one team to me is a little bit ridiculous. And how this all kind of started, John Rothstein posted his Big Ten preseason power rankings. So did Andy Katz, by the way. But John Rothstein has Iowa at one, Wisconsin at two, Illinois at three,

Michigan State at four, Rutgers at five. And from there you can kind of stop. I mean, Ohio State at six, Indiana seven, Michigan eight. That's to be expected. Those top five, top six teams, though, they're going to be pretty darn good. And that Big Ten conference is deep. Even the teams lower. You know, Minnesota is going to be pretty solid this year with the addition of Liam Robbins from Drake.

You know, those teams are going to be good regardless. But when I look at it, I personally think Iowa makes sense at one. And here's why. They are returning all their starters. So Ryan Creener wasn't technically a starter going into last season. They last season, they finished tied for fifth with two of their starters down and another starter and CJ Frederick not playing some of the games because he's dealing with sickness and injury and still managed to put together the season. they did.

They had a very, very short bench. They didn't have four-star recruit Patrick McCaffrey. That is a big deal. Those are major, major losses. Ask any Iowa person going into last season after all those injuries, and the expectations were pretty low. Luka Garza then put on an incredible season, and should have been a unanimous national player of the year but Iowa still finished fifth despite all that now Illinois I understand they finished

fourth last year they're pretty excited they return Ayudu Samu and Kofi Cockburn they also have two top 50 recruits coming in at the guard spots however they loot they are losing their third leading scorer and Andres Feliz who had a pretty nice TBT tournament this past tournament, but they already have solid guards, so their guards, unless they're planning on playing a ton of small ball, are going to be sitting behind those guys. So, to me,

it kind of doesn't really help as much when you have two top 50 recruits coming in, and they're stuck behind starters already. They're going to get playing time, and they'll be solid off the bench guys. But that doesn't mean a whole lot to me. And then Wisconsin, I get their argument as well. They won a share of the conference title last year and they're only losing Brevin Pritzel.

So they return their top four guys. But again, let me repeat. Iowa has the National Player of the Year candidate in Luka Garza. Let me repeat, Iowa has the National Player of the Year candidate in Luka Garza. They have the soon-to-be Big Ten leading three-point shooter ever in Jordan Bohannon, who did not play, but for 10 games, he didn't play in the conference last year. So you're talking to me, Jordan Bohannon, who is a lethal three-point shooter, and also any Illini fan who is hating on Jordan Bohannon not being able to create his shot, and also any Illini fan who is hating on Jordan Bohannon not being able to create his shot.

I cannot wait for Jordan Bohannon to talk so much smack at your arena this year. He is going to be such a dick. And I'm going to bask in it. I'm going to love it because Jordan Bohannon is a beast and he loves that trash talk. You fuel his fire from that trash talk. So him being out there is going to be great.

You've got Patrick Nunji, who's a fantastic forward. And then you've got to remember the fact that Iowa now has a solid bench as well. So I'm thinking what's probably going to happen, there's a lot of different opportunities, a lot of different ways that Fran McCaffrey can construct his roster. I think Jordan Bohannon is going to be at that one spot. You have C.J. Frederick at two, Joe Wieskamp at three, Patrick Nunji at four, and Luka Garza at five.

There's a lot of different combinations, like I said, but if you have that as your starting five, your bench now is Joe Toussaint, Connor McCaffrey, Patrick McCaffrey, Josh Ogundelli. I mean, this is a very deep bench. I'm only going into one of the freshmen. You've still got Tony Perkins, who looks like an absolute stud, Aaron Ullis. You've got the Murray twins, who really have grown a lot in the last year playing prep basketball. This Iowa basketball team is loaded.

I mean, there's so many different lineup combinations they can have in that starting lineup that will outmatch or match up well with almost any team in the Big Ten and the nation. So I understand Illini fans are excited about their team. I think it's a little bit ridiculous. They actually think that they should be power ranked over Iowa. I know some people were like, why does it even matter? It doesn't, but it's fun to talk about.

It's fun to kind of jab back and forth. But I really had a lot of Illini fans in my mentions. But I actually agree with his power rankings. Iowa won Wisconsin at 2, Illini at 3, Michigan State at 4. That is kind of more of a legacy thing. You know, they just lost Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman. But Tom Izzo always finds a way to have a good team. Joshua Langford is still coming back.

Michigan State, you just never count them out. And then Rutgers at 5. If you don't follow Big Ten basketball, you probably don't realize Rutgers could be a pretty darn good team this year and a team I'm worried about. They've always given Iowa some fits because they're so good on defense. They have a lot of length there as well. They have some nice 3-point shooters as well.

So they can kind of be a pain in Iowa's rear, especially when Iowa is not playing very well defensively. But that's my thoughts. Let me know what your thoughts are for the power rankings, where you think Iowa should be, where you think Wisconsin, Illinois should be. Just be careful. If you talk crap about Illinois, you're going to get some Illinois fans in your mentions. It has been a blast seeing everything they can do to try to get

under Iowa skin. It feels a lot like Nebraska or Iowa State. It feels like a school that just has been torn down so much over the last couple years. They feel the need to talk smack when they actually have a relatively decent program. But I just can't wait for the regular season and the NCAA tournament to watch Illinois fans cry and weep when the Iowa Hawkeyes ultimately beat them. So that'll do it, though, for our third and our final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. I hope you had a fantastic time listening to the show today. If this interview goes well today, if we are able to go through this interview today that I'm hoping to get in,

we'll have that be posted tomorrow, and I'll be teasing that tonight as well. So stay tuned for that. We could have a pretty big interview popping off tomorrow. If there is Big Ten news for football, we'll be letting you know about that as well. So stay tuned right here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Lockdown Sports Network. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at.

And as always, Hawkeye Nation, let's go Hawks. you