Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa the new TE U? | Hawks easily beat Catamounts | Two Hawks make Pro Bowl

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

The first order of the day is covering Iowa's easy win over the Western Carolina Catamounts to move to 9-2 on the season. Segment two has us diving deep into why the University of Iowa should be considered the new Tight End University. Move over Miami because there is a new sheriff in town. Last up, we discuss last night's breaking news as 2019 Pro Bowl rosters were announced. Find out which two Hawks made it and why we think a few others should have been included.Twitter: @lockedoniowaHost: @wade_andrewGmail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes. The Locked On Hawkeyes is the latest addition to the Locked On Sports Network, and we are the most recent addition to the growing lineup of college podcasts. I'm your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at DearOldGold.com, where you can find analysis pieces on all things black and yellow, and we have another great episode coming your way today. Lots of things happening. Exciting day in Hawkeye Nation.

It's the early signing period, so we're going to get some new recruits that are going to be signing their letters of intent to come play for the Swarm. So exciting stuff happening. We will absolutely be keeping you posted on our Twitter account at LockedOnIowa. I will also be tweeting all day at Wade underscore Andrew. So make sure to give us a follow and you can get the latest updates on what is happening in Hawkeye Nation. We talked about this yesterday, but we are not going to be slowing down during the holiday

season. This is your busiest time of the year likely. You're going to be driving to Grandma's and Aunt Betty's and whoever it may be. You need some content to listen to. And so don't worry. we have you covered there. We're going to be bringing you content each day next week. Granted, it'll be pre-recorded. It won't be highlighting the latest trends and happenings,

but it will be pre-recorded and will be great content that you will not want to miss. So lots of good stuff coming your way. On today's episode, for segment number one, we're going to be covering the Iowa basketball team's win over the Western Carolina Catamounts last night. On segment number two, we're going to be talking about why I personally feel like the University of Iowa should be considered tight end university. I mean, let's face it, George Kittle's made a Pro Bowl, we had two All-Americans. How the heck do you not consider us tight end university? And then finally on segment number three, we are going to be covering the Hawkeyes who made the Pro Bowl. So two Hawks made the Pro Bowl.

A few were left off the roster, unfortunately. We'll talk about that and give you all of our analysis and opinions on that. Before we jump in, though, make sure you subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts at. Or you can just tell Siri, Google, or Alexa to play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. That'll give you the latest episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, one you will not want to miss.

All right, so let's jump right into it. Let's talk about the Iowa basketball team's big win last night. And really, it's not, I would say, a big win in the sense that they won by a decent number of points, but it wasn't really anything special. They were expected to win. The Western Carolina Catamounts are now 3-10, so they only had three wins coming into the game. And let's be honest, the Hawks should be able to beat teams like that pretty easily. However I'll give the Catamounts some credit. You know they kept it close for about. 6-7 minutes.

One of the things coming into this game. That we kind of recognize. When looking at some of the advanced metrics. Is a large portion of the Catamounts points. Comes from the three pointer. So they rely very heavily on the three point shot. However before the game. They were making just 35% of those shots. So it's one of those things, if you get hot and they start falling,

you could keep up with a team like the Hawkeyes, who are superior talent-wise. But when you're draining three points left and right, anyone has a chance. And you see it in the NCAA tournament, too. But that being said, Iowa was able to pull away. So the Catamounts, you know, played tough for about eight minutes. And then Iowa finally started to pull a pull away. They went on a 12-3 run over the next three minutes. The Catamounts scored a few more points.

Then Iowa went on a 12-2 run from the 753 mark onto the 407 mark. So, you know, at that point, the 407 mark, really the game was in cruise control from there. The Hawks just kind of coasted for the rest of the game. And Fran McCaffrey was able to rotate a few other players in, get some minutes for some guys who haven't played a ton this season. And then also, you know, rest some of the other guys. In particular, I think Joe Weiskamp was a big one that he was able to rest. Weiskamp played the lowest amount of minutes of the season for himself this year when he had 18 minutes. So even in that

time though, had a good, you know, had a good box score. He scored 10 points on, let me see the shooting, three of six shooting, three of three for free throws. And he also added two rebounds. So, you know, a decent day for Weiskamp, but nice to get him some rest as he's been dealing with that ankle injury. And, you know, he may not look like he's hurt but ankle injuries last they stay on for a while so always good to get some some relaxation there and a key game in other news Tyler Cook did lead the Hawks in minutes he had 32 minutes also led the team in scoring with 18 Luka Garza added in 15 points of his own during the game. So that was kind of a, I would say a moral victory over the last couple games. You know, the Hawks have had a noticeable

size advantage. You haven't been able to capitalize on it. And it was nice to see Luca Garza, you know, get some points in the paint. Also, you know, he played some pretty solid defense against, you know, the Catamount's main player, which is, Dotson. So huge for him to be able to handle Dotson. The combination of Cook and Garza and Nick Byer to an extent helped Dotson to one of his worst shooting performances of the season. This guy was averaging around 14 points a game on 60% shooting. Last night he had 10 points on 45% shooting. So it's easy when you only have one or two key players on a team,

the Hawks can really, like, focus in on them. But it's still nice to see them be able to maintain some of those post players and not allow them to go off on them like they did against, you know, with Nick Ward at Michigan State. Wasn't this another prettiest game, though? The Hawks struggled again from three-point line. They shot just 27.8%. Jordan Bohannon also struggled again.

He just had four points and one assist. You know, the one thing to take away here is that these shots are going to fall. This is a strong offensive basketball team. The Hawks returned one of the best offensive basketball teams in the nation from last year. It's going to pick up at some point. The good thing is where they struggled last year on defense, they have really brought the intensity and been doing pretty well. Outside of the Michigan State game, they performed really well defensively,

especially compared to last season where they were atrocious and one of the worst teams in the nation. So exciting stuff happening. They have another game on Saturday afternoon against Savannah State at Carver-H Hawkeye Arena. So we'll be back in action in just a few short days and then have a little bit of break during the holiday season. Moving on to segment two, we're going to be talking about tight end university. But before we talk about tight end university and why the Iowa Hawkeyes are truly tight end university,

I have a message for you, the listener. Because if you're like me, you hate to miss your favorite team play, regardless of who they are playing. That's where Sling TV comes in. Now I never have to miss a football or a basketball game. And the best part is, I no longer have to pay for a bunch of channels I don't even watch with a typical cable package. If you're like me, you wanted to watch

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is that we have a fantastic offer for you. Locked On listeners can get a free 7-day trial by going to sling.com slash locked on. That's S-L-I-N-G dot com slash locked on. Never miss a game again with Sling TV. Alright, before we begin segment two, I wanted to quickly remind you that on segment three, we are going to be talking about the Hawkeyes that made the Pro Bowl. So it's a segment you do not want to miss. But before we do that, we have to cover why the University of Iowa is tight end university.

And really, let's be honest, doesn't anyone doubt this anymore? A couple of years ago, CBS Sports did some good analysis, I'll give them that, and the conclusion that came from that analysis, in which they analyzed the years 2006 to 2015, is that Iowa was the fifth best university in terms of producing tight ends, and Miami was number one. And I get it. For a while there, Miami was producing first round draft picks like it was their business. It was literally every year it was a new guy as a first-round tight end.

However, that's really changed over the last couple years. They had David Njoku last year drafted in the first round, but outside of him, they haven't had as many tight ends produced in that time period. The other teams that were ranked ahead of Iowa back in 2016 was Georgia, Tennessee, and Notre Dame. And so when you look at that list of players and you compare them to Iowa, you begin to see that it's very clear that the University of Iowa is tight end university. And let me give you the complete list of guys who have suited up for the Hawkeyes since 2000 that have played in the NFL. We have Austin Wheatley, Alan Reisner, Brandon Myers, shout out to the Prairie City boy,

Tony Moyocki, George Kittle, Brad Herman, Zarin Flemister, CJ Fedorowicz, Dallas Clark, and Scott Chandler. That's a pretty impressive list. We have Dallas Clark, a first rounder, CJ Sedef Adorowitz, a fourth. Scott Chandler, a fourth or a fifth. Kittle, a fourth or a fifth, who's going to be a pro bowler. Tony Moyocki, a third. So Iowa's not necessarily producing that high first-round draft pick, but we have guys who are staying in the NFL consistently throughout their career. So pretty exciting stuff. When we looked at the numbers, it was pretty easy to see that Iowa

obviously won that. And you know what's funny is we didn't even mention Henry Krieger-Kobel, who's kind of bouncing around practice squads right now, a cousin of George Kittle, or Jake Dusey, who actually just signed with the Alliance of American Football after he kind of suffered some knee injuries at Iowa. He wasn't able to get a shot at the NFL, but now he's kind of making a comeback now. So exciting stuff. And you know what? We're not even talking about the fact that Noah Fant and TJ Hawkinson are projected to be first and second day NFL draft picks after both being named AP All-Americans. So when you're looking at the current time period, so I basically took 2000 to 2018 and analyzed those main schools. And I included Wisconsin in that because I feel like Wisconsin does a pretty good job of producing tight ends as well. And I wanted to compare those to the Hawks.

And since 2000, Miami has 16 tight ends in the NFL in that time period. Georgia has 8, Tennessee has 7, Notre Dame has 12, and Wisconsin has 7 as well. All right, so let's just eliminate Georgia, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. You know, the most notable player from Georgia was Ben Watson. He's kind of a journeyman tight end now. From Tennessee was Jason Witten. He just retired. And from Wisconsin, the most notable is Owen Daniels, and he's gone too.

They also have Troy Fumagalli, who is currently on the Broncos, on the IR. So nothing really special coming out of those universities anymore. I think that was more of an early part of the century, 2010 type of time period. Notre Dame-Miami make it a little bit more interesting. Miami has 16 tight ends in the NFL, and that clearly beats Iowa's 10 tight ends. But in that time period, over the last five to six years, there hasn't been as much production from this group of players from this university. We have David Njoku, the former first-round draft pick, and we have Greg Olson. Greg Olson has been on IR the last two years, kind of struggling to come back.

Let's be honest, he's had a fantastic career, but his career is likely very close to being done. Notre Dame, meanwhile, they have 12 tight ends in the NFL in that time period. The main one is Kyle Rudolph, who is currently starting for the Vikings. I would say having a disappointing year. I really predicted Rudolph to have a kind of an X factor type of year, you know, have a really big breakout performance with Kirk Cousins. Cousins loves his tight end. He always went to Jordan Reed when he was with the Redskins. So I really felt like Rudolph was going to have a breakout year. But regardless, you know, I digress.'s not, and he's kind of the main player from Notre Dame. So when you look at that, right, you have Dave Njoku and Greg Olson

who are kind of the current people at Miami. You have Kyle Rudolph at Notre Dame. George Kittle beats both of those guys right now. He's arguably a top three tight end in the league. He definitely beats those guys. When you add the fact that Noah Fant and TJ Hawkinson are coming into the picture, He definitely beats those guys. When you add the fact that Noah Fant and TJ Hawkinson are coming into the picture,

that just vaults Iowa right up the list of rankings into being that number one team in terms of tight end university. They don't have the overall numbers of 16, but with Fant and Hawkinson, that'll put them at 12, and they'll arguably have three of the top ten tight ends in the NFL after one or two seasons. Let me know what your thoughts are though do you think it's time to finally call the University of Iowa tight end you what are your thoughts on this this Hawkeye program and how they are able to produce tight ends and keep a lookout at dear old gold.com we have a lot of fantastic stuff coming about the tight end position lots of stuff happening

obviously with Fant going to the NFL. Hawkinson still kind of figuring his stuff out. And then also, Iowa has already gotten commitments from three tight ends, all from the state of Illinois, for their class of 2019. So we'll be talking about that tomorrow once we get a little bit more information on when people are officially signing. All right, and just a reminder, coming up in segment three, we are going to be talking about the Hawks that made the Pro Bowl.

Alright, we are back for segment number three, and we're going to be covering which Hawkeyes made the Pro Bowl. So, the 2019 Pro Bowl, let's be honest, is kind of a popularity contest, but it's always nice to see Iowa football players make the team. Oftentimes, we have more players who are deserving than they're actually on that roster, and the same thing held true today. A few people who are continuing to get overlooked were getting overlooked, but it was still nice to see George Kittle and Marshall Yonda make the list.

Make the Pro Bowl for this year. Congratulations to those two guys. Hard workers. Marshall Yonda, 12-year NFL vet. This will be his seventh Pro Bowl. And right now he's currently ranked as the third best guard in all of Pro Football. According to Pro Football Focus. So nice job fans.

You got that one right. Especially on the offensive line. It can be difficult to pick the right guys. Oftentimes in that case, you know, I remember when I was a kid voting for the pro ball, I was literally just picking every single Broncos offensive lineman. So oftentimes it's more of how many people actually were able to get out and vote or do the people have name recognition, right? Are they those kinds of guys who people absolutely recognize because they are one of the, you knowles in the league, that kind of stuff. So good for Yonda to be recognized for that.

One of the other guards who did not get voted on that I thought might was Austin Blythe. The former seventh-round draft pick kind of bounced around some rosters. He's now on the Rams, and he's having one of the best seasons of his career. He's the fifth- best guard in the country according to Pro Football Focus. He was not brought on to the Pro Bowl roster. I'm hoping he can get

brought on as an alternate at some point, but as of now, he is not there. And we also have Desmond King. So, Desmond King was not on the roster he is the number one ranked cornerback according to pro football focus and this one was kind of shocking to me because the Chargers are a very good team and Desmond King has a few highlight plays this guy has returned a

kick for a touchdown taken taking an interception to the house among other things so he's making plays all day and you know those type of plays are the things that get you noticed by the casual fan and ultimately get you voted on. But again, not voted on. It's honestly, it's a travesty. King has been overlooked his entire life at this point. You know, three-star recruit coming out of high school, came to Iowa, won some awards, still wasn't drafted until the fifth round, which is honestly just confusing to me how

that even happened. And even now, performing as one of the top corners in the NFL, not recognized as such, which is unfortunate. We haven't talked about Kittle, though, a ton. This guy has been having one of the best seasons in the history of the NFL, the tight end position. Earlier this year against the Broncos, he almost broke the single game receiving yards record.

And let's be honest, how he's doing this is even more impressive this guy is playing with Nick Mullins all right Mullins was an undrafted rookie free agent playing on the 49ers as a practice squad player you know we had Jimmy Garoppolo get injured CJ Bethard you know struggled and then got injured and Mullins came in he hasn't been terrible but this guy is not you know a top 15 or top 20 NFL quarterback. George Kittle is the only main weapon that the 49ers have, and the fact that teams cannot stop him is even more impressive. So far this year, he has 1,154 yards receiving and 72 catches, which is good for 10th in the NFL and 21st in the NFL. And he's 16th in the NFL in first down catches with 51, which is over two-thirds of his total catches. So two-thirds of his 72 catches are going for a first down.

So this guy's a chain mover. It's fantastic to watch him play. He does it the right way. You know, he's your typical Iowa boy. I mean, he's from Iowa. He worked his butt off in college. You know, he worked his butt off in the weight room. He didn't put up the numbers that you're seeing with Fant or Hawkinson now,

but he's done a lot of really good things in the NFL so far and utilized the coaching and the training to continue to grow as a player and obviously capitalize that into his first Pro Bowl berth. So congratulations, George Kittle. Congratulations, Marshall Yonda. Austin Blythe, Desmond King, you obviously got screwed, let's be honest here, but there's a chance you might make it as an alternate at some point. A lot of players like to drop out due to injury or they might be playing in the Super Bowl or what have you.

So there's a chance that they might make it at the end, and we'll keep you all posted on that. You can see George Kittle and Marshall Yonda, though, playing in the 2019 Pro Bowl, January 27th at 3 p.m. Eastern in Orlando at Camping World Stadium. And that'll do it for our show. We covered, you know, the Iowa game versus Western Carolina, how the Hawks kind of, you know, cruised to an easy victory. We talked about why Iowa is tight end university. If you think, if you disagree with that, please let me know. I'd love to hear your reasoning why.

I always love, you love a good debate. And then finally, on segment three, we covered the Hawkeyes who are in the Pro Bowl. And obviously, Kittle, Yonda, congratulations. King and Blythe will be rooting for you to get on as an alternate. Tomorrow, we're going to be having another great episode. We're going to be talking about the breakout candidates for the Iowa Hawkeye football team. We're going to be talking about Megan Gustafson and why she has the opportunity to go down as the greatest player of all time in Iowa women's basketball history. And then finally, we're going to be talking about some of the Hawkeye recruits that committed during today. So a lot of great stuff coming your way. You do not want to miss tomorrow's episode. And that'll do it though for our Wednesday episode. Okay. Make sure you're following us on Apple podcasts,

Google podcasts, Spotify, or just tell your smartphone or tell your car speaker to say, you know, Siri, Google, or Alexa play podcast locked on Hawkeyes. And you can get our podcast up ready to go for your morning commute or your afternoon commute, whatever you want to do to get all of your Hawkeye fix in. And that'll do it for today. I'm your host, Andrew Wade. You can find me on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew. And you can follow all of the exciting happenings of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast on Twitter

at LockedOnIowa. You can also reach us via email at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com. Love to hear from you, the listener. Love to hear what you think of the show. So please feel free to interact with us. Obviously, I'd like to get some feedback on what you enjoy about the show that you're listening to. Thank you for joining us on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast.

Have a fantastic Wednesday, Hawkeye Nation, and we'll be back tomorrow.