Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa United are in action TONIGHT! | Hawks not TE U? | What's next for Mike Daniels?

Episode Date: July 25, 2019

The Iowa United finally take the court tonight in Wichita for the TBT and there are a few more new Hawkeyes added to the roster. We will be covering it live from Wichita, and on today's show we break down the revolutionary and fun way TBT ends a basketball game, the Elam Ending. Segments two and three have us diving back into football covering the Mike Daniels release, the Outland Trophy watch list, and ESPN's report that Iowa is not Tight End U. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are listening to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering the Iowa Hawkeyes for the Locked On Sports Network, hosted by Andrew Wade, editor at dearoldgold.com. Good morning, Hawkeye Nation. I am your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at dearoldgold.com, and you are listening to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. I am coming at you from beautiful Hays, Kansas. Yes, that is correct, Hays, Kansas. I am on my way to Wichita, Kansas to watch the Iowa United play in TBT, the basketball tournament,

the $2 million winner-take-all tournament tonight. Make sure to check out our Twitter account at LockedOnIowa and our Facebook account at LockedOnHawkeyes. We should be providing some pretty great coverage. Hoping to talk to a few of the players. Obviously, the general manager, Matt Crawford, that kind of thing. We'll be giving you full coverage from the event. No videos during the game. Can't really do that

according to ESPN. Totally get it. But we'll be trying to provide as much coverage as we possibly can. So really excited to bring that to you live from Wichita, Kansas. But I did have to drive last night. I am a working man. I got jobs to do during the day. So wanted to get some driving in last night. Woke up in a hotel in Hays, Kansas, about two and a half hours outside of Wichita, and heading there later this afternoon to go cover the Iowa United and the TBT tournament. So really excited to bring some of that stuff to you, but wanted to give you a quick episode today, some stuff happening in the Iowa Hawkeye football world and basketball world. Wanted to bring you some of that coverage today on a little bit of a shorter episode

of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. If you are tuning in for the very first time time or if you have tuned in before and you like what you hear, make sure to like and subscribe wherever you download this podcast at. You can find this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and the Himalaya Podcast app, which I really do enjoy using, actually. It's very nice to use, and they also curate some personalized playlists of podcasts for me, which is fantastic when I'm doing these seven and a half hour drives from Denver, Colorado. So make sure to check out Himalaya Podcast app if you have not already. And again, if you are not following us on social media, make sure to do that. We are on Twitter at LockedOnIowa and Facebook

at LockedOnHawkeyes. We have some great stuff coming up that I'm really excited to release to you. As I teased on the past show, we've had some, have some great stuff coming up that I'm really excited to release to you. As I teased on the past show, we've had some interviews coming up. I'm looking to get some recurring segments with former Iowa Hawkeyes on going into the football season. But one of the big interviews we do have coming up, Julian Vander Velde, a former Iowa Hawkeye offensive lineman and NFL football player. He played for the Eagles and the Buccaneers for about four to five years.

He is going to be joining the show. We actually recorded yesterday, so he's going to be joining the show, and we're going to be airing some of that next week. So make sure to tune in to that. Like I said, we also have some great coverage of Iowa United and the TBT tournament. If you've been listening to the podcast the last few months, you know we've been doing some interview series with those players. We've also been talking to Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United, getting a really an

inside look as to how he creates this team. And there's been a lot of change, a lot of stress for, you know, that team as players come and go, and they've been having to add a few players as they get ready for the TBT tournament. So really excited to see all of his hard work come to fruition as they play for the veterans, the charity organization sponsoring veterans who want to get around to golfing and kind of interact and bond with other veterans and whatnot. So really cool, really cool opportunity he kind of put together there, a really cool thing they're kind of playing for.

And it's awesome to see all four schools in the state of Iowa come together due to some issues. Obviously, UNI was not represented in this season, but hoping to get that representation back next year. A lot of Iowa Hawkeye representation, which we will cover on today's show. So we'll actually just jump into that for segment number one. On segment number two, we're going to talk about Mike Daniels and jump into a little bit more football stuff with the Outland Trophy. And then depending on how far we get in segment number two, we might take a break and head into segment number three. Where we're talking about a recently released ESPN report that names the Hawks not tight end U.

That is correct. You heard that correctly. The Iowa Hawkeyes were not named tight end U by ESPN. So I want to make sure we cover that as well. So let's jump right into segment number one, covering the Iowa United and the TBT tournament. A couple of news and notes. They've added a few players since we've last talked. As you know, I've been kind of on sabbatical from the podcast over the last three weeks, but in that time, they've added a few Iowa Hawkeyes, which makes sense given the fact that their head coach is Jeff Horner. He has those ties and connections.

When you're trying to find a player or a replacement player late in the game, sometimes it's easier to go to those connections that you already have, which is Jeff Horner and the Iowa Hawkeyes. The Iowa Hawkeyes have added Cyrus Tate, they've added Melson Basabi, and they've added Matt Gatins. I think for me personally, I'm really excited about the Gatins addition because Wichita State is a guard-heavy team. They have some great post players, but they have a lot of guard players. So it'll be interesting to see how Gatens plays in that. Currently, he is serving at Drake as the director of operations for the basketball team.

I believe he hasn't played professional basketball in a few years. And the last time he did, he was playing for the Iowa Energy and he tore his ACL. So how well is he going to be playing? How much is he really back in shape? I'm assuming he's been playing around with some of those Drake guys for the last few years and still being active on the basketball end. But to what end will he be able to participate in TBT this year? How much playing time are we going to get from him?

That'll be interesting to see. I can't imagine him starting the game I really think it'll be you know Tyrus McGee probably Josh Young or Reed Timmer at the guard position so that'll be it'll be fun to see and also who's gonna be starting a small forward and power forward and center where does Peter Jock fit into all that I think you know there could be a lot of changes coming up even from now until the tournament begins at 8 p.m. tonight for the Iowa United. I think they're kind of dealing with some injuries and whatnot, so it'll be interesting to see what that starting lineup is rolled out and how much playing time even a Matt

Gatens gets in this game, but kind of an interesting matchup where he has both that Drake and the Iowa tie coming together. Another thing I wanted to cover about the Iowa United, if you are not planning on watching them, I do highly recommend doing it. It's going to be a lot of fun. Being a Drake alum and an Iowa Hawkeye fan, I'm really excited to see both those schools play together. Some of the guys that I really enjoyed watching over the past, you know, 10 years, I'm really excited to see them all play together. And, you know, the Iowa State representation, I'm not an Iowa State hater.

If you've listened to this podcast before, you know I don't hate Iowa State. Obviously, I love when Iowa an Iowa State hater. If you've listened to this podcast before, you know I don't hate Iowa State. Obviously, I love when Iowa beats Iowa State, but being from the state of Iowa, I personally go by the sense or the mantra that the state doesn't have a lot going for it in terms of sports, so you've got to root for everyone at some point, which includes Iowa State for me. If you don't like that, sorry, that's just how I feel, and everyone has their own opinions, and they're entitled to their own opinions, but that's kind of how I go with that. Sorry, that's just how I feel. And everyone has their own opinions and they're entitled to their own opinions. That's kind of how I go with that. That being said, though, one of the things I want you to know about for the tournament game, it's on ESPN at 8 p.m. So it's pretty easy to watch. Make sure to check it out. It's going to be a great game, a packed house as they play

Wichita State, the team that's hosting the tournament in Wichita tonight. They're playing at 8 p.m. And one of the things you're going to notice that you may not notice if you haven't watched the basketball tournament before, they reside by this ending called the Elam ending. And it's an interesting approach to ending a basketball game, makes it a little bit more exciting. And it's named after, I honestly can't remember the guy, but his last name was Elam.

And he was a high school principal or middle school principal that wanted to kind of revolutionize the way basketball games ended. So essentially what happens is at the four-minute mark, with four minutes left in the fourth quarter, they basically take whatever the winning team score is. So let's say the score is 80 to 70, and they say the point total to win the game is 87. So that winning team has to only score seven more points.

That losing team has to score 17 more points to win the game. So you get some really exciting possessions that aren't just inhibited by the clock. You're not getting all the fouls that you typically see. So it makes the end of a basketball game a lot more fun, a little bit more exciting. There was actually an ending earlier in this specific tournament where the team was, you know, they were tied 78-78 and the team dunked it for a win. That is, to me, way more fun than, oh, the clock ran out and they won the team dunked it for a win. That is to me way more fun than, Oh, the clock ran out and they won the game. So it's a lot more exciting of an ending.

I think it makes it a little bit more fun for you know, the experiences overall, but make sure to turn to that again on ESPN at 8 PM. I'll try to be giving you some, some backstage information you know, doing some video recordings, hopefully get some interviews and whatnot. If I don't get any of that, it's because I was having way too much fun and decided that I was going to enjoy the experience for myself. But I'll try not to be selfish and I'll try to give you some of that information and some

of that news as I go to you live from Wichita later in today. So excited to bring that to you. Segment number two, we're going to be talking about some of the football things going on. Mike Daniels was cut. The Outland Trophy, the watch list was released. And also, the Iowa Hawkeyes were not named tight end U. So stay tuned after a few messages from our sponsors as we jump into segment number two. All right, we are back with segment number two. And on segment number two, we're going to be covering the Mike Daniels release, the Outland Trophy. And I think we're going to save the Hawks not being in tight end U until segment number three.

But to jump right into it, the first news, Mike Daniels, longtime Green Bay Packer of, I believe, seven years, was recently cut as of yesterday. He was released by the Green Bay Packers, dealt with a few injuries last year, played only in 10 games, I believe. Still didn't do that bad, though, for a position, but the Green Bay Packers added a ton of talent on the defensive side of the ball. They wanted to apparently get some cap room, some cap space.

He was accounting for $10 million in cap space this year. By cutting him now, they only lose $2 million in dead money, and they gain $8 million in cap space this year by cutting him now they only lose two million dollars in dead money and they gain eight million dollars in cap space the one nice thing with the nfl you don't necessarily need to use that right now you can roll it over into next season so maybe they're looking maybe they restructure some of the contracts maybe some of the contracts are just structured in general that they're going to go up next year so they want to have some of that cap space and they felt like they didn't need a mike daniels especially now that they drafted rashaun up next year. So they want to have some of that cap space. And they felt like they didn't need a Mike Daniels,

especially now that they drafted Rashawn Gary. Maybe they've seen some really good things from him. So there's a lot of kind of things in motion here. It sounded like they actually tried to trade him and they didn't receive any suitable trade partners. My guess is with the Mike Daniels situation is that people did not want that contract of $8 million. And also people thought if they're trying to trade him,

they're probably going to cut him in general. We'll play it by ear and see if they cut him. I think he's going to be a very coveted player on the free agent market. Coming off a really fantastic career at the Green Bay Packers, one Pro Bowl nod. I believe he has 29 sacks, a little bit over 200 tackles. Been really a stout run defender and a pass rusher for the Green Bay Packers at that 3-4 defensive end position, but he can kind of move all over the

place at 310 pounds. You know, he can play that 3-4 defensive end, but he's also a great interior defensive lineman, and really with the NFL's emphasis on interior pass rush, I think he could make a difference on a 4-3 team as a defensive tackle, providing that push inside. Last season, like I said, he was injured for part of the season. Pro Football Focus gave out some grades. They really liked his pass rushing ability still. We're not as high on his run defense, but I think at the age of 30, if he's willing to sign a $3 or $4 million contract, there's an opportunity there to be a great part time player for a team and it sounds like he's really interested in playing for a Super Bowl contending team so that kind of leaves me with three I think golden opportunities that need a guy like Mike Daniels and fits that bill of Super Bowl team and has the cap space first being the

Cleveland Browns they tried to get Gerald McCoy they They were unable to. They got Sheldon Richardson, but I think they're still looking to improve that team, and they have a ton of cap space. The one thing here is how much of a Super Bowl team are they at this point? How ready are they to compete? I think they're ready to compete, but that's a lot of kind of moving parts and talented players that are going to be in that locker room that they need to figure out

and figure out a way to work with. So I think the Cleveland Browns could be a good spot for him. The Kansas City Chiefs could also be a good spot for him. Wouldn't be as far away from Iowa City or Green Bay where he's been familiar with for the last 11 years, although he is a New Jersey native. But that being said, I think Kansas City could make a lot of sense. They still need some interior pass rush.

They have Chris Jones. They have Frank Clark. That is fantastic. Adding Mike Daniels only makes the rich get richer and give that defensive line a great presence. They need some help. They did a fantastic job of rushing the quarterback last year, but the rushing defense was atrocious. One of the bottom five in the NFL. So it'll be interesting to look into that as well. And then finally, the New England Patriots. It just makes sense. The Iowa football team has a lot of players on the New England Patriots. They've had Riley McCarron, Cole Croston, James Ferencz, Adrian Claiborne for some time. They love the Iowa Hawkeyes,

and they love what they bring to the table. And I think Mike Daniels is a perfect fit for that team. Having the ability to really go inside or go outside, play a lot of different positions along the defensive line, that gives Bill Belichick some great versatility and the ability to switch up his defenses depending on what he wants to do. But also, he's probably seen that trend. You see Aaron Donald with the Los Angeles Rams provide an interior pass rush that's lethal. Teams aren't ready for that.

So Mike Daniels can also do, not at the level of Donald, but maybe a little bit, you know, Eric Donald super light. He'll be able to come in there and provide some pass rush from the interior, give that New England Patriots defense a bit of an edge that they've been potentially missing a little bit. Last year, they were one of the worst teams in sacks. They only had 30 sacks total, which was, I believe, second to last. So don't quote me on that. I believe that's where I saw the ESPN stat yesterday. It's definitely bottom five. So that'll be interesting to see if he may end up there.

But we'll be keeping you posted on that as well as we get into the NFL preseason and whatnot. That being said, though, we're going to wait actually before segment number three. I'm going to give you a few messages from our sponsors, and then we're going to jump into the Outland Trophy watch list and the Iowa Hawkeyes not being named tight end U. So stay tuned after a few messages from our sponsors. We are back with segment number three, our final segment of this Thursday morning episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

Again, I appreciate you tuning in with us on the show today. I appreciate you staying with us after the brief sabbatical that I had, and I hope you tune in on the Locked on Iowa Twitter account as we cover Iowa United in the basketball tournament tonight, the $2 million winner-take-all tournament. There was some news. It is a slow time in the offseason, but there was some news. There has been some news with a lot of the watch list,

giving out their 80 players that could be on that watch list and whatnot. We did see a Larrick Jackson and Tristan Wirfs on the Outland Trophy watch list, and I really think they have the opportunity to bring back the Outland Trophy to the Iowa Hawkeyes for the first time in five, four years. I think it was Brandon Sheriff who most recently got the Outland Trophy back in 2015. Iowa's actually had four players win it. And interestingly enough, when I was doing some research on the Outland Trophy,

one of the things I didn't realize was that the Outland Trophy was named after John Outland. Cool, makes sense. Last name, same deal. I get it. But did you know he was actually from Oskaloosa, Iowa and played at Penn College for a little bit? I thought that was crazy.

You know, it makes sense. It just kind of seems fitting, right? The University of Iowa is known for producing some pretty good offensive linemen. They've had four winners already. And, you know, the trophy is actually named after a guy who grew up about an hour and a half, two hours away from Iowa City. So, fun stuff there. I do think Aleric Jackson and Tristan Wirfs have the opportunity to claim that prize.

I think what they need to do is help the Iowa Hawkeyes rushing attack. Put together a fantastic season. Last year was a little bit of a down year. I would like to see someone go for over 1,000 yards or at least average five yards per carry and really help carry that team and set the pace for the Iowa Hawkeye offense.

When that rushing game is gone, the passing attack can rely on play action and that kind of stuff to really attack the defense. Also, the only way they're going to get this is to not allow a single sack. And the big thing is with Nate Stanley, if you keep him clean, if you give him time, he can be a huge threat in the passing game. So that'll be huge to see those two bookend tackles keeping him clean. If they can do that, I think they are the frontrunners for the Outland Trophy. And now transitioning into the tight end U stuff. I've been teasing this all podcast because I thought it was pretty darn interesting. The Iowa Hawkeyes were not named tight end U.

So ESPN did this kind of study, maybe like a, like I would call it a statistical analysis based on certain measurements of what and who were actually the position use of their group. They did it for all positions. So quarterback, wide receiver, running back, offensive line, tight end, defensive back, defensive line, and linebacker. So make sure to check out that article if you can. It was posted a few days ago so um great great read iowa was not anywhere on the list besides tight end i did expect them to be number one though but they were not so here's kind of the metrics or kind of the the standard measurements that it went into so you can have an understanding about why iowa was not tight end you basically and i quote we limited the debate to

the bcs and cfp era including all players who appeared in games from 1998 through last season. They weighted all American nods over all conference selections. They also came up with a metric to determine a player's performance at the next level that would function for all position groups. So we used average approximate value over the first four seasons in the NFL. They also needed a way to account for Notre Dame's lack of conference affiliation. also needed a way to account for Notre Dame's lack of conference affiliation. So they used, and they also used Brian Burke's NFL draft pick value chart to figure out how much more to value a first round draft pick than a seventh rounder. So basically this is trying to put together a list of criteria for how they're going to

select this. So who do you think was number one? I'm going to give you a few seconds, kind of figure that out, and then I'm going to give it to you. All right. If you guessed Miami, you were absolutely correct. And at first I was kind of a little bit pissed off about that. I thought Miami was a great team back in the day, and I even wrote an article on Dear Old Gold about Iowa being tight end U,

and I noted that Miami had some great years, but in the past 10 years they haven't been as great from a tight end perspective. However, because this is such a long time frame going back to 1998, we're going to see a little bit more of Miami representation. So Miami was number one. ESPN did note that Iowa is on their heels, ready to take them over if they have a few more good seasons, which I think they're in store for, especially with Brian Ferencz running that offense, understanding how to utilize the tight ends more effectively. And then also with the tight end recruits that we have coming in, the class of 2019 and the class of 2020, there should be some really great years from an Iowa perspective.

One of the big things I think here is, you know, we look at Iowa football and we look at in the most, you know, the last five to 10 years. And obviously this past year where you see, you know, TJ Hawkinson and Noah Fant become all Americans, be first round draft picks, that sort of thing. And then George Kittle breaking records for tight end receiving yards and whatnot. Those are things that are kind of provide us some recency bias, which make us think that they should be number one. I don't necessarily disagree anymore. I'm looking at this list. If you're looking at the past 20 years, I understand why Miami is there. I do think Iowa's close.

A couple other teams I thought were interesting to see on here. At three, we had Stanford. At four, we had Missouri. That one was really weird. I honestly don't even know any of these guys, and I love the draft and the NFL. The notable players for Missouri were Martin Rucker,

Chase Kaufman, Michael Agnew, and Dwayne Blakely, whoever the hell those guys are. Number five was Wisconsin. Makes sense. They produced some pretty solid Big Ten tight ends. Oklahoma, UCLA, Arizona State, Virginia, and BYU. So the Virginia one I still think is pretty interesting as well. The only one I know on there is Heath Miller.

And from BYU, Dennis Pitta is kind of the big one. So some older guys in there that I'm not as familiar with back when I was 7 years old and 8 years old and was watching college football for the first time. But I thought that was a really interesting one. I wanted to share that with you, share my thoughts, my opinions. Make sure to go check out that article. Like I said, they did an analysis on all the positions. So really exciting and fun to see who actually claims a title of wide receiver,

you or QBU, that kind of thing. But that will conclude our episode for the day. That concludes segment number three and our final segment for the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Again, I'm coming at you from Hayes, Kansas. I was going to say Hayes, Wisconsin, but Hayes, Kansas. I'm really excited to go to Wichita, Kansas today. First of all, that's something that no one ever says, but I'm excited to go to Wichita, Kansas today. First of all, that's something that no one ever says. But I'm excited to go to Wichita, Kansas and check out the basketball tournament.

Check out Iowa United and watch those guys play and hopefully beat the Aftershocks on their home court. Like I said, make sure to follow us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. We're going to be providing some coverage there about the tournament starting probably around 4 p.m. all the way through the end of the night until I decide to probably go to a bar and get a few beers in celebration of the game or just have some fun. I'm seeing a college buddy down there as well. So make sure to check out my Twitter account, LockedOnIowa,

and check out our Facebook account, LockedOnHawkeyes. I try to post similar stuff on both, but it's a little bit easier on Twitter to do so. So if you can do that, it'll help us out. It'll also help you get information that you may not get right away about the TBT tournament and the Iowa United. Also, if you liked what you heard, I hope you did. If you're listening this long into it, you probably did. Make sure to like and subscribe wherever you download this podcast at, whether that is Apple, Google, Spotify, or the Himalaya podcast app. Also, if you love what you're hearing,

make sure to review the show. That really helps us out, shows my boss that people are liking the show and love listening to it. Keeps me giving you some great content and whatnot on here. And it also helps other Iowa Hawkeye fans find the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. And again, we have some great interviews coming up.

Julian Vander Velde, and we also have a few other guys in the mix as well. So stay tuned for future episodes. Hoping to give you an episode tomorrow morning. Kind of depends on how long I sleep in, but I have a seven and a half hour car ride. So maybe I'll just record one from my car as I'm driving. That's totally safe. I'll have everything set up beforehand, but then I'll be able to post it and get it to you pretty quickly on Friday morning. That being said, though, I hope you have a fantastic Thursday morning. If you're out there doing RAGBRAI, I hope you're enjoying your time,

enjoying the festivities. RAGBRAI is an absolute blast. And I appreciate you all tuning in and listening to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Wade. Have a great day, Hawkeye Nation, and go Hawks. guitar solo you