Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa wins ugly game vs Wisconsin | Michael Ojemudia and the 2020 Senior Bowl game | Breaking down Iowa's latest commit Jeffrey Bowie

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

The Hawks win an ugly game vs Wisconsin to move to 15-5. We give a recap of the game and its' highlights before discussing Michael Ojemudia's performance in the 2020 Senior Bowl game. We wrap up with a quick discussion on 2021 Iowa commitment Jeffrey Bowie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of the U.S. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off right away! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith!

Oh! He's got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. High on. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.

It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network.

As always, I'm your host, Andrew Wade. Excited to be back with a Tuesday morning episode right here of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. And we have a lot to cover on today's show. As promised, we are going to be breaking down the actual Senior Bowl, the actual event on Saturday afternoon, talking about Michael Ojemudia's performance. We're also going to be touching on Iowa's latest Hawkeye commitment, Jeffrey Bowie, probably butchering his last name. That's pretty standard for the course for me. But we're going to be touching on Jeffrey Bowie or Bowie, probably butchering his last name. That's pretty standard for the course for me. But we're going to be touching on Jeffrey Bowie, or Bowie, the West Branch Iowa native who is going to be playing for the Iowa Hawkeyes,

committed to the class of 2021. So we're going to be touching on that a little bit as well. And then we're also going to be breaking down the Iowa-Wisconsin basketball game from last night, the game that Iowa did win in quite an ugly fashion. But a win is a win nonetheless. So we will talk about that as well. We also have lots of great stuff coming up over the course of the next week, looking to get quite a few guests on. We have Cody Hills from Iowa Sim. He's going to be jumping on the show and talking about what it, you know, kind of how we got started with Iowa Sim, what his fandom has looked like for the Iowa Hawkeyes, and so on and so forth.

So we're excited to have him on the show. We're also going to be looking to have a few of the recruits in the class of 2020 on the show as well to talk about their commitment to Iowa and what they're excited about with this class. And we have another special guest. We have a wrestling kind of guru coming on the show to talk about the Iowa-Penn State wrestling showdown

happening this weekend. So lots of fun stuff coming up on the Locked on Hawke Iowa Penn State wrestling showdown happening this weekend. So lots of fun stuff coming up on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, and I appreciate you all tuning in to the show. So if you have tuned in before, if you like what you hear, if you are tuning in for the first time and you like what you hear today, make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, whether that is Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or the brand new Himalaya Podcast app.

And with that, let's jump into the meat of our show. So let's talk about the Iowa-Wisconsin basketball game. That's kind of fresh on everyone's mind. Iowa did win that game. If you didn't get to watch it, it was an ugly game. Not a game that I would say was a lot of fun to watch. Kind of a very Wisconsin type of game, right? So Wisconsin plays pretty solid team defense. They're also just physical and kind of annoying, I guess would be the best way of describing how

they kind of handle things. And not a big fan of Wisconsin's play style, but nevertheless, Iowa did prevail after going on a 24-2 run, I believe it was, to close out the game. They won 68-62. At the beginning, kind of the first half, again, kind of a slow, sluggish game, 30-30. Iowa did not shoot the ball well at all, which I think is one of the more impressive things about this game. They shot 15% from three-pointers. is one of the more impressive things about this game. They shot 15% from three-pointers.

I'm going to actually try to do some research later today. Since I am recording this Tuesday morning, I wanted to get this episode out to you as quickly as possible. I'm going to try to do some research and see when the last time Iowa shot that poorly in a Big Ten game and actually won the game. Again, this team is resilient. That is the word of the day, resilient. This team does not care how far they get down or what the odds are against them. They find a way to win no matter what. They shot 33% from the field,

15% from three. That is not going to win you a lot of games, but they played pretty darn well against Wisconsin and they figured it out when they needed to figure it out. Again, Luka Garza had a pretty solid game. From a shooting perspective, not the best, but he was also getting literally assaulted almost any time he touched the ball. I think we saw some of the frustrations on that come out late in the game when he got that technical foul for yelling at one of the Wisconsin players after getting hit in the face. He went 6-17 from the field, 0-2 from 3-point,

hit 9-13 free throws, had 21 points total, and brought down 18 rebounds, which is nearly half of what Wisconsin had total. So pretty impressive performance there. Also had 3 blocks as well. CJ Frederick played big minutes, 37 minutes. The only guy to hit more than one 3-pointer, went 5-10 from the field for 17 points and also contributed three rebounds. Wieskamp didn't shoot very well again. I mean, I don't know what's going on, but he just kind of hasn't been doing as well from the field. Nevertheless, he had 10 rebounds and 12 points. Connor McCaffrey struggled shooting the ball yesterday. 0-4 from the field, hit three or four free throws, including, you know, kind of the late game free throws that helped seal the deal.

Also contributed six rebounds and two assists. I'm going to talk a little bit about Connor McCaffrey later on in this segment because there was, you know, there were the contingent of Iowa fans who seemed to think that Connor McCaffrey is crap and he shouldn't be on the team and he shouldn't be playing. I wholeheartedly disagree with that. If you watched yesterday's game, I can see where you'd be frustrated by Connor McCaffrey's performance. I 100% understand that. However, please make sure you watch the other games before you create an impression or an opinion of Connor McCaffrey.

If your opinion is based off of last season, then you need to watch more games this year. Because he has been really impressive for the Hawks and has really been that glue guy who's kind of been able to play multiple roles. Starting out as the starting point guard with Jack Nunn going down and Jordan Mohannon going out. Joe Toussaint moved over to that point guard role and Connor McCaffrey has been able to play really anywhere between two and four and guard any of those kind of guys. He's a physical defender. He's an athletic guy. His shot, you know, his shot is starting, it's getting better. It's improving from last year. And, you know, really he's the guy who's going to find open, you know, open looks for other players. He knows where people are. His basketball IQ is through the freaking roof. You can call him a coach, just get as much as you want, but he's playing because

he's a good basketball player. And Iowa is lucky to have him as one of their wings on their team. And I guess I was going to talk about that later, but I just kind of got into it right there. Another guy I want to touch on, Joe Toussaint, played a hell of a basketball game. You can see why he is such an integral part of this team's future and their vision long term. An explosive guy, late in the the game getting into the hoop and getting a foul called on him. That's the kind of stuff that he can do that we haven't seen from Iowa

guards in the past. He finished with 11 points, 4 assists, 2 boards, and a steal. So again, Toussaint playing fantastic last night. I think he really was a difference maker and a game that needed some athletes and he was the most athletic guy on the court, in my personal opinion. A couple other things I wanted to cover on the game. Again, I thought it was a really ugly game. Wisconsin, you know, that's the kind of game they like to play. They typically have those lower scoring games. They like to slow the ball down, slow the time of possession down, and I even called it, you know, on yesterday's show, shout out to to myself I can't remember if I got 68 62 or if I called 68 63 but either way that was about as close as I've ever been to call

on a actual score of a basketball game and a lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn't think Wisconsin was going to allow Iowa to do very well offensively or get a lot of possessions to even make up for the lack of you know shooting abilities I want to touch on, though, one other thing. Brad Davison is a dirty player. We talked about it yesterday on the show with Asher. He called Brad Davison gritty. That's fine. I took it at face value at the time.

I don't disagree that some Wisconsin fans probably do think he is just a gritty player, but the nut shot on Connor McCaffrey last night was absolute garbage, and I think he deserves to be suspended. And honestly, that was a huge play. It really gave Iowa that victory, gave them the opportunity to build that lead in the closing minutes with that nut punch. And his excuse at the end of the game was basically, I don't know why I would get that.

I'm sorry, but I've had to go around screen before, and I'm not throwing my freaking arm right into the guy's nuts. That is absolutely ridiculous and just a bogus play. What a garbage play by Brad Davidson. We've seen this happen in the past. We've seen very Grayson Allen-esque type plays from him. People want to call it gritty. I call it cheating and dirty, and he deserves to be suspended for that.

Also, we saw Luka Garza show some emotion, and that is not something we typically see. I want to touch on that a little bit more, but I do want to take a quick break and give a few messages from our sponsors. But coming up after the quick break, we're going to touch on the Luka Garza getting a little bit frustrated, a few other things with the Iowa game before jumping into the Senior Bowl talk and the Iowa recruitment discussion as well. So that will be coming up in just a few short seconds. We are back with segment number two of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast,

continuing our discussion on the game last night, the basketball game. I wanted to touch on the Garza thing because Luka Garza, he's even made quotes that he wanted to play in the Big Ten because he wanted to play in that physical environment. And he has been getting just demolished by teams game in and game out. They are throwing everyone at him because he is Iowa's top offensive player. He is the guy that the Iowa offense runs through. And people are just going at him. And we saw that very much so against Wisconsin, where they were, honestly, he was getting assaulted literally every single time he took a shot.

He was getting physical defense, borderline, you know, some interesting non-foul calls against him, but you know, he, he was just getting beaten up down low and he handled it very well, but you could see the frustration late in the game when he got hit in the face, going up for a rebound and yelled some things at the Wisconsin team and got a technical for it. My guess is just the fact that that wasn't the first time that's happened all game, and he was getting very frustrated, and his frustrations finally got the best of him. Thankfully, it wasn't a game-costing technical foul. Those can be kind of tough, especially if they were to get the ball back on that. I think it's one of those things where we're going to see that happen.

Garza is going to have that happen, and he finally let his frustrations boil over him, but it's a one-time thing, and who cares? Honestly, I'd like to see the passion from him and the emotion, as long as it doesn't cost Iowa the game. Another guy who I love the passion from, C.J. Frederick, basically telling the Wisconsin team to get the F off his court. I could have said those words, but I want to make sure I'm being PC for the show. And if anyone's listening with little kids in the car or listening at work, I want to make sure that we are being compliant with those rules.

So that I thought was pretty interesting. This team, again, resilient. They are tough. They do not take crap from anyone. And this is the team that is dangerous. You don't want a team that doesn't care what you think of them to be in the NCAA tournament playing you. You want a team that backs down easier, gives up.

This is not a team that gives up. This is a different Fran McCaffrey team. And heading into February, I think there's a lot of concerns with a Fran McCaffrey team because we've seen the February fade from a Fran team every single year. And this year they don't have a very easy schedule. They have quite a few road games, quite a few difficult games, and we're going to touch on that later in this week.

But if they can manage to get through that February fade, even just going.500 with such a tough schedule, this team to me is a team that could go pretty far in the NCAA tournament. The NCAA tournament is a tournament that needs players like a Luka Garza or three-point shooters that can get hot, and they need guys who aren't too, you know, the moment isn't too big for them. So I think this team is a team that I'm pretty excited about and a team that we did not expect to see coming after the first few games this season,

but we're going to cover that more later on in this week. I want to turn my attention to the Senior Bowl because I was down there in Mobile, as you all know, covering the Senior Bowl. And specifically covering Michael Ojemudia in the Senior Bowl. So I want to give my thoughts on that. As you probably saw from PFF, Michael Ojemudia did great out as the best corner through the first two days. He did not win the best defensive back of the North Squad Award. However, that went to Jalen Elliott from Notre Dame, who actually had a pretty good performance as well throughout the week.

I thought Ojemudia struggled in day three, and we covered that on Friday morning's episode, like we said. But again, it's not really a conducive environment for cornerbacks to succeed. They are matched up in one-on-one drills. The wide receiver obviously has the advantage. The quarterback has all the time in the world to make sure they're getting the right throw there. So it's not an easy environment for a cornerback. I thought he struggled a bit on day three. During the game though, he played pretty well. He had a couple of times where he got beat, but for the most part, he had pretty

solid coverage. I will say this though, if you are planning on going to the senior bowl, I would highly suggest going for that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. That's when you can see the practices. That's when you're going to get the most bang for your buck. I thought the game was relatively disappointing. There wasn't a lot of throwing. I know each of these teams need to kind of hide their playbook from other scouts

and teams that are there watching these games unfold but literally the only pass plays were play actions and there wasn't a lot of pressure put on the defensive backs. I would have loved to see Michael Ojemudia really battle against a couple of guys like, you know, a Van Jefferson or, um, I know, I believe Colin Johnson was on his side. Let me see.

No, actually, um, call Johnson was on the South side as well. So, um, I, you know, I would love to see him battle a little bit more on both those guys and a couple other folks from the south side. He was in man coverage most of the time, which I thought was great. There was a couple times where they had him slide into the slot, so showing some of the versatility there to play and cover multiple positions. But again, I thought he did pretty well for the most part, did really well on deep routes, not as great as on the short routes,

the comebacks, the outs, that kind of thing, allowed a couple catches on routes, not as great as on the short routes, you know, the comebacks, the outs, that kind of thing, allowed a couple catches on that, but made the tackle very quickly. He also had some big plays in the run game. One time he missed, he was kind of going up for the kill shot, missed a tackle. Another time, though, came up and supported really well in the run game and made the tackle for a loss. Kind of something we've talked about before, you see those instincts with Michael Ojemudia coming from a zone scheme.

His eyes are in the backfield. He can see that and react very quickly. We saw that with that run support play late in the second half of the game. I thought he did really well there. Again, big question on him is going to be how does he run to the combine? What is his quickness like? And do teams feel confident that he can play in a man scheme? We've seen some Iowa cornerbacks in recent years struggle,

and we've seen some Iowa cornerbacks do pretty well. Desmond Keene is a perfect example of a guy who came from the zone scheme at Iowa who didn't run well at the combine, and it turned out to be one of the best slot corners in the NFL. We've seen Josh Jackson kind of build off of that hype and allow some of those question marks to be taken away because he came from the Iowa scheme and people weren't as worried about that after some of the Desmond King success, right? And he has struggled mightily at the NFL level, has really kind of been

placed really far down on the depth chart for the Green Bay Packers. So it'll be interesting to see how talent evaluators look at Ojemudia. I believe he's still kind of a mid-day three pick. I'm hoping to get some NFL draft analysts on the show as well to talk about Ojemudia and what they liked from him at the Senior Bowl. Again, I thought he had a pretty solid performance, all things considered. It's not a great environment for cornerbacks. Not a lot of passing on that Senior Bowl game itself. But he played pretty well with the situations that he was given.

So hopefully get a combine invite, and we'll cover that as well. One other thing I wanted to cover on the football side real quick. There is an all-star event for college football and Nate Stanley is actually playing in it. It is the State Farm All-Star Football Challenge. It airs January 31st this Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on ESPN2. Nate Stanley sounds like he did win the Accuracy Challenge, which is ironic considering that's probably the biggest and most prevalent knock on Nate Stanley going into the draft season is that he's not an incredibly

accurate quarterback. And I will say this, I think he's improved mightily on his accuracy over the course of the season and from last season. There were not nearly as many times where you wonder, what the hell is he throwing at? But that airs January 31st, so this Friday, make sure to check that out as well and support Nate Stanley in one of his last times as representing the Iowa Hawkeye football program. Coming up, though, I want to quickly touch on the Iowa Hawkeye commitment from West Branch, Iowa, Jeffrey Bowie, or Bowie. If anyone knows how to actually pronounce his name, please let from West Branch, Iowa, Jeffrey Bowie or Bowie. If anyone knows how to actually pronounce his name, please let me know because, again, I am butchering this

and I want to make sure I get that right. But we'll be touching on that coming up in just a few short seconds. All right, we are back with our final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast covering the Iowa Hawkeyes and every sport involved. Like I said, I don't cover as much wrestling, but I am excited to have potentially a guest on who can give you that coverage from a wrestling standpoint.

I do believe there are a few other podcasts that do a better job of covering wrestling, and I want to make sure that I'm not giving you some crap out of my mouth that I don't even really feel confident in giving you. So trying to bring some experts on to cover the wrestling side of things as I get a little bit more acclimated to that side of things. But covering Iowa Hawkeye commitments, obviously a big time in the recruiting world. Iowa's gotten a couple of commitments over the last couple of days and they have National Signing Day coming up. Or excuse me, they had a commitment in the last couple of days and had a couple offers extended. They also have National Signing Day coming up.

Maybe get one or two more guys signing on that day. I know they've already gotten the commitment, the National Letter of Attent from most of the guys in their 2020 class. And then we'll be talking to a few of those guys later in this week as well. But big time got Jeffrey Bowie from West Branch, Iowa. And this is a huge thing. I think people aren't realizing just what Matt Campbell is doing at Iowa State. It is important that Iowa wins

the in-state recruiting battle every single time. And getting a guy that's essentially in their backyard at West Branch, Iowa, just a few miles down the road is huge. And I love this kid's tape. Right now he is ranked as the 422nd player in the nation, the sixth best player in Iowa. Again, a great 2021 class in Iowa for recruiting.

A 3-star recruit with an 87 overall composite from 24-7 sports. Big shout-out to them for all the recruiting work they do. I just love this kid's athleticism, though. And all I can think about is what is this kid going to do when he gets with Chris Doyle. Right now, standing at 6'5", 245 pounds. I mean, this is a grown boy at this point. He's only a junior going into his senior season. He ran a 4.86 40-yard dash seven months ago,

jumped a 31-inch vertical, benched 295 pounds, squatted 455 pounds, power clean 290, broad jump a 9.8, and a wingspan of 77 inches. Imagine what this kid could do, again, with Chris Doyle building him up. Last season had 31.5 tackles, 11.5 tackles for a loss in seven sacks. And one of the things I'm seeing on tape, and again, it's a little bit tough. He does play in a smaller division or kind of a smaller school for West Branch, Iowa. division or kind of a smaller school for West Branch, Iowa. He's basically blowing away his competition. He's able to maneuver his way around tackles and you can see the speed on tape. He's one of the best athletes on the field anytime he's on the field and being a strong side defensive

end, that's pretty darn impressive to be, have that speed, that height, that quickness that he does against talent that just isn't in his realm of talent level. So fun to see. I'm really excited to see him continue to grow at West Branch. But again, I'm mostly excited to see what Chris Doyle can do with an athlete like this. A guy running a.486 coming out of high school at 245 pounds from a small school playing defensive end. You would like to think when Chris Doyle gets done with him, he could knock off maybe 0.2 seconds off that,

increase his vertical by 7, 8 inches, and obviously increase his bench, squat, and power clean as well. So fun to see Austin to Iowa starting to pick up some of the steam on that 2021 class. That's one of the things that we talked about earlier in the season when they got so many commitments in the 2020 class. They really locked of the things that we talked about earlier in the season when they got so many commitments in the 2020 class, they really locked down that thing pretty early. And that allows them to begin focusing on that 2021 class, which I believe is currently ranked top 10 in the

nation as of right now. Again, another strong start for the Hawks. You love to see it. And with National Signing Day coming up, their full attention is going to be turned to the 2021 class, which I absolutely love to see. We'd love to see them get an even better class in than they already got from the 2020 class, which is absolutely outstanding. And just confirming, yeah, so right now they are ranked 8th in the nation, 3rd in the Big Ten. So something you'd love to see. And as we get more commitments, we'll absolutely be covering that right here on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast.

Again, thank you for all for tuning in to today's episode of the show. we get more commitments. We'll absolutely be covering that right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Again, thank you for all for tuning in to today's episode of the show. Appreciate your love and support. Make sure to go follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And make sure to go like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And one quick thing I want to take a note. I got some feedback on our episode on Friday

that the audio was a little bit off, right? I was very quiet and the ads are very loud. That's something I've been working on as well, trying to get that audio production even better. The ad quality and the volume can be pretty loud at times. So I want to make sure that I'm making it a pretty consistent and seamless transition between those things and not blowing out your eardrum. So I appreciate your patience on that. I'm hoping to continue to improve that as well. Some circumstances I couldn't really control on Friday that kind of led to my voice being even more quiet, but that'll get better. I promise you. So again,

thank you all for tuning into today's episode. I hope you all have a fantastic Tuesday and go Hawks. We'll see you next time.