Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa's defensive line could be even better in 2020 | What should concern the Hawks about Nebraska | CJ Beathard is not a starter

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

We continue our position preview with defensive line, which is loaded with talent but not necessarily experience. The ceiling for this line is much higher than last year's team and there are several guys who could be breakout stars. Find out who in the show before we do our preseason preview of the Iowa Hawkeyes 6th game of the year versus Nebraska. We also break down news and notes from this weekend including Bruce Harrelds' surprising decision to retire and the clutch performances by two Iowa Hawkeyes in the 49ers game last night.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. And this beautiful Monday morning episode is brought to you by Bilt Bar. Bilt 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. So on today's show, we have a lot to cover as we continue our position by position breakdown

and also our game preview as well. On today's show, we're going to be covering the defensive line, and why I feel like this defensive line might not have the star power of last year's team, specifically with AJ Epineza, but might be better as a unit. And then we're going to talk about the Iowa vs. Nebraska game, go into a little bit more details as to what we can expect from that game. Before we get into either of those things, though, there were some news and notes of things that happened over the last couple days. I want to make sure I cover that on segment number one, kind of a Monday morning recap of what happened this weekend.

And if you've been tuning in the last couple of weeks, you know we're doing an NFL recap every single week. That's actually going to be tomorrow. We want to wait for all the games we played, but we're going to touch on a few of those things today, specifically the 49ers game, just because there's some interesting opinions being floated out there about what to do with C.J. Beathard. So want to make sure we are covering that as well. And if you are tuning in for the first time and you do like what you hear, I mean, we're here every single morning. This morning, we're a little bit late. I had some family in town, so I apologize there. I wasn't able to get the agenda put together, get kind of the thoughts about what I want to do for the show until this morning.

So that's why we're getting this episode out a bit later. But going forward, we typically have our episodes dropping every morning prior to about 6 a.m. every single day, Monday through Friday. And we are back every single day this week and going forward, especially as we hit football season, which I am incredibly excited about. That's why we're doing these previews. But with that being said, let's hop into it. We'll start with the odds and ends, though, for segment number one. And the first thing I want to cover is Bruce Harreld is retiring early. That doesn't seem like a big deal, right?

The president of the University of Iowa shouldn't necessarily impact these sports as much. However, Bruce Harreld has been a big supporter of Gary Barta and of Kirk Ferentz. And I think, although that's not an issue right now, we've seen in the past, Gary Barta get a little bit of a leeway. I don't think he's the best athletic director by any means. So that is interesting. They don't have an advocate helping them out there in the president's office. So as we get more information about what happens with Bruce Harreld, we'll obviously be dropping that. They haven't exactly named a successor yet, and he's going to stay on until they do name

a successor. So more to come on that situation. We wanted to make sure we covered it right here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And then the AP poll, we've talked a bit about this. If you listen to my Wednesday show on Lockdown College Football with Josh Ward of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And then the AP poll. We've talked a bit about this. If you listen to my Wednesday show on Lockdown College Football with Josh Ward of the Lockdown Volunteers, we've talked about the AP poll and the fact that it's kind of garbage. And the reason why is some voters are voting for teams that haven't played

and some voters are not. I find that absolutely ridiculous simply because you were voting for these people before the season started. Even when the SEC wasn't playing, you were still voting for those teams. How else would LSU continue to move up despite not playing a game? Yet, you won't include teams like Iowa in there. So right now, the Big Ten is represented in the polls, not as high as I think they should be. For example, Ohio State is undoubtedly better than Notre Dame in my opinion. I think they're also better than Florida and Georgia. They are ranked six. Penn State is nine. We have Wisconsin at 16, moving up three spots despite not playing a game.

We also have Michigan at 20, moving up three spots despite not playing a game. I don't think Michigan is going to be as good this year. And then we have Minnesota cracking the top 25 at number 25, moving up three spots from last week as well. Iowa is just a few away. They're about, I believe, about eight spots away. Again, not that the AP poll really matters a ton. It's great that they're getting some votes. I'm assuming we'll see a big shakeup once the Big Ten and the Pac-12 actually play

and these people who are on their high horses about these teams have not played and you know continuing to show their biases towards other conferences namely the SEC once the Big Ten and Pac-12 return we'll get a little bit more realistic look about how people see these teams which ultimately does give us an idea about how the you know college ball playoff committee will see these teams as well. Again, for Iowa, it doesn't really matter. They basically know what they're, they have to do. They have to win out and win the Big Ten championship if they want to be in the college ball playoff. They have a tough schedule, which is why we're kind of going through it right

now. You know, every single day of the past week and this week, but again, kind of frustrating watching the AP poll and watching the different opinions of this. People can't seem to handle the fact that we're in a different time with this pandemic. Seasons are going to be a little bit different. Teams aren't going to play every single game. So I don't know. I think it's being ridiculous, but neither here nor there. We'll see Iowa back in that hopefully soon after they beat Purdue. And then last night, if you didn't get a chance to watch the 49ers played the Philadelphia Eagles, and we're going to cover the NFL on tomorrow's show, but it's very important to note that George Kittle had himself a freaking day. George Kittle absolutely went off in that game against the Eagles returning after two days off or two games off, I should say. And as I

mentioned on the last week's show, I believe they held him out simply because of the bad turf in New York. And it seems like he was ready to make a statement. 15 targets, 15 receptions, 183 yards, one touchdown. The dude was an animal last night. And then C.J. Beathard came in because Nick Mullens wasn't playing great. They were moving the ball all right, but made a couple bad mistakes through a couple interceptions. Specifically, the one before he got pulled, there was no one even around. I honestly don't know what read he was making. So they put C.J. Beathard in, and there was definitely a spark.

C.J. was rolling the 49ers down the field. Had George Kittle, which is kind of interesting, had a great game, but dropped a two-point conversion. Had he caught that two-point conversion, I believe the 49ers could have tied that game up. CJ had them in field goal range but had to go deep because they needed to get a touchdown because they were down by five, but went 14-19 for 138 yards, only took one sack, and that was in about five minutes of playing time. Did a great job leading the team down the field.

But what I thought was interesting was, you know, Iowa fans were clearly happy that CJ was in the game. And I don't blame you all. I was really excited about it as well. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's a reason why CJ Beathard was the third-string quarterback. He hasn't even been dressing for the 49ers when Jimmy Garoppolo is in the game and Nick Mullins was the backup.

He did do a great job. I think it goes to show that there's a reason why Kyle Shanahan has been keeping him around and he's ready to play, able to play whenever he gets a chance. But the guy hasn't really done that well in the NFL and to think that he should supplant Jimmy Garoppolo as the starter is maybe putting the cart before the horse a little bit. I think that is absolutely ridiculous.

We need to see a lot more of TJ if that is to be the case. I believe Jimmy G is coming back next week, though, so that is not going to be the case. But great to see TJ have some success in limited time. There is an opportunity. Maybe he can get on based off of that playing performance, get a chance to sign with another team in the future as a backup and maybe get some more opportunities there. That being said, Jimmy G is injury prone. He's had a couple different injuries since joining the 49ers.

I'll be interested to see what Kyle Shanahan says about Nick Mullins and C.J. Beathard and who might be taking over that number two spot or what happens if Jimmy G goes down again. Again, a reminder that Nick Mullins was an undrafted free agent, I believe, out of Southern Miss or Mississippi State, one of the Mississippi schools. So not exactly a high profile there either, but great to say CCJ have some success. Coming up though on segment number two, we're going to hit on that defensive line, doing our position by position breakdown with the defensive line today. Before we get into that though, I have a very important message for you from the sponsors of our show today at Built Bar

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they're probably thinking, oh God, Iowa lost three of their four starting defensive linemen. This traditionally stout run defense is going to struggle this year. And I think that's an appropriate assessment for an outsider, but when you actually look at this defensive line, I'm pretty impressed with what I see. Last year, they didn't do as much rotating. When you have an AJ Epineza and a Chauncey Golsan on the end, you're not going to do as much rotating.

What they would do, though, is typically slide Epineza inside, have him play that interior pass rush spot, and bring in a guy like Joe Evans to come in and be that pass rush specialist. So they didn't do as much rotation this past year as they did the previous year when Iowa had a good chunk of senior starting defensive linemen. But I was really impressed with how that defensive line played last year from a run support perspective. But coming into this year, I think what they're really going to excel in is that pass rush.

And that's because no longer is Davian Nixon in the background getting rotating snaps. This guy's going to be a full-time starter. They're also bringing in Jack Heflin, who was a transfer from NIU. NIU's Defensive Player of the Year, first-team All-Conference, Honorable Mention All-American by PFF, and second team all-MAC by coaches. So that was a guy that wasn't on the team last year.

Could he have started? I think there's definitely a chance he could have. So I think when you look at this defensive line, they actually have a lot more potential. From a unit perspective, we're going to see a lot more guys rotating in and out, keeping guys fresh as the game go on. Phil Parker loves to rotate guys in and out. So

we could see as many as 10 guys getting significant snaps, but the starters right now, in my opinion, there's three that are pretty easy to notice. The fourth one's kind of up for grabs, but I'm pretty sure I know who it's going to be. At left defensive end, we got Chauncey Golsan, a guy who I've honestly been waiting for him to break out for years. I really thought this past year he was going to be a star. I even put him as a sleeper All-American because I thought he could get the sack numbers opposite of AJ Epineza. Unfortunately, we didn't see that as much. Despite the fact that teams were going away from Epineza, Chauncey Golsan didn't put up the numbers I expected. 47 total tackles, which is 12 higher than the previous year, nine and a half tackles for loss,

only a half a tackle for a loss more, and sacks which is actually half a sack less I expected more production from Chauncey Golston that being said let's see what he can do this year in his senior season this guy has the size I believe he has the potential we just need to see the production now for him to be able to be a legitimate NFL draft prospect. I think right now he's a day three prospect to spend depending on how we test, but with some good production, who knows he can maybe move up into the top of that day three conversation. Opposite of him on the other end spot, there's a couple of guys vying for that spot, but I believe it goes to John Wagoner. I believe he is the guy who is going to break out this year.

You haven't heard his name a lot, but he was a former four-star top 400 player. He's gained 40 pounds since joining the program. He's had a ton of development, clearly, since joining the program out of Valley. Last year, he played in 10 games, three tackles, one and a half tackles for loss, and one sack. But this guy has the prototypical size. He's a younger guy, a redshirt sophomore. This is a guy who I think is going to put himself on the map this year. And then Davian Nixon is my guy who I think honestly is the most talented guy on this defensive line. At the

defensive tackle position, again, we got Davian Nixon and Jack Heflin. Davian Nixon was the best interior pass rusher we had as a pure interior pass rusher, obviously, A.J. Paneza was a stud last year when he rushed from the interior. We saw him dominate Minnesota's offensive line. But Davion Nixon is a guy I'm really high on as well. I'm very excited about him. That's one of the reasons why I'm not as concerned about this defensive line. Yes, we lost A.J. Paneza.

That's a huge blow no matter what way you spin it. But from a defensive tackle position, I think we actually upgrade. This is not against Cedric Lattimore. This is not against Riley Reif. But I think Davian Nixon has a higher ceiling than both of those guys. And I think Jack Heflin has the same floor as both of those guys. So I think from a defensive tackle position, we're actually better off with these two guys. And the fact that Chauncey Golsan or John Wagner could slide inside because you want to get Joe Evans on the field. And that's a guy who I also think had a great year last year.

Four sacks as a walk-on. Undersized for sure, but does a fantastic job of beating the tackles and getting to the quarterback no matter what way you spin it. So I really like the versatility of this defensive line. Again, Davion Nixon, a stud. I'm glad he stayed. I know he explored the transfer market, but he stayed at Iowa. Best interior pass rusher we've had in a long time. Last year, just as a backup, 29 tackles, five and a half tackles for loss, and three sacks.

That is just as many as Cedric Lattimore and Riley Reif had as starters last year. And again, Jack Hefflin last year, three sacks at NIU, eight and a half tackles for loss. We're going to generate a lot of interior pass rush pressure from these guys. And I'm excited to see that that helps our secondary, which we did lose a Gino Stone. We did lose a Michael Ojemudia, but if you can generate a better pass rush, especially from the interior, you see it with Aaron Donald on the Rams. When you can generate a pass rush from the interior, that really collapses the pocket, especially against immobile quarterbacks. And you have a guy like Golsan on the outside, or Wagoner, or Joe Evans,

or, you know, hell, Logan Lee, Zach Van Valkenburg. These are guys that can then get to the quarterback, especially for the immobile quarterbacks. We could see a lot of big sack days for this defensive line. And speaking of those guys, those are the four starters I think, you know, again, John Wagoner has not been officially named the starter. I think it's assumed at this point. But other guys who could spell John Wagoner, Chauncey Golsan,

Logan Lee, a redshirt freshman who came in as a tight end, converted over to the defensive line. I could also see him playing interior as well. Zach Van Valkenburg, a former D2 player who transferred into Iowa. Joe Evans, he's going to only probably play pass rush snaps. Not a big guy. Not a guy who can probably hold up in a run game. And I think if he were to come in in a running situation, as an offensive coordinator, I'm looking to attack him for sure.

Chris Reams is a guy we haven't heard a lot about since joining the program. But a former three-star recruit out of Van Meter. Very tall kid. Kind of reminds me of the defensive line we had two years with Anthony Nelson. So a guy who kind of looks like him, I think he could be a guy who we could see him get some playing time and get one to two sacks this year and show that he has the ability to step in that starter's role in the next year to two years. Interior-wise, we've got Noah Shannon and Austin Schultz, both guys who've gotten some playing time,

showed they can generate pressure, showed they can stop the run. Those will be great guys to have as backups, too, a Davian Nixon and a Jack Heflin. And then from a freshman perspective, we have a lot of freshmen that are going to be able to sit behind these guys and learn. And the fact that we do have a relatively young defensive line, Chauncey Golsan, a senior, Jack Heflin, a senior, but Davion Nixon, I think a junior, John Wagner, a redshirt sophomore.

There's a lot of young guys that are ready to step up as well that we could see playing time right away from. Deontay Craig and Logan Jones are the two guys I'm really thinking of as four-star recruits. But Lucas Van Ness and Yaha Black, also very talented pass rushers that we could see get playing time in some mop-up games if there's availability for that and again, I think with this defensive line a much higher ceiling than last year more pass rush pressure, maybe a little bit lower of a floor and not that star power

but this is a defensive line that could be absolutely star-studded by the end of the season, again, doesn't have the A.J. Paneza but has a few guys who I feel like can put their names on the map this year. And that'll do it, though, for our defensive line preview. As a reminder, coming up on segment number three,

we're going to be breaking down the Iowa versus Nebraska game. And why is it always so darn close? And what can we do to beat Nebraska this year? We are back for our third and our final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, breaking down the Iowa versus Nebraska game. That's right. We are back for our third and our final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, breaking down the Iowa versus Nebraska game.

That's right. They don't think it's a rivalry. We like to pretend like it's not. It is a rivalry game. When I talk to former players, they hate Nebraska just as much as we feel like they do. And it shows in that game. Nebraska hasn't had the same kind of program that they used to have, that they have historically had.

You talk to a Nebraska fan, they'll remind you of that, the fact that this is the worst time we've ever had in Nebraska history, and how are you guys always so close, or how do we always keep the game so close? Let me remind you about the early part of this decade where Iowa was consistently beating a Nebraska team that was 9-3. They were blowing these teams out. So, yes, Nebraska has had better times. I think they have an opportunity to continue to improve under Scott Frost,

and it looks better for the Big Ten if Nebraska doesn't suck. But kudos to Nebraska for always being able to play Iowa tough. Last year, Iowa jumped out to a great lead, and Nebraska battles back, and Iowa has to beat them on a game-winning field goal from Keith Duncan. So this is not a bad Nebraska team. There's definitely talent along that team, but we have seen somewhat of a mass exodus from this team, losing a lot of older guys like a J.D. Spielman. This team is quite young though. Lots of freshmen, lots of retro freshmen, lots of sophomores. Retro sophomores, I should say.

Basically third-year players. But this team is pretty young. But this team lives and dies with Adrian Martinez. What Adrian Martinez are we going to see this year? After his freshman year, you heard Nebraska fans talking about him as a Heisman hopeful. I wouldn't have gone that far, but he was definitely a very talented quarterback, a mobile quarterback. But in his sophomore season, whether that was due to injuries or whatever, he suffered kind of a slump. He had an increase in interceptions from 9 to 10, decrease in TDs from 17 to 11, I believe,

and a completions percentage that dipped 5%, and his passing yards dropped 700 in just one fewer game. So which Adrian Martinez are we going to get from the Nebraska Cornhuskers? I think that's the difference in this game. The other key difference maker is Wandel Robinson. This is a guy who we should not be sleeping on. I believe he can be an all Big Ten player in the mold of a KJ Hamler, in the mold of a Rondell Moore. These are guys that are tough to guard and to defend, and he's going to be the focal point of that offense. If he's not, Scott Frost should be fired because Wandel Robinson is their best athlete. He is the Amir Smith-Marset of that Nebraska offense. And especially with J.D. Spielman being gone, their number one wide receiver,

they don't have a lot behind him. Unless you're getting really excited about Kurt Warner's son, Cade, there just isn't a lot of that wide receiver position behind Wandel Robinson. So I expect him to be a big-time playmaker for the Huskers. And it'll help if Dedrick Mills can continue to build off of a fantastic season, 745 yards and 10 touchdowns after transferring from JUCO, taking over that job later on in the season. But again, all these three guys, what they really depend on, though,

is that new offensive coordinator, Matt Lubick, a team that had to switch over their offensive coordinators. I think from a Nebraska standpoint, that scares you. Any team in transition is always a team that is going to struggle a little bit in a weird year like this year. With Iowa getting them late in the season, it's not going to matter nearly as much for Iowa. But, again, they have to break in that new offensive coordinator

and install a new scheme. Matt Lubick, though, has that experience with Scott Frost, so it shouldn't be as big of a concern. But Nebraska really needs that offense to get going because their defense just hasn't been that great. And the way that Scott Frost wants this offense to move, their defense is going to be on the field a lot. They're going to be in a lot more high-scoring games than they are going to be in defensive battles just simply because of how Scott Frost wants this offense to move quickly down the field. So defensively though, what concerns me the most about this team is they lost almost their entire defensive line. They do have an experienced secondary, a relatively

experienced linebacker crew, but their defense wasn't that great last year and they're losing that entire defensive line, a defensive line that allowed Tyler Goodson to go off on them last year. And Amir Smith-Marset also showing some of his versatility in the end around and whatnot against Nebraska. But their defense, I'm not as worried about. Again, they're not going to be top-of-the-line defense ever. It's very much a Big 12 type of experience with Nebraska where they want to have a good offense, an explosive offense,

and their defense is secondary to that. If they can get one or two stops, if they can be a little bit timely or opportunistic, then they can win a game. But defense is not how Nebraska is going to win games. Special teams, though, might be how they're going to lose them. And that special teams unit was garbage last year. We saw it with just the maintaining coverage on Amir Smith-Marset, not able to do that very well. And they lost their kicker and their punter. So special teams could be an area of concern again for Nebraska. And although Nebraska typically has some pretty solid recruiting classes, this team is young. And I do believe the difference is how well can the offense move? What does Adrian Martinez and Wandel Robinson do to the Hawks? And on the other side, what can

Amir Smith-Marset and Tyler Goodson do to that Nebraska team? I think Iowa does have the advantage in this game again. I do believe Iowa wins it. It'll be interesting to see how the schedule shakes out because Nebraska, I believe, is wanting to move up their game the previous week to that Friday and move up the Iowa game to that Friday as well. That way they get an extra day to prepare for the Iowa game. Obviously, one extra day is better than the Iowa situation where they don't get that extra day. But I do believe Iowa is going to be able to take on Nebraska, especially if we can have fans in that stadium. That'll be huge for the Hawks. The key, though, is again,

can Amir Seth-Norset and Tyler Goodson outbattle a Wandel Robinson and Adrian Martinez? And can Iowa keep their foot on the gas to finish out these games. Last year they went into halftime with a 14-point lead, or no, yeah, 14-point lead, excuse me, and left having to win on a game-winning field goal because they just couldn't get things going in that second half. Kudos to Nebraska for making those second-half changes, but Iowa needs to be able to keep their foot on the gas, pedal to the metal, and take on Nebraska and beat them handedly.

I don't want to have one of these close games again. It's getting a little bit ridiculous and it shouldn't have even happened. Those are my key breakdowns for the game versus Iowa versus Nebraska. Again, we're going to have a full breakdown when we get closer to that game, but I wanted to give you a preseason preview of each of the games in Iowa's schedule.

I predict this to be a win. At this point, I predict Iowa to be 5-1 heading into their game versus Illinois. And then finally, Wisconsin. That might be a little bit more exciting than some of the other teams and what they feel like. Or sorry, what the other analysts think that Iowa could be. But that's where I think Iowa is right now, 5-1 heading into week 7 versus Illinois.

And again, a reminder that tomorrow coming up, we're going to be breaking down the NFL, the key surprises, the key performances from Iowa Hawkeyes across the league, and then going into that linebacker position that has experienced quite a bit of turmoil over the last couple years, changing really the base defense, not recruiting nearly as many linebackers. Also, you see the attrition with Jamone Colbert leaving the program or opting out. I should say he's not leaving the program as of yet, just opting out.

We had Dylan Doyle leave the program. So this linebacker position is quite an interesting one that I want to cover on tomorrow's show. And we're also going to be breaking down the Iowa versus Illinois game as well. So stay tuned for that on tomorrow's episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. That'll be dropping early on in the morning because we are a daily show covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Again, thank you all for tuning in to today's episode. If you loved the content, give us that five-star review.

Let us know what you loved about the show. And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, have a fantastic day and go Hawks!