Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa's matchup vs Purdue | Where are the 1st rounder today? | Kirk passes Hayden for another milestone

Episode Date: January 3, 2019

We spend the first segment covering the men's basketball game against Purdue this evening and what Iowa needs to do to come away victorious despite being heavy underdogs in this contest. Segment two has us going back in time and looking at all the previous first rounders in the Kirk Ferentz era and what they are up to today. We wrap it up by talking about Kirk Ferentz and how he set a new milestone with the Outback Bowl victory as well as covering the legacy Nick Easley is leaving after joining the program as a walk-on.Twitter: @lockedoniowaHost: @wade_andrewEmail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes, the latest addition to the Locked On Sports Network's growing lineup of college podcasts. I am 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 good episode, or great episode, sorry, for you today. We're going to be talking about the Iowa vs. Purdue game that's coming up later today. Iowa begins their second round of Big Ten games, and it's going to be a very crucial game for them to get off on a right start here. On segment two, we're going to be talking about former first-rounders. We have a couple potentially that could be first-rounders in this year's draft. Noah Fant's going to go high. If TJ Hawkinson declares he could go high. So I want to take a look back at previous first-rounders

and kind of what happened to them in their careers in the NFL. And then finally on segment three, we're going to have a little bit of a hodgepodge, mostly focusing on Iowa football, talking about Kirk Ferentz and some of the milestones he's surpassed with our bowl win at the Outback Bowl. And then talking about Nick Easley. If you've listened to this show before, you know that I'm a huge fan of Nick Easley and what he's done.

Obviously, he came from my hometown, so big ups to him there. And we talked a little bit about this on yesterday's show when Jared Starkweather, a contributor at Dear Old Gold as well, joined the show. And we talked a little bit about Nick Easley and kind of what he did for the program, but we missed a few things and wanted to make sure I cover those on today's episode. Before we jump in, though, make sure you tell Siri, Google, or Alexa to play podcast Locked On Hawkeyes. That'll give you the most recent edition of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. That way you can listen to it anytime, anywhere.

And make sure you are subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Spreaker, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcast at. Make sure you are subscribing. That way you're getting it downloaded directly to your phone or wherever you download it at then you can get that immediately so let's jump right into segment number one iowa versus purdue big game for the hawks if you've been following the ap rankings they have slowly been dropping literally every single week they've dropped down at least one spot and mostly it's because they're playing a really weak schedule the last couple weeks.

Obviously against Bryant, they struggled against Bryant, so I wasn't surprised to see them drop another spot. But not that the AP rankings ultimately matter a ton. It matters where Iowa's at at the end of the season. However, coming into this game, Iowa is 0-2 in Big Ten play, and they really could use a big win here. They have a tough slate of games overall, and going at Purdue is never going to be easy. Purdue is a strong team.

Although they are 8-5, they're a strong 8-5. So their five games that they've lost have been to the No. 10 team, Virginia Tech, No. 9, Florida State, and No. 2, Michigan. Their other two teams they lost to was an unranked nine and four Texas and a unranked 10 and four Notre Dame. So again, teams that are typically in the running doing pretty strong, they lost those five games, a tough break to begin the season,

but you know, it happens. It's kind of how the cookie crumbles, but if they can pick it up in big 10 play, they should be fine to be able to make the NCAA tournament. But it's also the kind the same thing with Iowa. They really need this win because they have some tough games coming up. Getting a win against Purdue, which will be widely regarded as one of the tougher opponents

in the conference at season's end, in my opinion, that would be huge for this program. This will be an interesting game, too, because to ken pom purdue is the 19th best team in the nation in adjusted efficiency margin basically it's a fancy way of calculating how good they are on offense and defense compared to the you know the national average and that sort of thing if you want more information definitely check out ken pom they can give you some more information on that iowa is 39th for context. So coming into this game, Kempom, you know, is giving Iowa a 26% chance of winning this game. They're usually pretty accurate. Granted, they gave Bryant a 1% chance and Bryant almost pulled it off against Iowa.

Vegas odds, they have Iowa as an eight point underdog. So really not valuing what Iowa has done in the last couple of weeks, which is why this is so important for Iowa to come in and make a statement in this game. For Purdue though, they're led by a three-year starter, Carson Edwards. He's a 6'1 guard and he's really been the scoring leader. He's leading the team with 25.8 points per game. He's also averaging 3.5 assists per game. Joining him in the backcourt is Ryan Klein, a senior guard who is averaging 13.1 points per game. And one thing I found interesting is that these two are the only guys who are averaging double-digit points. So that's going to be tough. And the other thing, too, is a lot of their points are coming off of the three-point attempts.

So they're averaging 18 attempts combined. Very Jordan Bohannon-esque is how I kind of gathered that one looking at the stats. I haven't had an opportunity to watch Purdue play a ton, but it seems to remind me a lot of a Jordan Bohannon type of game, right? Low assist volumes, high volume of shots from three-point line. You know, they're making around 35 to 40 percent, and that's doing a lot of the damage for them. And that in large part brings up Purdue's reliance on the three-pointer. They are 10th in the nation in reliance on the three-pointer out of their overall points. So 41.8% of their overall point total is coming from the three-point line,

which is 10th in the nation. And those type of teams can be dangerous because if you are shooting well from three-point line, then you can be hot and it's tough to keep up with you. But if you're having an off day, it's going to be a blowout. So we see that all the time in the NCAA tournament. You have some of those mid-major teams who get hot for a couple games. That's because they're shooting really good three-pointers

and able to keep up with those teams that are more of a pounded down low type of team. The other thing I thought was interesting about this game is Purdue actually matches up extremely well with Iowa in terms of height. They have three players that are over 6'8", and they're top six, including a 7'2 center, Matt Harms. But the height doesn't seem to be doing a ton. Matt Harms is actually terrible at offensive rebounding. His offensive rebound percentage is 9.1%, which is around 330th in the nation, so not exactly super strong on the boards.

I think this will be really interesting to see how Tyler Cook, Luke Garza, and Ryan Kreener match up down low against these guys. Against Michigan State, we were looking at the guards as kind of being the main guys to watch out for, and then Nick Ward came out of nowhere, and I believe he went 10 for 10 and had 25 points and really carried the Spartans in that game. So I'm hoping that's not what's going to happen today in the game tonight for Iowa against Purdue.

But I think Luka Garza coming off of ankle injury. Tyler Cook's been playing outstanding. It'd be great to see them light it up against Purdue in this game and get off to a good start. Tip-off for this game is 6 p.m. Central Standard Time. It's in Mackey Arena in West Lafayette. So make sure you're checking that out. It's also on the Big Ten Network.

Like I said, I really think that if Iowa plays the way they've shown they could play, they should be able to win this game. It shouldn't be a tough game just because it's away, but it should be a game where they can definitely win in West Lafayette, similar to what they kind of did against Wisconsin. I feel like they have the abilities to win these games. They're just not coming through as of right now. And obviously the Michigan State game was a little bit more of an anomaly in that case.

Coming up on segment two, we're actually going to be talking about the first rounders and kind of where they are today, what's happened to them. But before we talk about that, 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. And that's where Sling TV comes in. Now I never have to miss a 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. For just $30 a month, you get access to ESPN, Big Ten Network, and more

without the hassle of a long-term contract. What's even more exciting is that we have a fantastic offer for you. Locked On listeners can get a free 7-day trial by going to sling.com. That's S-L-I-N-G.com. Never miss a game again with Sling TV. Alright, we are back to talk about the first round. Before we do that, I want to remind you that on segment 3, we're going to be talking about Kirk Ferentz's legacy and kind of what milestone he just recently passed with the Outback Bowl win, and then talking a little bit about Nick Easley.

But before we do that, I wanted to give you kind of an overview on the first rounders. Okay, we know Noah Fant's likely going in the first round. We know there's an outside chance T.J. Hawkinson goes in the first round if he declares. So let's take a look back and see the guys that have been first-round draft picks in the Kirk Ferentz era and kind of what has happened. There's been seven since 2001. One has been an All-Pro. There have been five Pro Bowl selections and 44 combined seasons as starters. Keep in mind, there's been a lot of success in the NFL from Iowa football players,

but not necessarily coming from that first round. So it's been kind of interesting to see that play out. Very similar to, I feel like, how five-star recruits versus two-star recruits do in Iowa. It's kind of an interesting parallel to make there that those highly touted guys aren't necessarily doing as well as the fifth-round tight ends like George Kittle. The first guy who was a first-rounder, this guy was arguably one of the best ones in the Kirk Ferentz era, is Dallas Clark. Obviously, unanimous All-American,

first-team All-Big Ten, John Mackey Award winner. Basically, TJ Hawkinson before he was TJ Hawkinson, right? And he's not necessarily, I mean, Clark had a great career, 11-year career. He finished with 505 catches for 5,665 yards and 53 touchdowns, but not going to be a Hall of Fame candidate. But he was a very solid tight end for a long time. After retiring, he went back to small-town Iowa.

He bought a big plot of land in Livermore, and he basically just works the farm and spends time with his family and kids. He's done some studio broadcasting and whatnot, but it sounds like he doesn't really plan on getting into coaching or really getting that involved in the NFL anytime soon. The next guy on the list is Robert Gallery. He is the highest player picked in the Kirk Ferentz era. He was, I believe, a number two overall draft pick as a tackle coming out of Iowa, picked up by the Oakland Raiders. And this guy was a monster. 6'7", 325 pounds, considered one of the best linemen to ever come out, received a perfect

9.0 rating when he was coming out by draft analysts, so pretty impressive. But his career in the NFL was really not that great. It was really marred by a lot of penalties. He averaged a penalty every two games. Not that great. It was really marred by a lot of penalties. He averaged a penalty every two games. He only spent eight seasons in the league, six of which were with the Raiders.

When he moved to guard, that's really where he began to be more effective. He was originally used as a left tackle, wasn't doing very well, moved to guard, doing pretty solid. He ultimately decided to retire from the New England Patriots before playing it down with them. And he's now just kind of hanging out in California working on classic cars for athletes, for celebrities, that kind of thing. He loves working on classic cars. And then he also goes back to Manchester, Iowa,

which is where he's from and works on his farm during the fall harvest, which is pretty cool. All right, another Iowa football player, Chad Greenway. Not a Hall of Famer again, but a very solid career nonetheless. Spent 10 years with the Minnesota Vikings and finished with 1,101 tackles, 18 sacks, 11 interceptions, and 33 passes defense. He also earned Pro Bowl honors twice and was second team All-Pro in 2012. Since his time there retiring, this guy's been busy.

As we've all known from his time in Iowa, this guy was an incredible human being. He's done a lot for the community. He actually started a foundation called the lead the way foundation, which serves ill and disabled children in the Minneapolis and St. Paul communities. He does a lot of things within that charity. And he also started his own brand of vodka titled gray duck vodka. Um, just side note, I don't know why everyone wants to start their own liquor at a certain point vodka tastes like vodka right there's no difference between the two but you do you Chad Greenway if you want to start your own vodka I'm proud of you you do whatever you want I will likely not be trying it Greenway is married to his college

sweetheart I think she's a former track track and field athlete and they have four daughters so that's kind of wrapping up his career. Now we're getting into a couple guys who are actually still in the NFL. And we have Brian Bulaga, who is currently serving as the tackle for the Green Bay Packers, making sure that Aaron Rodgers stays safe and clean, which is a very important job. And he's had a very, again, solid, not spectacular career. All right, so he won Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year Award, got drafted in the first round. The only problem is he kind of struggles with being healthy.

All right, so he's only appeared in all 16 contests twice. All right, so he's had, I believe, a nine-year career, eight-year career, and he's only appeared in 16 contests twice. He also is missing the rest of this year. According to Pro Football Focus, he's not bad usually, but he's not ever really super strong. He never grayed out worse than 61.4, which is a little bit above average. He's also only topped out above the 70 mark a few times. And really, to be elite, you want to be in the 80 range consistently.

But again, not bad. Overall, he lives a pretty quiet life, though. Not a lot of information on him. Can't find a Twitter, Instagram, that sort of thing. So pretty standard, I guess, for an Iowa Hawkeye turned Green Bay Packer. This guy was fun to watch on the football field for Iowa. Adrian Claiborne, drafted in the first round by the Tampa Bay Bucs with a 20th overall selection. The two-time All-Big Ten and 2010 All-American,

though, has really struggled to stay on the field. He missed a lot of games when he was a Buccaneer. So I think he started for two seasons. Or sorry, he had one season where he played all the games, missed most the next season, played the next season, missed most the next season. He missed 28 combined games in two seasons. So pretty easy to let him go at that point.

However, he's picked up a pretty, he's done a pretty solid job of carving out a niche in the NFL. He actually has registered 32.5 sacks, 178 tackles, and 90 quarterback hits in 95 total games. So pretty impressive. Right now he's a member of the New England Patriots. And he's an advocate for children that are born with Earp's Palsy, a condition that impacted Claiborne as a child. Something he really cares about. Something that was on his my cause for cleats day when the NFL did that. So pretty cool to see. Obviously exciting to see him continue his career. He's going to carve out a very nice niche as a run stuffing defensive end. So great to see

him. He'll probably stay at the Patriots for another couple of years. I believe he signed a two-year deal. All right, this guy, Riley Reif, he is currently serving as a blindside protector for Kirk Cousins in Minnesota. I wouldn't consider him to be great either, but tackles are in high demand and the Vikings shelled out five years and almost $60 million to have him spend some time with him after they saw him on the other side of the Detroit Lions for five seasons. As of today, he is currently graded as the 25th best-rated tackle. His grade is a 71.7, so nothing crazy, but not bad. And his brother right now is actually playing on the Iowa football team,

and he's likely going to be starting next year with the departure of Matt Nelson and Sam Brinks. That's Brady Reif who's going to be starting. And then the final guy on this list is Brandon Scherf. The most recent first rounder, obviously. He has been incredible since stepping in for the Washington Redskins line. He's missed the last couple games this year, but he's done impressive work so far. He's made the Pro Bowl twice. He made the all-rookie team in 2015,

and he's only missed, I want to say he's missed just two games in his entire career, so outside of this season, obviously. And he's started every single game that he's been able to be active for, so pretty impressive overall. Right now, before he got injured this season, his pro football focus rating was 69.2,

which is actually the worst of his career, but it's still 17 best in the league. So again, not great this year, but this is the kind of guy who's going to be in the league for another 10 years, very Marshall Yonda-like, going to stay there. Pretty impressive considering he was a quarterback in high school and has been kind of moved around once he got to the Iowa football program so again Kirk Ferens doing Kirk Ferens things and making quarterbacks turn into

all pro linemen's and that'll do it for our first rounders obviously once Noah Fant joins that group and hopefully TJ Hawkinson we can talk a lot about them on on next year's show around this time talking about the first rounders I'm sure there's going to be a few potential first-rounders in next year's class, namely thinking of A.J. Epineza, potentially Tristan Wirfs, O'Laric Jackson, maybe even Nate Stanley. It kind of depends on what they do.

Again, as a reminder, coming up on segment three, we're going to be talking about Kirk Ferentz and Nick Easley, some of the milestones they set in the Outback Bowl victory. All right, so we are back talking about Kirk Ferentz. We didn't get a chance to cover this on yesterday's show, so I wanted to make sure we talked about it today. And the biggest thing is, it kind of went under the radar, but Kirk Ferentz just passed Hayden Frye for the most bowl wins in a career for an Iowa coach, right? Not necessarily

saying that Hayden had them all at Iowa, but Kirk Ferentz has moved up that list. Hayden Frye was tied at 33 with seven bowl wins in his time at SMU, North Texas, and Iowa. now, Kirk Ferentz is at 23 with 8 wins. So just keep in mind that the most bowl wins ever is Joe Paterno at 24. It quickly begins dropping off. At 5th, we have Mack Brown with 13. So, you know, Kirk Ferentz isn't that far off, but I think it kind of goes to show the consistency in what he's done for the program. Obviously, people get really frustrated when they see an 8-4 season every single year

or a 7-5 or a 9-4, 9-5 type season. That frustrates fans, and I get it. But at the same time, look at the consistency of what he's done for a program like Iowa. That's 20 years of always being in the mix, and occasionally they have some really good runs. Occasionally they have some bad fortunes, bad luck. The ball bounces the wrong way. I think this year is definitely one of those where, man,

this team was a very electric team, a very good team that wasn't able to capitalize on the key moments, but it's okay. I mean, to still finish 9-4 with an outback bowl victory, I fully think that the Hawkeyes are going to be ranked at the end of the season. We'll talk a little bit about that more tomorrow. I'm going to do some digging into the scores, the different games, who's ranked, that sort of thing, and where Iowa fits in that picture. But I fully believe Iowa will be ranked,

which is a good season for a Big Ten program in the middle of, and no offense, I'm from Iowa, but in Iowa, right? I mean, that's not an easy place to attract elite-level talent. Look at the rest of the Big Ten. Nebraska has struggled for the last 10, 15 years. Minnesota hasn't been good for a couple decades. Northwestern is starting to pick it up, but even they struggled for a while. They have really rigorous academic standards.

Iowa State has never been on a football program until Matt Campbell and a few other guys right before that. So it's tough to recruit in the Midwest, especially getting those guys who are right by all those big SEC schools. I want to make sure we cover that huge momentous occasion for him to pass Hayden Fry, obviously the guy who hired Kirk to replace him. I'd love to see what Kirk can do. There's a couple opportunities. Next year with another win, he'll jump up to 16th. In two years with another win, it'd be 13th and the three wins would be ninth so Kirk really has an opportunity

to go down as one of the greatest coaches in the history of football and I think as football fans as Iowa Hawkeye fans we need to be appreciative of what he's doing for the program and and what that means for us as fans it's pretty fun to watch a guy with so so much integrity and and such a high moral compass you know be able to lead a guy with so much integrity and such a high moral compass, you know, be able to lead a program like this so successfully. And the other thing I want to touch on is Nick Easley. And obviously, like I said earlier, if you've heard this show at all, you know, I love talking about Nick Easley. This guy's awesome. He's from my hometown. It's, you know, it's a big thing for a Newton boy to go and play college

football, big time college football like that. So obviously a lot of pride coming from all the former Newton alums. And I just want to talk about what he did in his career, right? This kid was a walk-on from junior college. So he was a third-team All-State wide receiver in high school. And I want to say a punter as well. Decided to walk on to Iowa Western, play football there, didn't play at all his first year really.

Second year, breaks out All-American with like 90 catches or something like that. Still isn't getting any love. Getting some D1AA type offers, some FCS type offers. I know one of them is Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, that sort of thing. Finally gets a walk-on offer to Iowa State, and he decides, you know what, I can do this, and he goes for it. Iowa obviously picks him up a little bit later, says, hey, we want you to be a Hawkeye. I believe that was on Christmas Day.

And he says, heck yeah, I'll be there. His family's big Iowa fans, so this is kind of a dream of his. Joined the program and immediately started making contributions and his presence was immediately paying dividends. And it helped with Matt Vandenberg, who was going to be injured a little bit, was out a little bit, easily was able to jump up the depth chart pretty quickly. And look at this, for two years, this guy turned in 103 catches for 1,000 yards and nine touchdowns, right?

That is impressive. He finished 20th all-time in Iowa receiving records with catches. Think about the people on this list. You have Kevontae Martin-Manley, DJK, Marvin McNutt, Kevin Casper, Ed Hinkle, Tim Dwight, Scott Chandler, Marv Cook, Keenan Davis. Those are the guys that are ahead of him. Some guys he's ahead of? Dallas Clark, Noah Fant, Tony Moyeke, TJ Hawkinson.

That is impressive to be even included in that list, especially considering where he came from. Got to love his ability to work hard and put in the effort to become one of the better receivers. And the announcers made a really good point on me during the Outback Bowl game. He fits that prototype of what a New England Patriots wide receiver would be. He's very Wes Welker-like.

He's very quick. I've heard reports of some of his times coming out of some of the spring practices and stuff. And they were program records, close to program records, that kind of thing. Being that tough slot guy, he can find himself in the NFL with a little bit of luck and hard work. And just to add to it, he's been the number one pass catcher for the Hawkeyes the last two seasons. Again, a walk-on.

Didn't even have a scholarship last year. This was his first year on scholarship this year. I believe he was one of the guys in the leadership council. I mean, this guy is just an incredible person. We're going to try to get him on the show, hopefully, see if we can't get him and his brother Matt on the show to talk a little bit about their lives and kind of what they've done to get to this point.

But I just wanted to quickly touch on that. And that'll do it for our segment three. A little bit of a lighter episode. Not a ton going on here. We'll have some more stuff tomorrow, obviously, and we'll be even giving you a show on Saturday. So we don't typically give you a Saturday show, but we're going to do it this week just because with New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, it's a little tough to get some episodes out. So we'll make sure to be giving you four episodes this week

and get back to you next week with another four episodes as well. And that'll do it for our Thursday morning episode. Like I said, we'll be back tomorrow. Have some good stuff in the works. I'm your host, Andrew Wade Wade and you can find me on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew and you can follow all the exciting happenings of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast on Twitter at Locked On Iowa. Make sure you're also subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher,

Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at and please leave us a review and you can also reach out to me with questions, comments, or suggestions at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com. Also, lastly, make sure if you have a smartphone or a smart speaker, Siri, Google, Alexa, whoever it may be, let them know and just tell them, play podcast Locked On Hawkeyes. That'll give you the most recent episode, so it really can't be any easier than that, right?

Again, thank you for joining us on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and we'll be back tomorrow.