Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Kirk Ferentz sheds light on Iowa Hawkeyes' offensive line struggles plus first 2021 CFP rankings come out

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Iowa Hawkeye head coach Kirk Ferentz spoke to the media and had a lot to say about the offensive line and the struggles thus far. And if you are looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, you aren't getting it this season from Kirk. He also had some interesting comments that were taken way out of context regarding "predictable" Iowa fans and he also spoke on the Tyrone Tracy Jr situation. Before we dove into any of that, however, we have to take a look at the first College Football Playoff rankings and how predictably crappy and biased they were towards SEC teams and against the Iowa Hawkeyes.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.PrizePicksDon’t hesitate, check out PrizePicks.com and use promo code: “LOCKEDON” or go to your app store and download the app today. PrizePicks is daily fantasy made easy! 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 a Wednesday morning episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Lockdown Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Waite, and today's episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast is brought to you by McDonald's. Proudly serving communities since 1965, McDonald's has always been more than just a place to get tasty, affordable food.

It is the unofficial community center. A big thank you to our friends at McDonald's for always been more than just a place to get tasty, affordable food. It is the unofficial community center. A big thank you to our friends at McDonald's for always being there. I am loving it. And I want to thank you all for making the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get podcasts at, and also on YouTube as well by searching Locked on Hawkeyes. And on today's show, as we do every single Wednesday, we are breaking down what Kirk Ferentz had to say in his press conference today

as it leads up to this Northwestern game. We also got our first college football playoff ranking last night, so we're going to be breaking that down as well. As we expected, the college football playoff rankings are garbage. Gary Barta is a sham in that regard. I don't know how you could possibly say anything else when Cincinnati is ranked so low and when teams in the SEC are consistently getting bumped up

for no reason other than that they are in the SEC and it is technically valued more by the people voting on this. It's absolutely ridiculous. So we're going to cover all that. Also, Kirk Ferentz had an interesting thing to say that was definitely taken out of context. Initially pissed me off. I went back, watched the press conference, and read the transcript, and it was not what he said.

Definitely taken out of context in regards to him basically calling the fans out and calling them predictable. He didn't do it. We're going to talk about all that on the show today. Let's talk, though, about the college ball playoff rankings first because that is the big news. Iowa dropped quite a few spots in the first because that is the big news. Iowa dropped quite a few spots in the AP poll and in the coaches poll and as we talked about yesterday we expected them to drop and these AP polls these coaches polls they give you kind of an understanding an idea of where teams are going to fall within that college ball playoff ranking.

I thought Iowa would probably be 17th or 18th, considering they came in at 19th in the AP poll and 16th in the coaches poll. They check in at 22nd. Let's just take a deep sigh there, because this is absolutely freaking ridiculous. So Iowa loses to Wisconsin, which is ranked 21st in the college ball playoff rankings. They lose to Purdue, which is not ranked in the rankings, and they drop to 22nd. Let me list a few teams off here that I think are absolutely ridiculous and are up and above. We have Minnesota checking in at 20th, Mississippi State at 17th, and Auburn at 13th. There's a couple other teams I could definitely call out, but let's look at Minnesota first.

They lost to Bowling Green. They did beat Purdue, but they lost to Bowling freaking Green. They have beaten no good teams this year. Mississippi State. They lost to 4-4 LSU. They lost to 4-4 Memphis. Memphis, excuse me. And they got slaughtered 49-7 by Alabama,

and they are 17th ahead of Iowa. Meanwhile, Auburn is 13th. They beat three very bad teams, lost to Penn State, which is an opponent that Iowa did beat beat and got their butts kicked by Georgia. Yes, they beat Mississippi. But what exactly have they done to be up there as well? Look at Cincinnati. If I'm Cincinnati, I am pissed off.

They got screwed as well. Cincinnati is checking in at sixth behind Ohio State, behind an Oregon team that hasn't honestly looked that good, behind an Alabama team that has one loss as well. It's rigged. At this point, I don't understand what else you could possibly say about this. The college ball playoff rankings are not fair. You look at Ole Miss, right? Who have they beaten?

They beat Louisville. They beat Austin Peay. Peay? I don't even know. They beat Tulane. They get stomped by Alabama. They beat Arkansas. They beat Tennessee. They beat LSU, and then they lose to Auburn.

And Ole Miss deserves to be up there as well? They really deserve to be 16th over Iowa? This is ridiculous. I mean, at the end of the day, if Iowa wins out, it doesn't matter. If Iowa beats Minnesota, if they somehow make it to the college ball, if they make it to the Big Ten championship game, if Wisconsin loses to Minnesota and Iowa wins out, if Iowa goes 10-2, they're going to jump up in these rankings. They're going to be in that 10th, 11th, 9th, 8th spot, somewhere in that area. Because these other teams,

they have not played each other a lot yet. So there's going to be some cannibalization of the guys at the top. But this is absolutely ridiculous. The college ball playoff rankings have been a joke since they started. They will continue to be a joke. And I understand the idea of expanding the college ball playoffs, but that's only putting a bandaid on the actual problem. It's not a long-term solution. When you have people in there who don't watch some of these games, are biased towards some of these teams, and don't understand which teams are actually talented. Now, I'm not saying Iowa deserves to be 10th,

but 22nd is a bit ridiculous behind a 5-3 Mississippi State team, a 6-2 Mississippi team, a 7-2 BYU team, a 6-2 Auburn team they have a common opponent against. I mean, this is just ridiculous. The college ball playoff rankings are atrocious, in my opinion. What else can you say about it? Let me know what your thoughts are on the college ball playoff rankings, though, in the comments of this YouTube video or in a review,

if you would like. We'd love to hear what your thoughts are. Coming up, though, we're going to get more detail talking about Kirk Ferentz, what he had to say, and what he didn't say that was taken out of context, which was a little bit ridiculous. Again, people getting a little bit overzealous on some of this stuff. You can't trust all those burner accounts out there because they will absolutely get you. But coming up, we're going to talk about all that.

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all the support. As we were talking about before we took a break, we were talking about the college ball playoffs, but now I want to take another turn and talk about Kirk Ferentz's press conference. A lot of interesting things he said there. And let's kick it off with the big thing that kind of got people a little bit going. He was asked about modernizing the game and modernizing Iowa's attack. And he said, blitz more on defense if you're not stopping people. Or blitz, yeah, that's so predictable. The trick is getting everything to mesh at once to get that 0-2 offense and 0-4 defense to be on the same team.

You get that, boy, I will tell you, you're in business. That's what makes it challenging, I think. For most programs, it's a challenge because you just never know where those strengths are going to lie on a football team. And then you just try to yield toward them. But yeah, I'm not even sure I know what modernized means anymore. Quite frankly, to me, the end game, the end result we're all shooting for, it's not about winning or losing, but really it's kind of because that's how people feel good or they feel bad. And my wife has said that for probably about 40 years now. It's as simple as that. I feel like we've been, for the most part, able to find a solution somehow, some

way, fairly consistently. Nothing is perfect, certainly, but fairly consistently. That's what we're trying to do right now. We're trying to find the next solution. A random account on Twitter came out and said, Iowa's fans are predictable that they would be pissed off about this offense and defense. And that every fan wants to have a combination of the 0-2 offense and 0-4 defense. That got Twitter absolutely rolling. I was even pissed off until I read the quotes. Here's what I'm saying here. He didn't say that.

Kirk was not throwing our fan base under the bus. Now that being said, to me, I think it is pretty obvious what modernizing football means. And one other quote he had I thought really kind of did upset me. When you think about modernizing football, it's misdirection plays. It's guys in motion. It's spreading the ball out. There's a reason nearly the entire Big Ten has moved to a spread attack

and only a few teams keep that power offense. Now, there's a place and a time for that power offense, and I think Iowa will always have that power offense when working under Kirk Ferentz, but there are some opportunities where Iowa can get a bit more creative in their offensive attack. There's no reason why Wisconsin football players should know exactly what play we're running

or where we're running the ball to. It makes it too easy for them. exactly what play we're running or where we're running the ball to. It makes it too easy for them. If they know we're running the football and they know where we're running the football at, that is not good for the Iowa offense. That is not putting the Iowa offense in a position to be successful. Now look what happens when we did a reverse to Keegan Johnson in the game against Wisconsin. We get 12 yards, almost a touchdown. We have not incorporated end rounds nearly as much as we have in past years. We haven't seen the wildcat.

Our offense has honestly gotten more slimmed down than what we've seen in the past three to four years. Now a lot of people want to hate on Brian Ferencz. I would agree. I don't think he's done the best job here. It is tough with an offensive line that cannot block consistently, but we are not seeing nearly as much creativity as we have seen in previous years out of Brian Ferencz in this offense. It seems like it's almost been scaled back a bit.

So when you talk about not modernizing the game and not understanding how to modernize football look around kirk it's all around you it's being unique it's being creative it's being different it's trying things out to make your offense not be one of the bottom 20 offenses in the entire freaking country now in discussing wisconsin knowing the place, he said, we are fairly predictable, and there are certain formations, all that type of thing. But I'm not too concerned about that, really, quite frankly. They played a heck of a defensive game, and they have been.

They've been playing pretty consistently all year outside of that Michigan game. Okay, I'm concerned that when I watch an Iowa football game, 85% of the time, I can tell you which way they're running the ball and if they're running the football. Now, there are times where when teams bite on that, it opens up a play action, but when you have a quarterback who can't do the play action very well, can't get outside of the pocket,

and you have tackles who can't just hold the edge, it really makes your team one-dimensional. We haven't seen nearly as much play action because it hasn't worked, because we don't have time, which left Iowa basically running the ball in the directions the defense knows they're going. There were several times I saw that in the game against Wisconsin. I talked to LaShawn Daniels about it. He said he agrees.

He saw it as well. It's not okay that teams know exactly where we're going with the football on any given play. If Wisconsin knows this, you better believe other teams know this as well. You better believe Minnesota has that idea. You better believe Pat Fitzgerald has a better understanding of that. Now, thankfully, Pat Fitzgerald's team is atrocious at stopping the run. But this is going to continue to be a problem if we are not disguising what we are doing. Heck, just running the ball out of the shotgun maybe a little bit.

We have had some success with that as well. It's concerning to me that it is getting shrugged off as something we shouldn't even approach or touch at all. He also got a question about how do you change things going forward? He said, you try to forge ahead. I guess if there's any good thing here, we have plenty of experience. You can go back historically and look at a lot of our seasons. Can't think of many that didn't have a bump or adversity along the way. Really, all you got to do is look at the last three years.

We lost three in a row three years ago. We lost two in a row the last two years. And things turned out pretty well. I think everybody was fairly happy at the end of the season. At least internally, we all felt pretty good about our team and the way we did things. Agreed. I did enjoy the way we ended last season. But there's still a bittersweet feeling in that knowing that Iowa come out hot,

maybe we go 8-0. Maybe we're in the college ball playoffs. Maybe if we don't throw the ball 50 times against Purdue, we're in the college ball playoffs last year. Maybe if Iowa's offensive line doesn't just completely succumb to pressure against Michigan and Penn State, we're in the college ball playoffs. Yes, I love going 10-3. I do love the Holiday Bowl, and I love being a part of a fan base that is consistently

rooting for a team that is very good. It is important to realize that we are a team that has been very consistent and pretty good for the last 20-something years. Nebraska got tired of winning 8-9 games, and look where they've been for the last 4-5 years. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't want to achieve 12-0 for the sake of potentially becoming a Nebraska, but it is frustrating that we do suffer these stretches throughout a season, but it is frustrating that we do suffer these stretches throughout a season, and it takes us out of contention for some of the loftier goals we would love to achieve as a fan base rooting on an Iowa football program.

It can be frustrating. We have the right to be frustrated by this. Now I'm going to love and I'm going to support this Iowa football team to the day I die, And if they go win out and they go 10 and two, and maybe they don't make the big 10 championship game, maybe Wisconsin still wins out, but Iowa goes to a new year six bowl and they win that. You bet you I'm going to be happy. I'll be incredibly happy. But at the end of this season, I'm going to look back and say, man, Purdue, really? What if we would have beat Purdue? We could have got

to the Big Ten Championship Games. There's always that what ifs on there, and you're always going to have that unless you go undefeated, and it's very difficult to go undefeated, but I think it's slightly discrediting what we want to achieve, what everyone wants to achieve. Nevertheless, I would agree with him to one degree. Three losses, two losses, two losses last year. Iowa has the ability to pick things up, and there's no better game to pick things up against than Northwestern, a team that has really struggled this year.

They played three different quarterbacks. They cannot stop the run. They're basically one-dimensional on offense, and they don't have a lot to play for at this point. This is a great opportunity for Iowa to get back on track against the Northwestern team. And we're going to be breaking down the Iowa-Northwestern game on tomorrow's show and also on Friday's show as well.

Coming up, we're going to continue to talk a little bit more about what Kirk Ferron said. He had some more things to say about the offensive line. He also talked about Tyrone Tracy, if you remember. Yesterday we talked a little bit about what Ty Kirk Farron said. He had some more things to say about the offensive line. He also talked about Tyrone Tracy. If you remember yesterday, we talked a little bit about what Tyrone's family had to say. He also spoke on some injuries, some big time news there. We are still missing two of our four top cornerbacks. We're going to be talking about all that coming up here in a few moments. I do want to tell you though about Bilt Bar. Bilt Bar is the best tasting protein bar on the market today. It is the protein bar that tastes just

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BetOnline is the fastest and the easiest way to bet on all your favorite sports. BetOnline.ag, where the game starts. And as we were talking about before we took a break, we talked a little bit about what Kirk had to say and some interesting comments all around in his press conference. I now want to turn our attention to the offensive line, Tyrone Tracy, and injuries going forward. So on the offensive line, he said, I think we're a little thin at pretty much every spot up front

outside of the center position. I don't think we've had a lot of flexibility right now, and I think probably the guys that are at guard will stay there, and the guys that have been playing tackle, three guys there. We'll just keep working with those guys and see how it goes. Down the road, you never know, but right now, the immediate future, probably what you've seen is what we have. We're best served just to keep those guys in their spots. A couple things with that. Not exactly a glowing endorsement of this offensive line. He realizes there are issues there,

but I think what we are seeing is truly the best they feel like they can put out on the offensive line. Also, I've heard people talk about why not Cody Ince? Why is he not playing tackle? We heard a lot about his versatility. We've also heard a lot about Connor Colby and the fact that he actually came in as a tackle, but they swung him inside. Looks like this is it. We're going to see Connor Colby, Kyler Schott, Justin Britt,

and Cody into the guards. We have Tyler Linderbaum at the center, and we're going to see Mason Richmond, Jack Plum, and Nick DeYoung at the tackle positions. This is our offensive line. Let's just hope they pick it up a little bit more as we get further into the season. The one thing I will say is that this is a very young offensive line. The only guy from this offensive line that will be leaving after this year, guaranteedly, is Tyler Linderbaum, a projected mid-first round draft pick. Kyler Shaw could leave, but my guess is, given the fact that it has taken him so long to get in conditioning shape for this game or this year, and considering the fact that he's been injured and struggling a little bit at times, my guess is he might return. Next year's offensive line could be one to reckon with, considering how much experience we're going to have at this point with this offensive line.

So be on the lookout for that. It is tough to see these growing pains this year, but it is going to be a lot better next year. It is tough to see these growing pains this year, but it is going to be a lot better next year. And it also is worth noting, we lost not one, not two, but three tackles last year. We lost to Larrick Jackson. We lost Coy Cronk.

And we also lost Mark Kallenberger, which has proven to be quite a significant loss. Mark Kallenberger would have been at that right tackle spot or that left tackle spot with Mason Richman being on the other side. We wouldn't have to worry about having a Jack Plum or Nick DeYoung out there at this time who aren't ready or at least haven't been playing consistently well throughout the season. It's a struggle. Speaking of struggling, Tyrone Tracy has been struggling to get the ball in his hands. And it was an interesting question. They asked about Tyrone. They also asked about family members and Kirk just kind of brushed off the family member comment.

But he did say this about Tyrone. He said, that's a question we're trying to ask and answer in some ways. He's got film, plays on film that have been documented. And certainly, if we can get him more involved, that would be a good thing. But it's easier said than done. We're trying to probe every option out there to try to get this thing moving a little bit more. OK. probe every option out there to try to get this thing moving a little bit more. Okay, well we are now eight games into the season, and Tyrone Tracy Jr., his season has been nothing short of a complete disappointment. It's been a disaster. He has not been getting the ball

consistently. This is a guy who performed very well three years ago. He was one of the top targets on the Iowa football team. When Brandon Smith was injured, Tyrone Tracy came in and was an electric all-star in one game. Tyrone Tracy Jr. has shown he can be a good football player. So what is the deal here, and why is he not getting the football? It'll be interesting to see, as his snaps have decreased in the last couple games.

Keegan Johnson has taken some of those snaps. We've seen Charlie and Nico get some of those snaps. It'll be very interesting to see how does Tyrone come out and play in this game against Northwestern, against a secondary that is solid, but not quite at the level of Wisconsin or even Purdue, or especially Penn State. Now, speaking of the secondary,

unfortunately, Riley Moss and Terry Roberts are more than likely out this week. Clearly, what's happening with Riley Moss is he is more injured than we thought. We don't know the whole story of it. Excuse me. I'm also dealing with the cold, so my mouth is getting a little bit dry voice here. Whew, had a cough there as well. Clearly don't know the story about it, but we do need Riley Moss to make a bigger run, to make a better run as we take on Minnesota, Illinois, and Nebraska,

and potentially get into a New Year's Six Bowl game. Riley Moss is going to be instrumental in that regard. Guys, I apologize. Dealing with the sickness here still. But we do have Jamari Harris coming up. He did say this about Jamari Harris. He said, you always worry about a new guy maybe being a little bit too anxious or too jumpy out there.

But I think he handled the situation pretty well. Looks like he'll be playing again this week too. It's going to be another test for him and probably see a few more passes this week. Maybe not, but I would expect we might. Of course, when you have a guy like Jamarian versus a guy like Matt Hankins, you're going to target Jamari each and every time, just like Wisconsin did. They're going to test him and see, is he ready to make plays? Jamari settled down though and had a very good second half, in my opinion. The whole Iowa defense had a very good second half. And I have some interesting stats I want to show you or share with you on Friday about Iowa's second half versus their first half and not getting too upset about how Iowa's defense plays in that first quarter.

And including Jamari Harris, he played a lot better after that first quarter, after that first couple of possessions. And finally, he did talk a little bit about Alex Padilla versus Spencer Petras and basically shut down any concerns there. I talked about it. I think there is some, some things that we noted about the fact that Alex Padilla had more time to throw probably because of his mobility, but we're not going to see a change anytime soon,

in my opinion, barring an injury. So it's not worth covering too much more. Just wanted to at least it's, it's I'm doing my due diligence due diligence here by talking about this conversation because it is worth talking about. Iowa's offensive line is struggling. You could put a mobile quarterback in there and see if that can help out a little bit.

Kirk even said that is a plan at some point. That's plan C. He doesn't want to get to plan C. We're still on plan A. Plan A is to improve the offensive line and go from there. But that is something to be in the back of our minds about if this offensive line can continue, continues to struggle.

And as Spencer Petras continues to be enabled to get out of the pocket, step up in the pocket or escape pressure. That does do it for our show today, though. Please make sure to go check out the lockdown, big 10 podcast as well, breaking down everything across the big 10 with Nate Dickinson. He does a phenomenal job there.

And I want to appreciate you all. And thank you all for making the lockdown with Nate Dickinson. He does a phenomenal job there. And I want to appreciate you all and thank you all for making the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. Again, you can tune in every single Monday through Friday. We got a show dropping tomorrow as we are doing a preview of Northwestern. And on Friday, we're breaking down all the top storylines of this game as well. So tune into that. Thank you all for tuning in, though, to this Wednesday morning episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast.

Apologies for my late podcast coughing and struggles there. But, again, I appreciate you all. Have a phenomenal Wednesday. And, as always, let's go Hawks.