Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - MELTDOWN: Iowa's Offensive STRUGGLES Continue | Can Ferentz SALVAGE the Season?

Starting point is 00:00:00 A rewatch of the Iowa Iowa State game and a look back at what happened. I watch it again so you don't have to. Was it as bad as we thought we break it down today? Locked on Hawkeye. You are Locked on Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey, welcome in. I'm Trent Condon.

Starting point is 00:00:30 And this is the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. I've been covering the Hawkeyes for over 20 years on the radio here in the state of Iowa. You can hear me currently on the Iowa Sports Radio Network each weekday from noon to two. Talk of the World to Sports with you and lots of Hawkeyes. Today's episode is brought to you by Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code Lockdown College for $20 off your first purchase. I'll look back at what we saw over the weekend, our second watch of the Iowa, Iowa State Day. We'll break it down and take a look at some of the positives and plenty of the negatives coming out of that one.

Starting point is 00:01:05 The Mark Grinowski Concern Meter, where are we at after his second performance and the worst quarterback in terms of passing yards in college football here to this point in the season at the major conference level? And we asked the big question today, where does Iowa go from here? After a year ago, that loss to Iowa state certainly set the seam what felt like a loss season for Iowa, though ending in a bull bid. The expectations were a whole lot higher than that. Now, with a schedule that is much more difficult is going to be much more concerning going forward. And Big Ten play is going to be a bear. Where does this Iowa Hawkeye program go today? Let's take a look back and go through a couple of the highlight moments of the football game.

Starting point is 00:01:49 And, well, as we go through it, starting at the beginning of the game, as Iowa gets the football first, you get the Kaden Weech and penalty on the kick return. You're backed up right away. you punted away. A poor punt, I think you also have to start with Troll Washington Jr. Him being the starter in this game. And I think we see now the way that this team is currently constructed and the way that they're going to play with the physicality of the run game,

Starting point is 00:02:14 the physicality of Mark Gornowski as a runner, you have to have a physical back with them. And that means Jazian Patterson needs to play more. You know, we talked a lot about jazz in the season coming into him. And one thing that I mentioned with him is you kind of know what you get. maybe there's not some of the upside of the other guys, but he's going to run hard, he's going to get those tough yards

Starting point is 00:02:34 and he needs to be more involved in this Iowa offense. Is he going to be a game breaker? Is he going to be a guy that's out there averaging, you know, six and a half yards of carry? No, but in grind it out type of team, you need a grinded out type of running pack. That is not Terrell Washington Jr. That is

Starting point is 00:02:50 Jazzy and Patterson. Obviously, Xavier Williams, another part of that, another piece of that, need to see him out there continue to do his thing, not nearly as good as he was in week one. There were a couple of opportunities. So we go back to the beginning of the game and a bad choice by the coaching staff, putting the wrong running back on the field. The opening punt after a three and out wasn't a very good one from Reese Dakin. And after that, though he did improve, I got aided on a second punt also with a good role, excuse me, wasn't a very great

Starting point is 00:03:19 punt either. And a little bit disappointing out of Reese Dakin. And one of the strengths, we talked about it coming into the game. If Iowa was going to win this game, they had to win special teams. That wasn't the case in this one. And certainly I think you have to give advantage Iowa State in the special teams in this game. And one that comes down to three points, that matters in the way that Iowa football does. A couple other things. And as I'm going through and rewatching the game, you see Mark Grinowski, he was better. It wasn't great. He was better than he was against Albany. That still doesn't make him, you know, even a C. quarterback. I thought he was as a thrower, still poor. Ball placement was the biggest thing.

Starting point is 00:04:02 I counted five different passes that if the ball was just placed in a different spot, you go back to early in the football game when they ended up just short, a little hitchh route to Jacob Gill. There were plenty of others throughout the course of the game. It wasn't the completions, and there were a few more completions in the game and a few more plays down the field. But ball placement at many times was poor. You go back. to when they eventually ended up scoring in that football game, the only touchdown that they had. There was a play before the third down play,

Starting point is 00:04:33 the second down play. There was a throwout to the flat. It was just another bad throw. And there's too many of those at that point in time. One thing also watching this again, though, and one thing that I know a lot of people brought up in the post game show, was that Mark Grunowski was a whole lot better in the RPO system. When he had the RPO's there, we saw the slow mesh,

Starting point is 00:04:51 which was exciting to see something different, right? something innovative out of this Iowa team to go out and do that. That was an exciting part of the game. There was one of them that they ended up handing off to Jazzy on Patterson, thought that maybe Phillips was open going down the field. He was going to deep crossing route. That's another one that comes out here. And as we talked about in the post game show and the instant reaction podcast,

Starting point is 00:05:16 one thing that definitely jumped out here is once again, not taking shots down the field. the inability for Iowa to stretch the field vertically. This has been a conversation for I don't know how long. But you allowed the Iowa state linebackers to be playing on their toes. You allowed the safeties to be playing up and coming downfield. And Iowa did not do enough to negate that in a football game that was very winnable. I don't still think this is a great Iowa state team.

Starting point is 00:05:44 Are you looking at what happened on Saturday night? Kansas State gets beat by Army, struggle to beat North Dakota. That win doesn't look very impressive. This was a winable game. And going back to halftime, as Iowa gets into 1310 with the late touchdown aided by the holding penalty on Ortworth, you look at this squad and you look at this TV and say, it felt like it was going to be another fair and special. But unfortunately for Iowa, that hasn't been working at the same level. And playing these games at this level, bounce don't go your way, a break doesn't go your way. Obviously late in the game going back, it was something that we said right after the game.

Starting point is 00:06:17 The deflected ball that went to Berkel was the difference in the football game. and that is one that you look back upon, and a ball bounces incomplete. They punted away fourth and four, and we might be having a completely different conversation today. Look, Iowa went in there, gave it a shot. They could have done other things differently, and I think that's the frustration also from this football game.

Starting point is 00:06:38 This was a winnable game, and Iowa just didn't make the plays, just didn't do the things necessary overall. I've got to give credit to the defense, though. And going back and looking early in that football game, holding Iowa State to two field goals early on, what that defense did in the second half. I think the linebacker play was much improved.

Starting point is 00:06:58 We know Carson Shire, we talked about him. He was good at week one. He was tremendous once again all over the field, shirt tackler, the athleticism that he has. I mean, there were just so many positives coming out of the play of the linebacker. Jane Harold was okay. I don't know upside-wise, a fifth year senior,

Starting point is 00:07:16 if you're going to see a ton, or if it's just going to be more game reps and he's going to become more comfortable out there. He was okay. He was all right. I thought the back seven acclimated themselves very well, like what we saw out of T.J. Hall. Deshaun Lee wasn't involved because he was shutting things down on his side of the field.

Starting point is 00:07:31 I thought the safeties played pretty well. Lutmer left a couple maybe out there again, but as he gets more experience, you definitely can see the upside of Zach Lutmer and what they're going to do there. Iowa just needs to find a way to be better offensively, and this is that big picture stuff. We'll talk about that a little bit more later in the podcast today, But before the season, every day, as you know, one thing I've mentioned with this team is you're going to have games this year where you're going to have to score.

Starting point is 00:07:58 Wasn't the case on Saturday. Iowa played the game, played their style, played the close game that they wanted. Going back and watching that final drive again, some whiffs on the right side of the offensive line. But Mark Grinowski, for a guy that started 56 games in his college career, 57 games now in his collegiate career, you just got to be smarter than that. But also, taking a step further, yeah, you can't take sacks. in that situation. You've got to get rid of the ball, and he got to live to see another day. But the other part is he got to get him on the move. He is not a traditional pocket passer. And him on the move, moving the pocket around, doing different things. You can't just sit back

Starting point is 00:08:34 there and allow Iowa State to come in untethered and come in the blitz packages that they were bringing late in that game without him moving around. I thought that was bad work out of Tim Lester. And I thought it was poor again. And I think the questions need to begin once again about Tim Lester as an offensive coordinator. You go back. He has been outcoached two straight games against Iowa State. It's unacceptable. Unacceptable for Tim Lester to come up with the game plan that he did in this one,

Starting point is 00:09:00 to let that game last year in Kinnock Stadium get away because his inability to do something inside the five-yard line play calling wise. That was on him. And this one was on him once again. He started the wrong running back. He didn't do anything to stretch the field vertically against a team that was playing downhill. That is coordinating of an offense. Tim Lester.

Starting point is 00:09:20 was poor at that. Now, I know a lot of you are going to point it right back to the head coach and Kirk Farrantz and you're going to go after him and that's fair too. Kirk Farrantz absolutely deserves blame for this one and the inability or just because they're so scared of making any mistake and it happens again. And we get into this once again with Kirk Farrants. More on that a little bit later on. Let's get back into the quarterback play. Mark Grinowski, the concern meter. How concerned should I will be? Do the Hawkeyes get damage goods again at the quarterback position. Are we going down the same path we just did with Cade McNamara? We will explore as we continue. This is Locked-on Hawkeyes.

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Starting point is 00:12:36 Back to quarterback, the most important position in sports and a look back at Mark Grinowski. As we go through and chart the numbers, they were poor once again. we see the guy as a runner. There's a reason, yes, he was called the Tim Tebow of the SCS level. But as a passer, it wasn't there. Mention ball placement. I think that is eight number one for him. You know, I will let go a quarterback a year ago in Brandon Sullivan

Starting point is 00:13:03 that had his issues. Was not a great progressor going through his reads, took too many hard hits, maybe did too much. But as he go through, do you look at him, It doesn't feel much different at the quarterback position than what they had when they had a healthy bread and Sullivan out there. Sullivan, a faster runner than Mark Rodowski, maybe, and not quite as physical. But going through and looking at this, it doesn't. And did Iowa make a mistake again at the quarterback position?

Starting point is 00:13:32 I think it's a fair question right now if they made the wrong choice. Instead of going out and getting the big priced item and Mark Grunowski that caught reports of $2 million out there, I don't know. not my money. But if that is true, you bring in a quarterback that wasn't able to go through spring football. You knew that, apparently, before he made that, and making the choice, two games in, it feels like the wrong one. It really does. Two games in, it feels like Iowa made the wrong choice here. Now, going forward, you have to do more down the field.

Starting point is 00:14:09 And it's crazy because you go back to the open practice, the kids' day practice back at the beginning of August. And you saw that. You know, you saw them going down the field. You saw them taking chances and doing things and trying to use some of the speed that they have on the outside with Phillips and Seth Anderson and guys like that and trying to get them down the field. They did that a ton.

Starting point is 00:14:29 And yet we haven't seen it two games into the season. It's the philosophy of Kirk Farrants. Don't make mistakes. That's, I think, where you point to. But this is not the guy. If you watch any FCS football, and I did. I saw plenty of markers. And this guy just looks completely different.

Starting point is 00:14:48 He looks uncomfortable at times. The ball placement is huge. Can you just go now and you say, you know what, we're basically going to scrap many tenets of what we're doing offensively and go a lot more RPO. Go even more with the slow mesh instead of a couple of plays in the game like they did Saturday, using that a dozen times during the course of the game. And seeing if that could be something innovative.

Starting point is 00:15:13 made of different and can take this Iowa offense up a level because they have to. With what's looming the rest of this schedule, you saw what Oregon did over the weekend, Indiana is going to be able to score points. You go through the schedule, obviously Penn State and what that behemoth looks like they're going to be when they come into Kinnock Stadium. Heck, even go to the games like Minnesota, on and on and on. Yeah, what do you go to Camp Randall and take on Wisconsin? That's going to be a game.

Starting point is 00:15:41 It's probably going to be just like we saw Saturday, right? just a bare knuckle brawl punching, fighting, scrapping for every single inch. And that one, all right, you button it up a little bit more. But against Indiana,

Starting point is 00:15:53 you're not going to beat the Hoosiers 1310. Against Oregon, you can't hope that you're going to escape with a 1210 victory. It's not going to happen. You have to score points. And what I was doing currently, what they've shown two weeks in,

Starting point is 00:16:04 is they don't have an ability to get that done. Mark Rodowski has to give you that, be better. It's as simple as that. That goes, though, hand-in-hand with play calling, with Kirk Farrant's taking the shackles off of the quarterback position, those things all have to go together. I believe the concern level is high for Mark

Starting point is 00:16:24 Gernowski. I think the concern needs to be high because if he isn't better at the quarterback spot with this more difficult schedule this year, I was going to be up against it. And we're going to be talking about something much different come November than we talked about a long time with this Iowa football program. Take it another step. further. Right after the game, I brought up in 1998 and at the end of the era for Hayden Fry. Because the memory started to seep back in very quickly. And I'm going to tackle this a little bit more later in the week. But when you look at some of the similarities that are there between what was happening then and what's happening now, I went into last season with a lot of

Starting point is 00:17:10 expectations. A schedule that was very manageable, a year where you turned a ton defensively, a year where expectations were about as high as they've been recently for Iowa football. And it was a very ho-hum effort. It was a disappointing year, eight and five. In 1997, Tavian Banks, Tim Dwight are coming back. You got a senior quarterback and Max Sherman that had put up big yards. You had a lot of the tenants that you expect. And they disappointed in that year. But then the following season is when the wheels fell off. And you saw Iowa, the long winning streak, 15 straight wins against Iowa State came to an end that season.

Starting point is 00:17:51 One of the saddest performances I've ever seen the Iowa Hawkeyes display ever, ever in 1998, up at the Metro Dome against Minnesota, where it looked like nobody wanted to be there. To see Hayden's Fratt's rain come to an end with that, was incredibly sad and it still leaves a very sour taste of my mouth that that was the effort that the team gave at that point. Now, Hayden was going through a lot more and that's another thing that needs to be part of that story that year. But the similarities are there and you look at Iowa's recruiting.

Starting point is 00:18:30 It hasn't been great. I know we're talking about a different era. Leading up to that and the wheels really fell off very quickly. I don't believe that we're at that spot. However, would you be shocked? That's where I am right now. I wouldn't be absolutely surprised if the wheels fell off this thing. Now, here's the great news, because Iowa football, we've had these conversations before.

Starting point is 00:18:52 We feel like things are falling apart. Berence has been off against it many times, back against the wall, and he's been able to punch his way, and his football team's been able to punch their way out of it. We'll see if this team has it. We'll see if this program has it at this point in time. look, they're going to go out Saturday night against UMass, and they're going to win and win comfortably. And maybe they'll do some of the things that we're hoping for,

Starting point is 00:19:15 and they'll hit on a couple of big pass plays. And suddenly that rejuvenation will start up again and an ability to get off to a good start. And if they do in Big Ten play with Indiana and Wisconsin, we are having a different talk. But for what we've seen two weeks in, that doesn't seem realistic. That doesn't seem that this team's going to be four and one

Starting point is 00:19:36 with the gauntlet they're going to have. after that. We'll see. Another week to get better. Another week to improve, but there is a lot of improvement that needs to happen. Where does Iowa go from here? We'll talk about that a little bit more and put a cap on our look back at the Sihawk game. Yeah, I rewatch it so you didn't have to. It wasn't fun. It was maybe even more frustrating. No, it couldn't have more frustrating than watching it live, but it was right there. We'll wrap things up as we roll through here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. quick question for all you college football fans out there if you could go back in time

Starting point is 00:20:14 and sit in the front row of the hawkeyes biggest rivalry games what hat would you be wearing yeah i said hat for me it would be the game you're seeing if you're watching on youtube right now i am wearing the game hat i had this hat in 1998 my freshman year and now these aren't just hats they're the same vincied styles that you wore back in the 80s and 90s guess what they're still going for the same price they did way back then that's right you can use the code right now locked on you're going to get a vintage hat for just 1699 head to the game caps dot com the game caps dot com grab your hawkeye classic bar or the retro circle design and use the promo code locked on for an exclusive discount because legends wear the game

Starting point is 00:21:07 Try and kind of back with you one final time, putting a recap on what we saw, 16, 13, the final in the ball game as we go through and take a one final peek back. I mention big picture with this team of where it is. And as I said at the top, last year felt like a loss season. The opportunity that was there, the chances that were there for Iowa to have a special year, and they weren't able to pull it off. And because those years don't happen on a yearly basis at Iowa, it's tough. and it was tough making our way through the season last year knowing that the ultimate goal wasn't going to be there and going into November without a chance of being a college football playoff team and though that dream is not completely gone the wiggle room's over and in order to do that Iowa now at minimum has to go 10 and 2 Iowa in that in that circumstance needs to beat either Oregon or Penn State at least one of those two teams And if they do that, they'd go perfect the rest of the way. This team's not close to perfect.

Starting point is 00:22:12 This team's not close to what it is. The chirping is immense. And what I see in the comment section on YouTube, make sure you hit subscribe, what I read on social media, on the message boards, the negativity that is starting to build on this Iowa football team. And yes, there's been a lot of great things. And there's a lot of positives. And you look at Iowa in terms of wins in the 2020s,

Starting point is 00:22:39 they're up there in the top 15 in the country. But we're still waiting for that breakthrough moment. And this new era of college football, where everything is about the playoff. And Iowa feels that they're moving further and further away from that being a realistic goal. Winds are great. A sold-out stadium's great.

Starting point is 00:22:59 This is different than what we just dealt with with Fran McCaffrey. And with Fray McCaffrey, the fan base had checked out. But as long as Kinnick Stadium is sold out every Saturday, as long as people are still buying tickets and supporting the program and investing the money inside of it, then this doesn't become a realistic conversation. But Beth Gets needs to be ready. Beth Gatz needs to be ready if a change needs to be made,

Starting point is 00:23:24 or the other part of it, Kirk Farrants is 70. The negative recruiting that continues to be out there about a guy that's been around for a long time, but hits the age of 70, that's difficult to overcome. That's difficult to go through and look at and say, I was going to be fine. They'll just be fine because seemingly they've always been fine. We don't know what the end game of this is going to be.

Starting point is 00:23:50 We don't know if it's going to be this season or five years from now. Because Kirk Ferrence has built up the equity inside the athletic department that he could write his own script to a certain extent. He shouldn't be on a hot seat. That kind of talk is silly. That shouldn't be a part of it. One last thing. I get a lot of this.

Starting point is 00:24:11 Why doesn't the media hold his feet to the fire? Why doesn't the media hold Kirk accountable? Why doesn't this is not going to be, and it's never going to be. If you want a few good men, you can't handle the truth. You want a shake-down press conference. It's not going to happen. This is still a working relationship. And difficult questions have been asked.

Starting point is 00:24:31 But guess what happens? They get deflected. they're not answered. We've seen Kirk many times go right back after the media. Luke Meredith used to be the Associated Press writer and pulled him to the side. Go back to the game against Illinois a couple of years back. And David Eicholt asked a question about the awful quarterback play

Starting point is 00:24:50 in a diplomatic way because these are professionals. And he came back and said, I don't know if you want to know it, but we won 10 games a year ago. The questions are asked. Maybe they're not asking the way that you want to, but they are asked. You're not going to get the responses that you want. You're not going to get that moment. Kirk Farrant's is not going to have those moments.

Starting point is 00:25:18 Look at it and understand what you do in your job. Do you go up to the people of authority and try to dress them down? No. Not if you want to keep your job. Not if you want to keep your access. That is the reality. questions are asked you just don't get the answers that you want

Starting point is 00:25:36 that's the reality of it and you can be mad about it I know plenty of you are but it's just the way that it is and the way it's going to be that's how things are going to be done with that we are done we are out of here for today

Starting point is 00:25:51 we will continue to look back at this one one final time and then we will flip the page and get ready for the matchup oh get excited folks it's UMass what a non-comper slate UMass and all where we are hopefully some positives will come out of it what iowa needs to do go down the field

Starting point is 00:26:11 take some chances take off the shackles got to be done we've been having a lot of these talks over the last 27 years i'm not exactly optimistic that it will thanks for being with us and making lockdown hawkeyes your first listen every day hey we have also something big going on right now with locked on college football fans locked on and fire tv present college football kickoff you flip on your fire tv you'll see that little icon pops up for you a lot of different times make sure you click on it it's your ultimate college football weekly preview drake toll of locked on big 12 leads the conversation along with two-time ap coach of the year gary patterson and college football star jesse holly and lockdown's local experts a college football preview only lockdown can do catch college

Starting point is 00:26:57 football kickoff every Thursday throughout the season only on fire TV back at it tomorrow with us thanks for being with us and making lockdown hawkeyes your first listen every day a big thank you to your every day or is with us each and every day thank you for joining us as always we'll talk to you again tomorrow until then go hawks

Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - MELTDOWN: Iowa's Offensive STRUGGLES Continue | Can Ferentz SALVAGE the Season?

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