Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - New Iowa Football Schedule for 2024-25, Big Wrestling Rule Change

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

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Flex protect scheduling. It's a term we need to know the future of the big 10 and what I was football schedule looks like in 2024 and 2025. Plus the future of Hawkeye football. All coming up today on the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. You are locked on Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes part of of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome in once again, I'm Trent Condon, and this is the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast.

Thanks for making Locked On Hawkeyes your first listen every day. We're available wherever you get podcasts. You can also find us on YouTube. While you're there, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Helps us get in front of more Hawkeye fans. Today's episode is brought to you by Bird Dogs. Go to birddogs.com slash lockdown college. And when you enter the promo code lockdown college, they'll throw in a free custom Bird

Dogs Yeti style tumbler with every order. We're in my Bird Dogs here today and feeling good as we talk about some of the future of Iowa football. Obviously a huge upcoming season for this Iowa football program and the team, what they did in the transfer portal is something that you every day or know. I certainly got me very excited about this team, what they can be, what they will be going forward. I have a lot of optimism about this football program, but the future,

it is going to look a whole lot different. Something that has been long speculated about and became official yesterday with the announcement of what is happening is that we will no longer have divisions in the Big Ten. So divisions started to go away. It started and kind of this downhill effect that has happened in college football. It began with the Big 12 getting a conference title game without 12 members. They did not have divisions. They just put their top two teams in there.

Then it continued, and the ACC has made the decision to go away from divisions. The SEC is going to be following suit. And we saw for the first time last year in a 12-team league, the Pac-12 did not invite division winners. Instead, they just took their top two teams. So what that means going forward is Iowa will no longer be playing on a yearly basis did not invite division winners. Instead, they just took their top two teams. So what that means going forward is Iowa will no longer be playing on a yearly basis all the teams in the West,

though they do have protected rivals, and we will get to that here in a moment. It is different for Iowa than any other team in the Big Ten. There will no longer be yearly matchups against Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois. Those have now fallen by the wayside. And that means more opportunities to play the heavyweights, the Michigan states, the Michigans, the Ohio states,

and the Penn states of the world. Of course, the additions of USC and UCLA, more opportunities there. And for the conference as a whole, this is a great thing. You know, one of my big takeaways, and we're going to talk more kind of about big picture, big 10 stuff here as well on the podcast today. But one of the things that was my takeaway is boy, the depth of this schedule now with the additions of USC and to a lesser degree, UCLA, it just adds so much more variety and depth to the schedule week in and week out. There's been plenty of jokes that have been made about the new packages coming out for CBS and NBC

and what the TV package is going to look like for some of those night games. We get Maryland-Charlotte is going to be an NBC game in September coming up this upcoming football season. Not exactly the shiniest football game, especially when you're going up against Alabama-Texas. It's going to be a little bit of a tough sell. But when you look at the conference schedule now, boy, it just seems like there's going to be two, three, four, five games every single week that are going to be incredibly compelling with this new schedule. Now, one thing we did not find out with the new Iowa football schedule is where these

games are going to be placed. And that is going to come out at a later date. But we do know the nine opponents now that will be on the schedule for Iowa coming up this upcoming football season of 2024. Still the normal schedule here for 2023. We will go through this the last year for the divisions, the last time for Iowa,

an opportunity to win a division crowd, and a huge, huge, obviously, opportunity for them that is in front of them. But the schedule, the way that it sets up is this. In 2024, Iowa, with their Flex Protect scheduling program, and what that means is on a yearly basis, Iowa will be playing every year Minnesota for the best trophy in college football. No doubt about it, Floyd of Rosedale.

They will play Wisconsin on a yearly basis, and they will continue the series with Nebraska. This is something that I've been bandied about. In Iowa, Iowa's different than a lot of the Big Ten. In fact, when you look at the protected rivalries going forward, Nebraska, this is their only one, the game against Iowa. Minnesota and Wisconsin both will play the Hawkeyes at a yearly basis. They will also play each other.

We know how many teams that game has been played, playing for the Axe. That's a big one, no doubt. We will see Illinois Northwestern on a yearly basis, Indiana, Purdue. But there was no reason to kind of shoehorn games in, to make games that didn't have a rivalry component to it. Look, if you were going to give everybody in the Big Ten the same thing as Iowa, you were going to give them three protected rivals.

All right, USC and UCLA, of course. Who else? Who else is going to be the protected rivals for those two teams? Both Nebraska? You want to go that direction? It just didn't make a whole lot of sense. So instead of trying to make it as simple as possible,

everybody has a protected rival. Maybe you only get one, maybe it's two, or if you be like Iowa and make it three, you're going to shoehorn in a bunch of games that didn't make a whole lot of sense. The Big Ten did the thing that you want to see your directors do. You want to see the commissioner. You want to see the commissioner.

You want to see the people in charge of your conference not do the easiest thing, but do the thing that is the best. This makes it more difficult when you have some teams like Penn State that don't have a protected rival. You have other teams like Iowa that have three and then varying degrees of one or two throughout the other teams. It makes scheduling a little bit more difficult, but in the end, you're going to get better.

You're going to get better games, more important games, and the flexibility that goes along with it to get some of your best games and create them for your TV networks. They did it exactly right. Here is what Iowa has coming up in 2024. The game with Iowa State will be back that season in 2024 in Iowa City. That will be played at Kinnick Stadium.

And then four home games in the conference. Welcome in Maryland, whatever. Nebraska, Black Friday game, no surprise. Wisconsin makes a return trip, good. Can't brandle this season. And then in 2024, they get UCLA. Now I know I'm not alone. You're not alone. Everybody would love to see that one be a November game, right? Of course. Put that thing up there. Let's see those guys from SoCal

make their way here in November. Yeah, that'd be fun. Road games, five of them, though, in 2024. And catch this. All right, they go to Rutgers, long trip, whatever. They go to Minnesota, of course, return trip in the protected rivalry with the Gophers. They go to Illinois. All right, B-L-M-A should be a good game, maybe a little revenge of the garbage offensive performance

the Hawkeyes had this past season. Along with road trips to Ohio State. Okay, Buckeyes back on there. And a road trip to USC. That's right, Iowa, in the first year of USC and UCLA joining the conference, they get both teams on the schedule. Home game against UCLA, a road trip to the Coliseum to take on USC.

And I will tell you when we find out the date of that one, it is circled. And I know I am not alone. Make your way to California. Another one you kind of hope maybe is a November one. You know, weather's getting colder. How about a trip out to Southern California? Go to the Coliseum.

How many Hawkeye fans are going to go out for that one we are going to see a big big contingent i have a feeling they're going to be making their way out to la for the matchup against usc 2025 again it is not just strictly home and homes or a back and forth there is flexibility in this schedule. Well, let's finish up. 2024, Iowa mentioned the matchup against Iowa State. Iowa also that year will have another home game in non-conference play against Illinois State and against Troy of the Sun Belt.

Pretty good Troy team. That could be a little more tough than you think. That's 2024. Here's 2025. Iowa that year will have five games at home in the Big Ten because the road game that year will be played at Iowa State. Non-conference, Florida Atlantic. Let's hope their basketball team doesn't make their up. And UMass. Okay. Here is what the Big Ten slate is then in 2025. The five games at home, you get Michigan come to town. Always huge. Michigan

State, good. Gophers, like that. Penn State will make their way to Kinnick and Northwestern in 2025. The road tilts in 2025 will be Indiana, Purdue, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. 2024 is tough. 2025 isn't easy, but certainly easier than what we saw. That is the schedule for the Iowa Hawkeyes. We will talk about the Big Ten. What does this mean going forward for Iowa football? What does the future look like? How about Kirk Ferentz?

Some rumblings about his future. We'll do that as we continue here. This is the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Today's episode brought to you by our friends at Bird Dogs. I'm wearing them right now. They are great shorts. I love them. Stretchy. Khaki style shorts designed

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slash locked on college and enter the promo code locked on college for a free Yeti style Tumblr with your order. Once again, birddogs.com slash locked on college for a free Yeti style Tumblr. You won't want to take your bird dogs off. We promise you. Trent kind of back with you again here on lockdown Hawkeyes. As always,

thanks for making lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day. So we've talked about the Iowa football schedule for 24-25. What about the Big Ten as a whole? And something I mentioned a little bit earlier, when you look at these schedules and just how much better it is. Being very honest and very simply, it's just a better schedule for the Big Ten. No more primetime tilts between Maryland and Charlotte. Now, that's an on-conference game.

When the schedule gets up, I get all of that. But, boy, the depth of this conference and how much these additions have made to what you're going to see in a week-in, week-out basis. The opportunity to make those road trips to the Coliseum, to the Rose Bowl, how much fun that's going to be. You know, if USC has the year that many people believe in their final year of the Big 12,

what a hot ticket that's going to be. And Hawkeye fans, we know how we travel, right? We know how we go out there for bowl games, for non-conference games. I think back to the road trips down to Arizona and to Arizona State for those non-conference games. You go way back in the day, and some of the ones that may have been out there in the way that Iowa fans have traveled, even in places like Pitt and Syracuse, this Southern California and a name opponent in USC. I think it's going to be absolutely huge. We're talking 20, 30, 35,000 Hawkeye fans going to make their way out there. I don't think there's any doubt that that's going to be a real possibility of what we're going to see for the Hawkeye fans and how cool that is going to be. But it also changes what the goal is for Iowa football.

Look, in the Big Ten West, Iowa, they're among similar ilk, right? Not traditional powers, not teams that have a leg up on the rest of the competition. The divide in the East-West, we know, yes, the East has won the conference crown every single year. It doesn't mean that Iowa and other teams have been very close in that championship game. There's also been blowouts going, and we saw Iowa do that, but the opportunity against Michigan State, close calls that there have been. Now, Northwestern were a while, a couple years back. They had Ohio State on the ropes in that Big Ten championship game. The gap has not been as wide, and when you look about cross divisions in terms of win-loss record during the regular season,

the gap is not as significant as many of the national media would like us to believe. But ultimately, the Big Ten West has not been able to get it done. And it's led to a lot of the questions. Still, Iowa and everybody else was going up against similar teams. Not huge recruiting bases. Not the same blue blood status that we have with the Michigan and the Ohio State and the Penn State and even Michigan State to a lesser degree. You felt like you had a chance. Does Iowa have a chance in this new configuration in a 16 team league where obviously only two teams will get to the championship game in a nine game conference schedule? And yes,

a lot of teams will be playing each other and there'll be plenty of times at minimum. You're going to have to go seven and two to get to the big 10 championship. That's at minimum. And that's to have tiebreakers on your side. And the chances of that happening very often are not very high. That means you've got to go 8-0, 8-1, or 9-0 to get to the championship. It just looks a whole lot different. The difficult spot that I was going to be in to get back to the championship game, it gets that much more difficult.

In the past, yeah, when you were in a 10 and 11 team league and being one of the top teams, it was different. Now with 16 teams in there and only two teams getting the championship game, boy, it's going to be an incredibly difficult path for Iowa football going forward. And what is that path going to look like? Is it going to be Kirk Ferentz? You know, this has continued to be out there. It's a question that we have talked about and brought up a bunch here on Lockdown Hawkeyes. It's how

much longer is Kirk around? This season, Iowa went all in, as all in as I thought they could possibly go in the transfer portal, bringing in eight new additions, helping out the quarterback spot and the wide receivers and the tight end with Eric Gall and going out and getting all ACC linebacker and they're still sniffing around and trying to find another cornerback to come in for this season Iowa went headfirst into the portal this year and it leads to the question is this Kirk gearing up for one final go around is this understanding the new reality of the Big Ten, the changing, not just that's happening in the Big Ten with the additions of USC and UCLA. It is certainly not a hidden fact

that Kurt Ferris does not like traveling to the West Coast after the performances from his teams at Arizona State and Arizona in the past. And we've not seen another game scheduled since those games are out there. We know not his favorite place, a 16 team, big 10, no more a big 10 West that maybe this is an opportunity for Kirk Ferentz to ride off into the sunset. You couple that with a new athletic director.

That'll be coming in with the departing Gary Barta with what was put in for his son, Brian Ferentz. And then maybe how untenable, even if I was successful this year, that situation is with your son as the offensive coordinator. 25 years on the job, a nice round number as he hits his silver anniversary. All these things, the confluence of events coming together, does this mean that we are seeing the end of days, that we're coming up to the end of Kirk Ferrens. I can see it.

I can buy it. But then you come the other way. If this is that successful year, if they win another division crown, maybe they pull the upset in the Big Ten championship game. Does Kirk want to walk away from that? He does have his son with him. And if Iowa has the success that I believe they're going to have offensively this year, and there's going to be the success on the field, is he willing to walk away from that? Knowing that, hey, we've adapted again. And what's he going to do? I remember

hearing the story of Kirk back in 2020. And when everything was shut down, he tried to start a garden. I didn't like it. What's Kirk Ferentz going to do in retirement? This is not a guy that you hear about on the golf course like Hayden was banging it around. I don't think he has a whole lot of hobbies outside of eating ice cream. So what is Kirk Ferentz going to do? He's still very spry, moves around well. not talking about you know jerry ackerman coach out there that can't get around he's got to sit in a golf cart all day that's not what it is

he loves his job i think he loves so many parts of it being on the field molding young men there is still a part of him that absolutely wants to do it and if the successes are there we don't want to shove them out either because who's next we don't know we don't want to shove them out either. Because who's next? We don't know. We don't know who the athletic director is going to be. We don't know who they are going to want to bring in. Remember the last time we went through this 25 years ago, Bob Bowlesby at the time, he wanted to bring in Terry Allen. What a disaster that could have been.

Some of the other names on that list didn't go very well. Yes, we all point to Bob Stoops, but that was no sure thing. And Oklahoma came in and gave him the offer. And Iowa said, we are going to interview one more person. That person happened to be Kirk Behrens. And before Bob Stoops was even able to be offered the job, he already accepted the Oklahoma job. What could have been?

We want to go through it again. Kirk's still breezing through, and he's still willing to do what he did this season in the portal. I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Wrapping things up on the other side here of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Big changes coming for collegiate wrestling. That's right.

We got some big changes on the horizon. We'll talk about that as we roll through. This is the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Trent Conant back with you one final time on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Thanks for making Locked On Hawkeyes your first listen every day. Every day is coming up next week on the show. A lot of recruiting going on. Big weekends for Iowa football.

There's camps happening. There are offers coming out. And normally the month of June, that is the time that Iowa football has their class pretty well settled. This is an incredibly important time, that big recruiting weekend. Their biggest one is coming up in a few weeks. We will talk about that a whole lot more. And it's been over a month now since Iowa has received a commitment on the football field. That's something that's going to change with more offers coming out. We will talk about that a whole lot more. And it's been over a month now since Iowa has received a commitment on the football field. That's something that's going to change with more offers coming out. We will get into that a whole lot more. The lifeblood of Iowa football, the recruiting side, we will talk about that here on Lock on Hawkeyes.

But one final thing for you here today. Collegiate wrestling fans, you're out there as I am. I love college wrestling. I love wrestling in general. Collegiate wrestling fans, you're out there as I am. I love college wrestling. I love wrestling in general. And no, we're not talking about Hulk Hogan and the Iron Sheik RIP and Ultimate Warrior RIP

and Andre the Giant RIP. I'm showing my age here a little bit. But what we're talking about is real wrestling. Collegiate wrestling, folk style wrestling. And speaking of folk style, you know, one thing that I've continued to hear for people even deeper in the wrestling community is the change.

If you didn't hear it, his takedowns now are going to be worth three points in college wrestling, a three point takedown. That is what we're now going to see. And what they're hoping is it generates more offense. Now there's many people that maintain the way to generate more offense and getting maybe more people interested in the sport of wrestling is for folk style to go the way of the dodo bird. And that is we go to freestyle.

That freestyle is the way that we get people back into the sport. It's more freewheeling. It's more exciting. There's more action in freestyle wrestling. And that is a way that we can get more people, more of that casual fan that becomes interested. Because I'll tell you, as somebody that has watched plenty of wrestling meets or duels or the NCAAs with the casual wrestling fan, man, college wrestling can be a slow sport.

I don't know if this is going to have what we are looking for to get that action back in college wrestling. You go back to last year in the Penn State duel and the big storyline that came out of that after Iowa falls again to the Nittany Lions was the way that they were just riding the ankles, and they were just slowing down the pace

and making it incredibly difficult for the guy underneath to get anything going. Now, Penn State's not alone in that. In fact, Iowa had a guy that did the same thing in Real Woods in his match and throughout his matches. So Penn State's not alone in this one, but just that style that makes it incredibly difficult for the bottom guy to do much of anything to get offense going. We'll see. I'm hopeful as a wrestling fan that this is something that's going to lead to more offense.

And we're going to see more excitement coming back into collegiate wrestling. But an interesting one there, no doubt. As we see the big rule change, three point takedowns now. And now we got to get ready for this instead of two, three. Doesn't have the same ring, does it? Love the twos. I guess we'll have to call them out for reversals.

That's what we'll have to do. We'll talk to you again next week here on Locked On Hawkeyes. As always, thanks for making Locked On Hawkeyes your first listen every day. A lot on the recruiting realm, what is happening there. We will get into that and a whole lot more coming to you next week. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you again next week. Go Hawks!