Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - No decision from Kirk Ferentz on Iowa Hawkeye's starting QB plus Riley Moss leaning NFL

Episode Date: December 27, 2021

Iowa football head coach Kirk Ferentz and several players spoke to the media last week before the holidays, and we were able to learn quite a bit. Most importantly, we learned from Kirk Ferentz that Spencer Petras is back practicing for the Iowa Hawkeyes but a decision on who is starting against Kentucky hasn't been made yet. We break down what that means and what the ripple effect could be. Moreover, we discuss third-string QB Joey Labas who got a bit of hype from Kaevon Merriweather.Riley Moss also spoke to the media and made it clear that he was learning towards the NFL but that a decision hadn't been made yet. He expanded to say his leg is healthy, which is a very important piece of information that we will discuss on the show.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.NetSuiteOver twenty-seven thousand businesses already use NetSuite and RIGHT NOW through the end of the year NetSuite is offering a one-of-a-kind financing program to those ready to upgrade at NetSuite.com/LOCKEDONNCAA. 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 Monday morning episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your eyeable Hawkeyes on the Locked On Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade. Excited to be back for this Monday morning show after a nice little holiday break. I hope you all had a fantastic holidays, Thursday or Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Obviously, we get this next upcoming weekend a few days off as well.

And we get a bowl game on Saturday. So a lot to look forward to. We have a lot to cover on the show this week. And since we didn't get an episode for you on Friday, I told you probably going to be off enjoying time with my family. We are going to be covering the Kirk Behrens press conference. He had a lot to say about the quarterback position. And I would argue maybe not enough to say about it.

And we're going to talk about that. Riley Moss appears to be closer to making a decision. We're going to be talking about that. And Iowa's in the market for a transfer portal wide receiver. What does that mean for the Iowa Hawkeyes? We're going to be talking about all of that on the show today. But first, 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 by searching Locked On Hawkeyes. It has been truly an amazing year, and I do seriously want to say thank you so much to all of you out there supporting me every single weekday as we drop an episode for you all. In today's episode, breaking down Kirk Behrens' press conference, talking about Riley Moss' decision, and also the Transfer Portal news is brought to you by Sonos. Sonos is the official sponsor of ESPN College Football. Go to sonos.com to learn more. So Kirk Behrens spoke to the media on Thursday. As I kind of mentioned last week, we might get to it, we might not. We were going to try to get to it either Friday or definitely today. So I want to talk a little bit about that. And starting off with kind of a more higher level look at bowl season in general. There's been a lot of talk about whether or not the bowl season is important, whether or not it matters. You have players opting out. Right now,

we're having a huge issue with bowls being canceled teams not even giving other teams more than 24 hours heads up i mean hawaii let their opponent get all the way to hawaii and said oh yeah we're not able to play as if they didn't know they had issues within the program so there's a lot of issues kind of going on bowl season again the players opting out is probably the biggest thing you have coaches leaving before the end of bowl season. Coaches being fired opens up positions. Coaches want to get on those positions before they get filled up. You want to get a head start on recruiting.

The early signing day definitely doesn't help that either. You want to be able to get your guys for the school, the new school that you're at. So it kind of all is one big, kind of all impacts each other. But I thought what Kirk Ferentz said about bowl season was really, really important. He said, the bottom line is we still think it's a relevant thing, first and foremost. To earn a bowl bid is significant. It's important to us in our program. It's important to our players. I think it's really important for our fans also. So the way we look at it, it's still a pretty big deal. So I'm going to give you three reasons why I think bowl games, regardless of the college football playoff, are still

important. The main one, it gives you extra opportunities for younger guys to get more prep. It's an extra two to three weeks of practice and development for the Iowa Hawkeyes. It's a great opportunity. Two, are you telling me that you're not excited about this bowl game on Saturday? I am. Iowa doesn't have a lot of the same problems that other schools do, right? Tyler Goodson opting out, Noah Fant opting out back a couple years ago, schools do, right? Tyler Goodson opting out, Noah Fant opting out back a couple years ago.

That is a, that is a anomaly, excuse me, not the norm for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Now other programs have some of those situations happen a bit more, but even if those guys do opt out, there's other guys that can step up and get really valuable playing time. And I can almost guarantee you, save for a few maybe entitled fans of SEC teams or Ohio State teams, the Buckeyes had to return a lot of tickets because fans apparently don't care about the Rose Bowl. Outside of a few entitled teams, bowls really do matter for both the teams and the fan bases themselves. Are you telling me that Alamo Bowl back in the early 2000s

under Kirk Ferentz wasn't a big-time bowl? It set Iowa on a trajectory. It said, we are here. It's something to play for. You think Nebraska fans wouldn't want to be in a bowl game right now? Heck, the goal of the season was be bowl eligible, win six games. It gives teams something to play for. And the third point, and this is less about the bowls being important

and more about the college football playoff is not taking away from the importance of these other games. Iowa going to the Rose Bowl, I think in some people's minds, is almost just as important as going to a college football playoff game. Now, there's a lot of issues with the college football playoff committee. The fact that they are incredibly biased, are arguably way worse than the BCS in my personal opinion. Wins and losses just doesn't matter to them.

But that doesn't mean that the other Bulls don't matter. There's a loud contingent of people who are very upset about Bulls season, upset about a few players opting out and a few coaches opting out. But there's the other 95% who really care and are still going to these Bulls and still working their butt off to win these Bulls. It's a great experience for the fans. It's a great experience for the teams. It's great public exposure for both these teams being able to play other teams across conferences, show how good the Big Ten is against the SEC. It's huge, especially for us Iowa fans. So that

was really interesting to me. I really appreciated his thoughts and comments on that he also had some comments on Ivory Kelly Martin in the running back position which we've talked about a little bit over the past week he said Ivory looks to be healthy it's the best he's been in quite some time that's good news I'm eager to see Gavin and LaShawn both play they've both been doing a really good job. You've seen Gavin a little bit, not as much as LaShawn. He's caught my eye back in spring. I think he's really ready to play some football. I feel good with the three guys we have. Safe to say we'll play all three of them and just hope we have all three of them by then. Hopefully nothing else happens. My concern with Ivory Kelly Martin being the starting back is not that he hasn't looked good when he isn't fumbling the football.

It's that he does fumble the football with too much regularity. It is too much of a common occurrence. He is unable to hold onto the football the way Iowa football teams need to hold onto the football, especially with how bad the offense has been. That being said, if Ivory's had talks with the coaches, if he transfers out of the program after this year, he still has one year of eligibility. He's a good running back.

He has earned his time, but he's also deserved to lose some of that time because of his inability to keep on with the football. But it'll be really interesting to see how they split up these backs. My guess is Gavin will get the lion's share of the carries. Gavin should be the lead back going into spring ball next year. LaShawn also should get five or six carries, and Ivory Kelly Martin should get five or six carries, with Gavin getting 10 to 15. I think if you split it up like that, I'll be pretty happy with the distribution of the running back position. And if Ivory Kelly Martin can hold onto the football,

give him the ball more, but he just hasn't been able to do it. And I don't think you have the ability to allow that to be a concern against Kentucky, maybe against Colorado State, maybe against Kent State, but not against Kentucky in a bowl game. You cannot allow that to happen.

You cannot allow fumbles to happen. Just unacceptable. That's my thoughts on that. Coming up, we're going to talk a little bit about the quarterback position and also the transfer portal. Iowa is in the market in the transfer portal for a key position that I don't know if any of us really saw coming. So we're going to talk about all that coming up in a few short moments.

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began last Friday. You can catch it today. They do a phenomenal job at Locked On. Right now we're covering some of these big-time events. It's one of my favorite events they put on with the football or college football playoffs with the draft season, NBA draft. They do it all at this show. So check it out.

Do a phenomenal job there. Before we took a break, we talked a little bit about Kirk Ferentz and the running back position, what he had to say about bowl games. Now let's turn our attention to the quarterback position because there's been a lot of interesting things coming out about Spencer Petras and also Alex Padilla. And it's going to be a really interesting time in the Iowa Hawkeye program going into next season.

Who's the starter? Right now, it sounds like Spencer is healthy. Healthier, at least. That's what Kirk said. He said he's back practicing now. We will see. We'll decide that next week. But we're happy with both he and Alex.

He went on to say, Spencer has done good things, too. It's a situation where two good guys, I'm hoping that both players will grow and improve as we move forward. I'm hoping they both stay here and let the best man win. One of those type of deals. But we'll let them keep competing. As a college quarterback, you have a limited shelf life. You have a limited amount of time where you can go make a name for yourself and possibly have an opportunity to play professional

football. If you are Spencer Petras and you feel like you might lose this job to Alex Padilla, you've already graduated. Why wouldn't you take a shot somewhere else, especially if your best friend like a Tyler Linderbaum is leaving? On the flip side, if you're Alex Padilla, you had a lot of offers coming out of college or coming out of high school. You showed some good things on tape. The lease was very short, and we didn't get to see a lot of you, though, against some of the teams later on in the schedule,

against Nebraska, for example. If you are Alex Padilla, and you don't feel like you are getting a true shot, and I can argue that he's not getting a true shot. Every time he's been put in, it's been due to Spencer Petras' injuries. Why would you stay? You are not getting the tall end of the stick here. It feels like, to me, and I'm not making an opinion either direction,

it feels like if Spencer and Alex are equal, they are going to give the job to Spencer. That means Alex needs to outperform Spencer. Everything we've heard out of camp the last two years is that Spencer is great. Everything we've heard is that Spencer is a phenomenal practice player. He just doesn't seem to turn on in the games. He's not the worst quarterback we've ever had at Iowa, but he certainly isn't the best,

and he certainly isn't making the strides that we would expect for a quarterback, a former four-star quarterback. Now, the jury's still out on Alex Padilla as well. I really liked what I saw from his athleticism. I really liked what I saw him throwing the football against Northwestern, granted against a very poor Northwestern football team, but I liked the decision-making he was doing in the other games. The accuracy wasn't always there. There was a few really bad decisions. It was kind of a boom or bust where Spencer was just like this, flatline, kind of consistent.

Alex was up here, down there, all over the place. But we saw that with Spencer in his first year as well. Spencer's had significantly more snaps and starts than Alex. So does Alex improve? Do you trust Alex improving over the time frame? That's really a question. It'll be really interesting to me to see if either of these guys or both these guys return. They are good friends.

Apparently, Kirk doesn't believe this is very much like the 2014 season where he had Jake Ruddock and CJ Beathard, although there are a lot of similarities between these two situations outside of the fact that CJ and Jake were not friends. Alex and Spencer are supporting each other. And you have to think about Joey Labas as well, who's been taking snaps with the twos. Had some really interesting things to say.

Kayvon Merriweather said he can do some really interesting things out of structure, which is something that as an Iowa fan, as an Iowa media person, I've been wanting to see Iowa have quarterbacks who could do things out of structure a bit more, make things happen when the play breaks down. Kirk did say this about him. He said, no, it's just been fun, fun to watch him. He's one of those guys not quite ready to start, that's for sure. But he did say that he does a really good job, basically out of structure, need to get him more within the playbook. Until he's able to mentally process

the plays and what Brian Ferencz is calling, Joey's not going to get his time to shine, but it does seem like he is making some good plays just with his general athleticism and skill set. Again, that's going to be a really interesting thing to watch over the next week and during that Kentucky game. We saw that happen in 2014 in the bowl game. It was a disastrous bowl game, but we saw it happen. CJ Jake rotating snaps. Could we see something like that happen? Could we see Alex step in for Spencer or Spencer step in for Alex? We're going to get more information on that hopefully this week, but we'll make sure to cover all that right here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast.

I do want to quickly cover the fact that Iowa is in the market for a wide receiver. Yes. They've lost several guys because Keegan Johnson and Arlen Bruce have both emerged. Plus you have Nico Regani getting plenty of time. You have obviously, wow, I'm drawing a blank here. Wow. On Iowa's return, man, I apologize for this. I am just, Charlie Jones. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry.

I kept thinking Max Cooper. Charlie Jones could be returning. We don't know for sure yet. Yet Iowa is going out on the transfer portal and potentially looking for a receiver. They have contacted Wyoming wide receiver Isaiah Nayer, a 6'3", 210 pound, really projects as a traditional X in his redshirt freshman season at 48 catches, 878 yards and 12 touchdowns. This is a really interesting situation. Iowa has not had a traditional X, right? They had Keegan Johnson kind of playing in that spot, but not a true X. You want, as an X, kind of a big man. They've been looking at Tyler Casper, Kai Black,

big guys who can play the X position. Brandon Smith did a great job there as well. He wasn't huge, but he did play big. So, to me, it's looking like they're looking at Isaiah Nair being that X, sliding over Keegan Johnson to the other outside spot, and you have Arlen Bruce or Nico Reganey or Charlie Jones in that slot position, or you can have two slots with both those guys kind of alternating there as well. So it's a really interesting situation.

I don't think Iowa has much of a chance to grab Isaiah, who's getting a lot of publicity across college football. A lot of offers kind of rolling in for him after a fantastic redshirt freshman season. So again, more than likely not coming to Iowa, but I did think it was significant that Iowa contacted a wide receiver, despite what I would consider a pretty solid wide receiver room, even though they've lost a few guys to the transfer portal. Coming up, we're going to talk about Riley Moss.

He had some interesting things to say about his decision and whether or not he is going to go pro. So we're going to talk about all that here in a few short moments. I do want to remind you that betonline.ag has you covered this entire holiday season with more props, odds, and lines than ever before as football continues its march through the college bowl season and the pro football playoffs. BetOnline remains my number one spot for all my sports action this season, and it should be yours as well. So head over to their website or use your mobile device and sign up today and receive a 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. All you need to do is use the promo code LOCKEDON, that's L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N,

and you'll get a 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit from basketball, football, NHL, boxing, and UFC right to your favorite Vegas casino games. Don't wait to take advantage of all the amazing offers available for the 2021 season. BetOnline is the fastest and the easiest way to bet on all your favorite sports, so don't wait to take advantage of all the new amazing offers available today. BetOnline.ag, where the game starts. So let's get into it. Riley Moss, basically he talked to the media and he said, I accepted a Senior Bowl invite because I had to, to secure my spot. One thing about the Senior Bowl, it is a phenomenal time for you as a college athlete to shine. Michael Ojemudia rose up because of how well he did in the Senior Bowl, especially for

Iowa cornerbacks. You are placed in a lot of man coverage situations against some really strong, talented wide receivers. Iowa doesn't play as much man. Now they have gone to a little bit more man this season, but they don't play as much man as a lot of other teams in college football. That is usually a concern or a knock on cornerbacks coming out of Iowa. So for Riley Moss, going to the Senior Bowl is a huge opportunity as long as he's healthy to be able to show what he can do and elevate his draft stock. Number two, the knee.

He mentioned the knee. He said his knee is 100%. I am no doctor. I don't know how PCLs heal. I'll take his word for it. Riley Moss has been playing pretty well. Sounds like he even took off his brace. So if he is healthy, that eliminates a lot of the reason why I thought he might come back to the team. And finally, he said, I'm leaning towards going to the NFL, but I still need to take into account all the information available. Kirk Behrens is getting a bunch of information. Obviously, he's kind of probably talking to some agents and stuff after the season ends.

There's a lot of decisions Riley Moss has to kind of go through, a lot of decision points he has to kind of make and go through to ultimately make his decision. But I would lean that Riley Moss is not coming back, and it makes sense. This is a guy who just won Big Ten defensive back of the year. He is likely going to test well. He probably could run a 4-4-40. His stock is pretty high.

You look at what happened to Desmond King. Now, Desmond King wasn't going to run as well as probably Riley Moss is going to run, but Desmond King didn't get the ball thrown to him in his senior season. Riley Moss has the ability to come back if he wants, but again, he's on the NFL radar. He's going to the senior bowl if he decides to enter the draft. He will likely test well. He's going to be a combine invite.

He has been projected between a second and fourth round pick by a lot of draft scouts. Does Riley Moss elevate himself to a first round pick by returning? That's the question he's got to answer. And you also have to be willing to bet on yourself. And you better believe a guy who bet on himself as a two-star recruit, a gray shirt, goes to Iowa, starts as a true freshman, you better believe Riley Moss believes in himself and is willing to bet on himself.

And from everything I've heard, in addition to what Riley Moss said, there's a very good chance we are seeing the very last game Riley Moss will ever play in an Iowa Hawkeye uniform this Saturday when they take on Kentucky. So a couple things that appreciate Riley Moss and what he did and what he did in the Iowa Hawkeye uniform. He went through a lot of adversity. A lot of Iowa fans were not a huge fan of Riley Moss for the first few seasons. He had his ups and downs.

Even this past season. Against Kent State. Had a bit of a struggle there. But Riley Moss has always consistently showed up. He's spoken to the media. He's done things the right way. He's worked his butt off. And he has an opportunity to go pro.

And I am incredibly excited for Riley Moss. Now what this means. For the defensive back backroom is you would expect Jamari Harris and Terry Roberts to probably step into those starting cornerback spots, but don't count out Cooper to Jean. A lot of people projected Cooper as a safety, but I would argue if Jack Kerner leaves and Riley Moss is gone and Matt Hinkins obviously is going to be gone, there are three out of five spots open. And that doesn't count for the fact that Dane Belton could leave as well. Now, I think Dane Belton is going to return. So let's assume he does.

That's three out of five spots are gone. There's a lot of corners behind Terry and behind Jamari. But the number one guy you've got to look at is Cooper DeGene, who's on the two deeps right now. Could he work his way up and take a starting cornerback spot? I would say it's probably between those three guys. Now, the other safety spot, you have to consider Sebastian Castro, Quinn Schulte, Reggie Bracey, and Xavier.

Those are some guys to watch out for. We could see Dane Belton slide back and have maybe Xavier come up. Could be limited snaps. I mean, there's a lot of opportunity here, and the fact that X is going to be enrolling early does give him a better chance to start early on. But it is going to be a really interesting time as we see what this secondary turns out to be. A lot of talent there, and I think we're in very good

hands with who we've got. We've seen some pretty good things from Jamari Harris. We've seen some really good things from Terry Roberts. There's the projections of what Cooper to Gene could be. I've liked what I've seen from Quinn Schulte, and I've liked what I've seen from Sebastian Castro and heard about from Sebastian Castro in limited time. And obviously you have a five-star recruit joining your program as well. So it's going to be a really interesting time. But two takeaways, obviously Riley Moss, more than likely going pro as we get official confirmation of that after the bowl game. Once he makes the decision, we'll be breaking all that down again.

And then obviously what does the Iowa secondary do from here? We just told you. And that does do it for our show today. I appreciate you all tuning in to today's episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. As always, we are here every single day. We're going to be here all day or every single day this week, especially with the bowl game coming up on Saturday. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we got some basketball games.

We got football coverage. We got a crossover episode with the host of Locked On Kentucky. All of that is coming up on this week's shows. So stay tuned for all that. If you want to know how to bet on certain bowl games this season, check out the Locked On Bets podcast hosted by your boy Q and handicapping expert, Lee Sterling of Paramount Sports. They do a great job of projecting two or three or four games every single day, giving you the games you should be betting on at betonline.ag. So again, thank you all for tuning in. Have a fantastic Monday. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, let's go Hawks.