Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Phil Parker has no answer for David Bell as Purdue cruises to victory over the Iowa Hawkeyes

Episode Date: October 17, 2021

We are joined by former Iowa running back LeShun Daniels Jr to discuss yesterday's game. It was a disappointing game in Kinnick vs Purdue after an emotional victory over Penn State the previous week. The Purdue Boilermakers dominated the Iowa Hawkeyes from start to finish in this one with future first-round pick George Karlaftis decimating our offensive line and David Bell carving up our secondary. Offensively, Iowa couldn't get much going and Spencer Petras was hurried often throughout the day. Tyler Goodson had some success on the down, but the passing attack faltered when needed. Defensively, David Bell went off again against Iowa, and Phil Parker's secondary couldn't stop it nor could they handle the constant shuffling of quarterbacks. It was a rough game but we break it all down with former Iowa running back LeShun Daniels Jr.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!SweatBlockGet it today for 20% off at SweatBlock.com with promo code LockedOn, or at Amazon and CVS.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.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.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 another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade. And as always, after every single game, we are joined by former Iowa running back LaShawn Daniels. This is not exactly the game we wanted to cover after yesterday's game, right? We've covered six wins at this point.

We did not want to come in here talking about a loss, but here we are. Before we get into that, though, 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 wherever you get podcasts at and also on YouTube for free Monday through Friday to search Locked On Hawkeyes. And LaShawn, we knew this had to be coming at some point. When we started this season, no one was predicting Iowa to go 12-0. I personally had Iowa 10-2.

I even predicted Iowa to lose to Purdue. However, when you win six games like that, I just thought this team might be different, man. I just thought Kirk and Phil might have figured some things out playing Jeff Brum. I thought this was not going to be the year where they lost to purdue and i did not think this is going to be the worst loss to purdue they've ever had since jeff braum took over um what a frustrating day before we get into all that though how are you personally doing today man personally i'm good personally i'm good You know, not too much to complain about. Obviously, the loss yesterday was tough.

But, you know, other than that, we're good. Yeah, man, you would have thought that someone burned down everyone's house in Iowa Hawkeye Nation the way people were reacting, including myself. I probably yelled at the TV a little too much, was a little angry for a couple hours. My wife's like, what is your deal? I'm like, it's an Iowa football game. I don't at the TV a little too much. I was a little angry for a couple hours. My wife's like, what is your deal? I'm like, it's an Iowa football game. I don't know what to tell you. I just, they lost, they got their butt kicked. I mean, it was just, oh man, it was just such a beat down. We're going to cover all that on the show today. But first I want to get into some of

the positives. We'll get to the positives. We'll get to everything else that happened. And then I want to kind of wrap it up with how do you handle this? How do the players handle this? How do we move forward from here? So first off, good. I want to touch on Tyler Goodson. I thought he ran harder than I've seen him run all season. I mean, it looked like there were points in the game where he was,

he was looking for contact. He's like, you know what? I am a running back and I am one of the best running backs in the nation. And I'm going to run you over or we're going to fall down together, but I'm going to hit you as hard as I can. However, that didn't happen until after that second possession where it looked like Ivory Kelly Martin was getting literally every snap. So I want to touch on that with you. Do you think that was intentional that Tyler was not in at all on that series? Cause it looked like he was dancing a little bit, maybe that first series wanted to get your thoughts from your running back perspective there. Um, yeah, they, cause I know the staff cause I know, cause I know the

staff and they've done it before. Um, and there were some plays, um, early on where again, Tyler was probably dancing a little bit too much there's lots of times where he's getting tackled and like his feet aren't even moving like they're basically just standing right next to each other you know no no base and no because he's just looking for you know the next cut he's looking for the home run right and um you know obviously like how the game was going uh taking those tackles for losses was not going to help us at all so putting ivory in there and you know i was a good running back right he does good things um and i love the way how he hits the hole and i know the coaching staff does as well so um i think getting him in there and letting Tyler see that for a little bit, like, hey, this is how we need you to play right now, definitely probably lit a fire under him for sure.

And obviously, you know, he probably felt like, you know, Ivory was going to help us get a little spark. But yeah, I mean, it does happen. And that's probably exactly what did happen. And then he did come back in and change it up a little bit. There was one on the outside zone where he was looking for a cutback, which is 99% of the time never there on an outside zone play. But then a few plays later, they did it on the inside zone, and the cutback was there because inside zone plays um are essentially designed to cut back so uh yeah it definitely does happen but i did love the way uh tyler responded and you know was running the football you know in that second quarter um you know after you know

essentially being pulled in a sense um so yeah i mean that was uh that was a pretty i mean it's a little bit obvious the announcers like is tyler hurt is tyler hurt i was like i feel like they were a little bit pissed off though i mean i think with tyler you get boomer bust right i mean he's the guy who's gonna get you those big plays he's the guy who can do those home run type plays look at what he did against maryland i mean without tyler's dancing we don't get some of those first downs against Maryland. Granted, we didn't really need them against Maryland nearly as much, but you have to try.

People forget that Ivory Kelly Martin was the starting running back three years ago. Ivory Kelly Martin is a very talented back. He maybe doesn't have as big of a boom potential as Tyler, not for lack of gifts, but because he is just going to hit that hole and he's going to get that four or five or six yards, kind of like a Mackay Sergeant almost with a bit more speed. And maybe not as,

not as great of ball protection as Mackay Sergeant had, but still, still solid. So definitely interesting all around. I thought Tyler ran really well after that happened. I mean, lowering his shoulder into people. There was one play.

I can't remember what, what the play exactly was, but there was just no hole there. And he just turned to the side, just did a battering ram right into the guys. Like, you know, I'm going to get three yards. Like, this isn't going to happen. So love to see that. Love to see Tyler play at that kind of authority.

I hope he can kind of find the right balance there, right? Because some of the good things he can do is not – it does come from dancing or it does come from taking, you know, an extra couple steps. But sometimes in that game you just need to get the hole. We can't have that many negative plays. do is not it does come from dancing or it does come from taking you know an extra couple steps but sometimes in that game you just need to get you need to get the whole we can't have that many negative plays um speaking of ivory kelly martin i thought he did a really good job obviously on that kick return um i thought charlie jones did a really good job in returning as well uh the two biggest spark plays we really had all game uh so special teams i thought was pretty solid all around outside of uh you know, this job.

Caleb Shudock missing that short field goal, which is kind of weird. Anything you want to add to the special teams aspect of things? No, not really. I mean, the special teams, again, you know, they do a great job. You know, they've been doing a great job all year, and obviously they continued yesterday. Obviously, Caleb missed that kick, unfortunately but i mean that happens right

i mean fine shanks happened right it's just unfortunate that that's when it happened right with um was it like a 25 yard field it was such a chip shop i mean that doesn't just happen against yeah do like anything that should happen does happen against Purdue like Caleb misses his first real kick because the last time he missed a kick was a bad snap he missed his first actual kick of the I mean what the heck Purdue Purdue muffs two punts essentially and gathers them quickly I'm like oh my gosh these are like momentum changing things that could have happened that just doesn't happen against Purdue yeah yeah yeah um but no mean, I love that, you know, the special teams were still doing their thing

and that Charlie and Ivory, you know, were trying to provide some spark plays, right, getting us, you know, inside the 20-yard line, you know, at the end of the football game, even when, you know, it was basically out of reach at that point. But I still love that. I love to see that effort and, you know, try to put us in a position where, you know,

where crazier things have happened. Absolutely. I also thought, I mean, the grades aren't going to say this, but I thought Terry Roberts did a solid job, all things considered in his first start. Not an easy position to be in. You know that Purdue is going to attack you. You know that Purdue is going to attack you. You know that Purdue is going to come at you pretty darn hard.

And they did. I mean, that first series, they attacked him, I think, three times. He did end up allowing four receptions for 59 yards. Three of those were to Milton Wright. Again, I thought overall Terry Roberts, though, you could have played worse. And Terry Roberts not played pretty good in his first start of his career. So anything you want to add on that side? Yeah, no.

I mean, he's a young guy getting out there for the first time. I mean, as a starter in Big Ten play, you know, against a team that's clearly obviously given us fits for the past five years. And, you know, I thought he did a good job out there, you know, all things considered um he was definitely like really like the least of my worries yesterday on the defensive side of football so um yeah i mean i thought terry terry did a great job filling in um and obviously he still has a bright future um and a bright career ahead of him. So, yeah, thought he did well.

Yeah. Anything else you want to call out from the good angle? That basically wraps it up from what I had. So anything you want to call out from the good before we go into the ugly? No. No, there's not too much. Yeah, no, there's those days much um yeah no there's not not not not too much else maybe i'll think of something later but yeah we do we i definitely want to make sure we cover as much good as possible but there i tried writing down stuff but i just i really couldn't think of a whole lot it was just

one of those games i think almost a throwaway let's move on let's try to play wisconsin we'll talk about all that though because there was a lot to talk about in one of those games, I think, almost a throwaway. Let's move on. Let's try to play Wisconsin. We'll talk about all that, though, because there was a lot to talk about in terms of the bad and the ugly, but I do want to tell you about PrizePix. PrizePix is daily fantasy made easy. It is made for all of you

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your first listen every single day. You can find the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast wherever you get podcasts at and also on YouTube for free at Locked On Hawkeyes. As always, LaShawn Daniels is joining us after every single game. LaShawn, always appreciate you coming on. You have such an amazing perspective on the game, especially when it comes to running backs. Literally, my first thought when I saw that was like, I have to talk to LaShawn about

this because he's going to give it a real about what happened with Tyler and Ivory. So that was good, though. Tyler did come back, played well. A lot of bad, though, we have talked about in this game. Just all around, I think, let's just get the big one out of the way. Can David Bell just go to the NFL? I just want him to leave. I want him to just declare early, for

the love of God, stop playing college football. I'm sick of it. How does David Bell go for 240 yards receiving against an Iowa Hawkeye defense that shuts down literally everyone else? I just don't get it. They mentioned that they had some interesting game plans coming into this game.

I can't remember who said it yesterday, but it might have been Kirk saying we did not want to get in one-on-one situations against David Bell. Well, if that was your game plan, you failed because David Bell had a one-on-one situation. It felt like every freaking time he touched the ball. There's no reason why we should have to be playing scared on him doing a double move. There should be someone behind him. There should be someone to bracketing him over top. I mean, our cornerbacks at a certain point, there was a, it was a third down. We were blitzing his third and eight or 39 and our cornerbacks are playing eight, nine yards off

because they're scared of the deep ball, it seemed like. Especially against a David. I mean, I don't know, man. I'm clearly not a defensive coordinator. I know I'm not as smart as Phil Parker. I still love Phil Parker. But the fact that this happens every single year is so incredibly frustrating. Anything you notice about that that just made you mad?

Yeah. Well, first things first, you obviously got to give David Bell a whole bunch of credit. Obviously, yeah, he's a fantastic player who more than likely is going to go in the top 60 picks in this upcoming NFL draft because he's that good right i mean he got great speed he catches the ball makes contested catches everything you want to see from nfl receiver yak ability i mean he knocked out matt hankins with a stiff arm and ran for another 40 yards like i started man come on fantastic player and but that being said, you know, the most frustrating thing is that he did go off like that. I mean, you look at his stats, he had 11 receptions, 240 yards and one touchdown.

I mean. I mean, like, that's just it at some point. Like, that's just it. At some point, I mean, after two prior years, you know, of him going off. Right. You would think that at this point, right. You just just try to completely eliminate him from the game. Right. Whether you try to press the corner on top of them and then you have, you know, the safety is, you know, bracket them over top. Right. And then force everybody else to beat you. I mean, for a fact, they didn't have a run game. They only had one scholarship running back that was able to run the football. And, you know, obviously they have other receivers that are other good players, but they're not David Bell. So, you know, from that perspective, you know, it's frustrating to go back and look at the stats and see how, you know, he was able to basically do whatever he wanted, basically when he wanted.

And it was even more frustrating, I think, you know, in the second half, you know, after going in the locker room at halftime and making the adjustments. I mean, you knew Purdue's situation going into the football game, and you knew that they were going to do whatever it took basically to get him the ball because David Bell is their best player. I thought. Without a doubt. It's not even close. They're the best player on the entire team, and the fact that we couldn't contain him whatsoever and that he was in so many doing doing whatever he wants without any help is just extremely frustrating because um you know we knew that that that's what they were going to do

so yeah it's tough i mean like you said we knew the running game wasn't going to be that good and it wasn't i mean a lot of the yards they got were in garbage time uh from a running perspective 33 carries 86 yards a 2.6 yard per carry average. We do not need to bring a lot of guys in the box. Now, granted, we didn't have a pass rush, so we did need to bring some guys blitzing, but you're absolutely right. It's frustrating to watch the one guy, the best guy on that team by far. I should say George Karloff is also a stud player as well,

but on the offensive end of the ball, David Bell, there is David Bell up here, and there's like 10 levels until the next best Purdue player. And that's not a knock on the next best Purdue player. That's just how good David Bell is. I understand initially putting Matt Hankins on him and saying, you know what, let's man up our best corner, our guy who could have maybe went to the NFL last year, who's going to go to the NFL this year more than than likely let's man him up and see what happens and when he didn't succeed

then you have to make some changes and like that crossing route where david bell matt hankins was a step behind him already matt hankins missed the tackle david bell stiffs armed down we got if someone's over top of him maybe that that's not a 60-yard gain. Maybe that's an 8-yard gain. You can live with that with David Bell. I'm okay with that. But, man, you cannot let him just go off like that. It's just – it's unacceptable.

It's just so frustrating. I mean, Milton Wright, TJ Sheffield, I don't care. Someone else catch the freaking ball. And I'm better off losing in that way to say we at least shut down David Bell. But, man, that was frustrating. It's frustrating. It's frustrating. And I know it's not – like that type of defense isn't something we do, right?

I mean, it's something we've never done. Right. I mean, we've never – like, I'm thinking, you know, at my time there, from practicing to, you know, any games, like, that was just something that we never did. It was basically just stick to our stuff, stick to what we do. And, like, you know, that was really basically it. So I don't know what their game plan was going into the week.

I don't know how they practiced against it. Maybe they did. Maybe they did, you know, have some thoughts on bracketing him or whatnot but you know as you mentioned they probably just figured let's just matt let matt go at it let him you know uh see if he can contain him and you know go from there and then especially after matt went down i don't know what he ended up coming down with like where he copped his shoulder like it was not in there yeah yeah i think like and then after after that happened um he just obviously matt just wasn't himself after that point and um that's when you know i think as a staff and um that's when you got to make the adjustment like hey um

cave on or uh jack you guys gotta go over the top of david every single time he's out there wherever he's lined up at um and give give matt some help or terry some help right because that's like that just can't happen it can't happen um you know at any point in time you know during the season because we've seen the type of offense that we produced in the season this point and when you have a guy that's going for 240 yards receiving and they're controlling the ball for literally eight minutes of drive. I mean, it's basically going to take you guys out the game because you're not going to be able to score enough points because you're not going to be able to

have a football enough. And when you lose that explosive play, play battle, it's going to be very difficult to win the football game. So it's tough. And I would, I would actually like to add to, I mean,

on the two big plays I'm thinking of for Matt Hank and Dave Bell in the first half, Matt was, was mostly there. I mean, he gets that tackle. David Bell's down. That's 50 yards he doesn't get on his receiving total. That weird route, what was that? Almost like he ran an in, and then he circled back.

I mean, the route he ran was a little bit bizarre, where Matt Hankins kind of fell to the ground because he was covering it pretty well. That was just a really – I mean, I thought that was a beautiful route by David Bell. I don't know many corners who could cover that. But regardless, like you said, you've got to make an adjustment at some point. Iowa predominantly plays zone. They're not a man team.

But looking at this game, looking at how ineffective our pass rush is, something's got to give at some point because we are going to need to get pressure on the quarterback and we're going to be facing some solid offensive lines coming up. Now, granted, thank God they don't have a David Bell on that side, so we might be able to do a little bit more man. We're going to get Riley Moss back as well. So things are going to hopefully improve, but definitely a concern going forward.

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No, it's good. It's definitely one of the better protein bars I've ever had, for sure. I love it, man. So if it's good enough for me and LaShawn, probably good enough for you. Or at least if it's good enough for LaShawn, probably good enough for you. I don't want to put myself in that category. I'm not exactly a big avid weightlifter. But go to BiltBar.com and use the promo code LOCKED15.

That's L-O-C-K-E-D-1-5, and you'll get 15% off your first order. Use the promo code LOCKED15 for 15% off at builtbar.com. All right, man, so we talked a lot about David Bell. I think we actually just spent the last 10 minutes talking about David Bell. Let's talk about some other bad things that happened in this game. George Karlaftis made our offensive line look like they were a jv squad uh our offensive line is bad let's just let's just call it is what it is uh we've been hiding some of these issues for a little bit this year tyler linderbaum obviously

has been very consistent the offensive line has been for the most part up and down throughout the year but george carlaftis man i mean it didn't matter who was the tackle mason richmond nick de young jack plum i mean first off these guys don't have a ton of experience nick de young was a walk-on not saying that that's bad i'm just trying to give some context to the situation a walk-on so more than likely not as developed coming into the iowa football program or needed some you know skill development skill refinement that kind of stuff jack plum was a former tight end uh which we've had some very good success in the past. Robert Gallery is a great example of that. And then Mason Richmond is a redshirt freshman, not true freshman, a redshirt freshman. That's not a lot of experience going up against a guy who's probably

going to be a first round pick at defensive end. And wow, we didn't give Spencer much help there when we're putting our tackles one-on-one on an island against George. And then George, to be fair, was lining up so wide that our guards couldn't help either. He was getting over our tackles so quickly that I saw one play where I think it was Kyler Schott was trying to help out, but George had already beaten Mason Richmond around the edge. Literally, Kyler's like, well, I can't do crap now.

I'm just sitting here with no one to block. Any thoughts on that? I mean, man, this offensive line needs to improve. Granted, the only defensive line that's going to be scary, in my opinion, for the next five games is probably Wisconsin. Wisconsin scares the crap out of me from a defensive perspective. Offensively, they actually look so inept. It's honestly kind of funny to watch them play offense right now.

But defensively, their defensive line can give us issues. That's the only team I'm worried about right now. But any thoughts on that? Yeah. So I know that we were trying to chip the defensive ends at one point. That I didn't notice. I did see that several times throughout the game, but I don't think there was ever we were ever able to get any good chips on the D.N.'s at all to try to provide provide a little bit of help. But, you know, with that said. I mean, I think like the tackles, obviously, they're young, they don't have a lot of experience. And, you know, really,

I feel like their techniques just not, not quite there yet. There's a lot of times, you know, when these guys are past setting and it feels like they're not getting, they don't get any depth. They just kind of just turn and just try to get their hands out there. And then by the time they do that, the guys are already by them. And I've seen it multiple times throughout the year. Dan just happened in this game.

It's kind of happened all season long from the tackle position. And, you know, I've never played offensive line at a high level like these guys have. So but I do I do know how difficult it can be. like these guys have. So, but I do, I do know how difficult it can be. And, you know, when your technique isn't, you know, really on point, especially as a young guy, and those fundamentals aren't there, it's only going to make their job much, much harder. And I think we've seen that kind of over, over, over the past several weeks. And, you know, I know that they were trying to do some things with, you know, chipping the defensive end, trying to get some rollouts going, some boot action plays, trying to get those going

to help take those guys out of the play. But, you know, unfortunately, you know, wasn't able to really work to our advantage. And there's times where defensively those guys will start blitzing, and then the running backs have to obviously pick that up. So then now that they can't help, and then when you look at the receiver spot, you know, we're having a tough job right now being able to win one-on-one in man coverage. So it's all cumulative effect that's coming from you know us being able to not protect on the inside on the offensive line and you know it's a good thing that we have this bye

week because as much work as these guys can possibly get um this week i think is going to be very very important um especially fundamentally um because that's got to improve. Like that's got to improve without a doubt. And that's where everything I think is going to end up starting because just improving the technique a little bit is going to help alleviate that problem more because I know that the staff is doing different things to try to limit as much pass rush as possible. But obviously right now it's just not, frankly, just not working.

Absolutely, man. And it's also worth noting that Cody Entz was also out of this game. Backup tight end Luke Lachey, who has played probably between 25 and 40 snaps a game, also out of this game. So when you talk about chipping as well, you're getting a tight end, more likely to say

Maiman, Bryce Schulte. You're getting guys in there who haven't had a lot of snaps to this point. So definitely something also interesting. We'll hopefully get healthy throughout the break. The offensive line was definitely an issue. A lot of people, anytime the offense struggles, wants to blame Spencer Petras. I will openly admit, not his best game, probably his worst game of the season to this point.

But the guy was getting blown up every time he got the ball. And we know what he is and we know what he isn't. The guy isn't running. He isn't Brad Banks. He's not Drew Tate. He's not Ricky Stanzi. He's not C.J. Beathard. I mean, I'm going down in order of who's probably the best scrambler. He's not Nate Stanley. And Nate Stanley was not a scrambling quarterback. And here we are. We got Spencer. He's at the very low of the totem pole. This guy cannot run. That's not his fault. Peyton Manning couldn't run worth a darn, but Tom Brady can't run with their crap either. But you also need that protection or needed the ball out quickly, which means, as you said, the old line needs to either be able

to protect you long enough for the routes to develop or your routes are quick and your wide receivers need to win those routes early and often. so you can actually get the ball out there. I thought that was really interesting. There's one play call in particular, and I want to get the play calling here in a second. There's one play call, I think in the third quarter, where I believe Purdue sent a blitz and Spencer was getting pressure and he just lopped the ball over to Tyler Goodson. Tyler Goodson gets tackled by his leg. Could have been a first down, wasn't a first down. Iowa fans lost their freaking minds on Twitter about this, saying, why are we calling a running back basically a swing route on third and long in the third quarter? And my thought initially was this, and I want you to say yay or nay or call me an idiot. I don't really care.

He didn't have a chance. There were other probably reads on that play, and the last read was get the ball to Tyler Goodson, and the fact that he had seven guys in his face, like, I just got to get this ball out. I cannot take a sack on third down. Give it to Tyler Goodson. Maybe he can make something happen, but I don't have time to get it to any of my other guys.

I do not believe the running back swing route was the primary read. What were your thoughts on it? Do you remember a play I'm talking about? Yeah, I know what you're talking about. So that style of play is a very, very common offensive play. When they do bring that zero blitz like that and they just bring everyone. I know there's times like that where you do want to just kind of get the ball out quick to a running back and let them make a play. For example, when we played Michigan in 2016,

we called that exact, not that exact play, but it was very similar to Akram on the goal line where they ran like that blitz like that. But it wasn't a swing route. He basically ran a flat like arrow route. But it was basically like the same concept. Right. You know, they blitz. Right. You slip by the blitz, you catch it and then you go and go and make a play. So it looked like it might have been designed like that because I see Tyler didn't look like he was picking up anyone. He was on a free release. So he was just trying to get out there, I think, as fast as he could. I think to try to circle and get outside the defense.

And, I mean, that kid that made the tackle obviously made a fantastic play. Yeah, that's a good play. Because Tyler would have been running for some time before he probably got tackled. So, I'm not as upset at that play call because it's very common for a lot of football teams to do, especially, um, you know, when you don't have, you know, guys on the outside who just go win, win a lot of fade routes who win a lot on slants, um, one-on-, man-on-man coverage. So it is very – it's a common play, so I'm not as upset at that, you know,

as maybe everybody else might have been. Yeah. All right, I got three more play calls that I want to bring up to see if you're upset about. First, two quarterback sneaks down in the red zone area. My – I thought – I started to think about this a little bit. I was like, man we we literally called two quarterback sneaks in a row purdue clearly knew it was coming uh they had five guys

loaded over our center my only i have two thoughts here i kind of go back and forth one no one has stopped this play in three years if you like four years so if you want a bread and butter play it's probably that right now the other piece of me is like they also clearly purdue knows what's happening from an iowa perspective and they were ready for that maybe you call something up a little bit differently maybe you do some i don't know how you do a fake quarterback like you get special under there and then you toss it to tyler goods and give him the ball in space um however my my big thought was everyone on twitter was very pissed off about why are we running a quarterback sneak my i'm like guys we do this literally every every

week and everyone loves quarterback sneaks when they work everyone loves when spencer petras rams it down someone so they love when nate stanley ran three quarterback sneaks in a row in the holiday bowl um i i guess my biggest thing is beggars can't be choosers and we can't be upset when we all love the quarterback sneak however i do feel like maybe there is a better play call there when purdue has five guys over top of our center thoughts yeah um so obviously i know as a running back um you know especially as if i'm tyler um not that i'll put words in his mouth but if i was in this spot and you know at that point in time in the game it's third and two and we call a quarterback sneak and then you know we have fourth and one you call another quarterback

sneak i know it's been our best play um short yardage wise like by far um but i mean if i see you know five guys between both guards um i'm gonna be i know i would be upset that you know we didn't try to get me the ball and a little bit you know off tackle right whether we run a power uh our traditional power plays or we run you know outside zone you know to get outside those guys right because i mean clearly they knew that was coming i mean heck we'd already done it um in the ball game uh and had a first down with it so um i know i would have been upset and i was upset watching it because i mean third and two even though uh quarterback sneaks been our best play third and two is a long long way to go for for a quarterback sneak and when those guys are bunched up there like that i just feel like there might have been there's definitely probably

some better options that you could we could have explored granted um you know we've done a poor job you know third and short when we call you you know, our traditional plays out of it from basically now until when I was a freshman at freshman at Iowa. I mean, it's been it's been an ongoing issue where we haven't had as much success, you know, with our traditional offense. So, you know, I know it's their best short yardage play, but I know that I would have been upset about it. But, you know, it is what it is. They felt like the coach staff felt like it was the best way for us to convert that. And I mean, analytical wise, it's been the best way for us to convert everything. But I think, you know, sometimes you just got to say, hey, the heck with analytics let's just look at like what they're doing um and you have to adjust to it yeah i mean that's that's part of play calling too right i mean it's it's understanding you want to know exactly what the

defense is do you want to do the opposite of what the defense is expecting at times now there is a time where you want to just do it and just ram it on the throat again but you have to realize that purdue was having our number the entire game they knew what we were doing uh a good example this is another play i want to bring up that tunnel screen on the goal line that probably should have been a pick six turned into a missed field goal by caleb shudock um what are your thoughts on running a tunnel screen that close to the goal line especially when you have a defender lined up just outside of the tight end right on the line of scrimmage. I mean, there's a 50-50 chance. Even if that guy doesn't break towards the ball, he's still right in that vicinity.

He's a yard or two away. He should be able to get a hand on that. Did you like that play, Collar, now? So I know we talked about this earlier in the year. I think when they played Colorado State, right? Yeah. Yeah, they ran a 10 on screen. And I'm not a fan.

And I, I know that teams do have success running tunnel screens close to the low line, but personally, I'm not a fan of it because everything is so condensed. Everybody's so close to close to each other and everything happens so fast that, you know, even if, you know you know linemen are able to get out there right the the defenders already can see where everything's going and that they're more likely probably going to beat the blocks that even get out there so personally i'm not a fan of

uh having doing running tunnel screens you know that close to the goal line i'd much rather have run a tight end screen or run a running back screen. Um, just because, you know, first off, you don't have to try, you don't have to get the ball way out there. Um, when these guys are so close together, I mean, you got to think when you're that close to the goal line, the cornerbacks, I mean, no, one's going to be playing the end zone, right? Everyone's going to be in front of the end zone. So they're already going to be closer than what their normal alignment already is. And then, you know, any outside backers are going to be, again, they're going to be hovering right over the tight end or whoever number three receiver is.

And so then they can easily get out to, you know, make a tackle on the place. So if those, so if tone screen isn't executed basically to perfection and you catch the defense on the right time with the right play call, it can be disaster for it. And we almost saw disaster go on that play. Yeah, that would have been bad. Oh, my gosh, that would have been terrible. The last thing I want to bring up, and I'm just going to quickly touch on this.

We're kind of getting towards the end. Keegan Johnson, I would love to see him get the ball more. What he does, the ball in space, what he does, the ball after he catches it, his yak ability is phenomenal. His balance, his control when he's getting hit. He looks like a freaking running back out there with the ball. And he's also so mature, physically mature and strong for being a true freshman. The fact that he's still fourth on the team in snaps conserves me. I mean, this

guy has made big plays every time he's targeted. He has made a big play. I would love to see Keegan Johnson get the ball a bit more. Penalties, I don't know what it is, man, but against Purdue, they put us in situations where we get penalties. That Justin Jacobs pass interference, what a poorly timed pass interference. I don't know about you, but that was not on, Justin had great coverage, and then he tries to go back to the ball. He wasn't going to get there. That tight end was not going to get back to that ball.

Did you think, was there any, did I see that wrong? Like, that tight end was not going to get that ball. No, I mean, he wasn't going to get the ball. He wasn't going to get there. But, like, that tight end lucked out that a quarterback under through the football yeah because those that correctly desi could take that yeah i mean it was perfect coverage um only thing is that he obviously didn't get his head around if he gets his head around um they're not going to call it but because the tight end tried to fight back to try to get the football, you know, ref has to throw a flack every single time, basically no matter what, because the receiver is trying to fight back through the ball,

and technically as the defender, you're impeding their ability to do so. So, yeah. So, yeah. And then, yeah. So the penalties were really, really, really frustrating because they just came at the wrong times because they just came at the wrong times. They just came at the wrong times. Every time.

It was like third and long. We just got to get off the field. We just got to get off the field. Oh, yeah, incomplete pass. Flag. Ten seconds later. Cool. Guess that's not happening today.

I mean, it was just everything that could go wrong went wrong. Purdue, I want to quickly touch on a few. Purdue rotating three quarterbacks. What an interesting concept. Clearly, Jeff Brom had a game plan in place. He ran it to perfection, I thought. Three quarterbacks really was throwing off the defense. I mean, that one time where I think they had Austin Burton, Jack Plummer,

and Aiden O'Connell rotating three separate plays. And on the final one, Iowa was trying to figure out where the heck they're lining up at and they were all yelling at each other to get in different spots aiden o'connell runs in for the touchdown that was the first touchdown of the game um clearly causing some confusion we're not gonna see three quarterbacks again uh so that's thank god for that um unless we knock a guy out but thank thank god we're not gonna see that again uh obviously spencer had a struggle, a bad game, but there's a lot of other issues with that.

Anything else you want to call out before I get into the final wrap-up of the show of basically Iowa controlling their own destiny or not? Yeah, just I do want to come back to the receivers a bit, just briefly, because we know that Sam Laporta and we know that Tyler Goodson, those guys can win pretty consistently in man-on-man coverage. But those guys, you can easily take those guys out of the game by, first off, you can blitz linebackers, you can blitz the running back responsibility, and then you can just bracket the tight end.

And then now the responsibility now comes to um additional guys that have to be able to step up and win a man-to-man coverage because i touched on this last week i said like hey penn state was doing a fantastic job of keeping us man-to-man coverage when we hit that play to nico last week we caught him in a zone perfect timing right um and obviously purdue watched tape so they said i mean and i know that they're more of a man coverage team but i mean um but they stopped they watched tape and they said oh let's just go man coverage let's force the additional guys to beat us right who's not sam reporter who's not tyler goodson right and you know we're gonna force the quarterback and receivers to make plays so the guy who's done it consistently is Keegan Johnson.

Right. So there's no reason for him to obviously not be in a starting lineup and for him to get, you know, additional targets. Right. Five plus targets a game because of his ability to win one on one in man coverage and to create explosive plays. And I know Charlie Jones is a great job winning on man-to-man coverage. But I think that they got to take a good look in the receiver room, get an idea of, you know, who can really provide us, you know, that huge spark and win on man-to-man coverage, because we obviously don't have a lot of time to throw the football. So we got to be able to have guys out there who can win quickly.

And Keegan Johnson has done that. He's shown that so far. So that's a huge credit to him. And I think that the staff needs to look at getting him involved much, much more, I think, as the season goes. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more, man. I do want to – we have – I mean, we have two weeks until the next game,

so there's going to be a lot of talk about this. Iowa doesn't control their own destiny, but when you look at Purdue's schedule, Purdue does not have the easiest slate coming up. They got Michigan State. They got Ohio State. They got Northwestern. They got Nebraska, which is actually a much better Nebraska team than what their record says, but that's pretty much every year under Scott Frost

where they're going to lose games in the most ridiculous ways. Purdue more than likely is not going to win every single game from here on out. Iowa just needs to take care of business. I think from an Iowa fan perspective, no one expected Iowa to go 12-0. Expectations were heightened, clearly, because if we go 6-0, we beat Penn State, we beat three ranked teams. But there's still a lot to play for on the table, even potentially a college football playoff berth.

I mean, a lot of teams do not look as good as they have in the past couple of years. A lot of opportunity here for the Iowa Hawkeyes. We're going to be covering all that for the future of the show. My wife is upstairs, literally getting our dogs like hyped up. She wants to take him for a walk. So I'm going to have to end this. LaShawn, any last words from you, though, before we drop off the show today?

No, no, I don't really got too much. Just, you know, these guys got to enjoy the bye week. Us as fans, now you have to enjoy the bye week and just kind of relax and enjoy football. But, you know, it's still go Hawks, as always. As always, man, it's always go Hawks. And just remind you all that if you want to check out more information across the Big Ten, check out the Locked On Big Ten podcast with Nate Dickinson and the Locked On Big Ten show, covering you Monday through Friday, all the news notes around the Big Ten, check out the Locked On Big Ten podcast with Nate Dickinson and the Locked On Big Ten show covering you Monday through Friday, all the news notes around the Big Ten.

And thank you all for tuning in to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. We wish it was under better circumstances, but as we go throughout the week, we'll be talking to you about why Iowa still has a lot to play for and hopefully giving you some hope going forward. I know a lot of people feel like it is the end of the world after an Iowa loss, but y'all

it is a long season. Not a lot of teams finish undefeated. We're going to talk about all that on the show the rest of the week. Thank you all for tuning in. Have a fantastic Monday and let's go Hawks.