Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Postgame analysis of the Northwestern game with Matt VandeBerg | What went well, what went wrong, and how to fix it going forward

Episode Date: November 1, 2020

We are back with our second ever Monday Morning recap with Matt as we break down the Iowa loss to Northwestern. Despite the score, there were a few good things we saw including the reduction in penalties and the strong special teams units. We break down all of the good before hopping into what went wrong during the game and after the game. We finish up with Matt's thoughts on Kirk Ferentz and his tenure with the Iowa Hawkeyes. 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 Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. All right, welcome back to another episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Lockdown Sports Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and today's episode is brought to you by Built Bar. Go to BuiltBar.com and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get 20% off your next order. And if you remember last Monday, we had Matt Vandenberg joining the show.

We have him back again for another Monday with Matt. Matt, how are you doing today, man? I'm doing all right. You know, I appreciate you having me back on. And again, it's always good to talk about the Hawks. Absolutely, man. Again, I wish we could do this under better circumstances. We're going to get a W someday, and this is going to be a much happier conversation.

I mean, we're going to get into some of the positives, though. There were definitely some positives, despite what people might think after seeing the box score and watching the game. There's also some negatives. There's some things that have happened off the field we're going to talk about. All that's going to be hit on in today's show. And Matt, real quick, before we get into it, I wanted to let you know, the people that are listening to this loved you being on here. And I got a lot of DMs saying we loved Matt's insight. So really appreciate you joining the show as well, man. Thanks. Yeah. I'm excited to kind of, you know, talk football with, I mean, anytime I get a chance to talk football, let alone Hawkeye football, it's fun for me. So

I'm glad that I can hopefully impart some wisdom, I guess, for the rest of your listeners. Yeah, man, they are, they're loving it. So let's get into, let's actually start with the off the field thing. Cause that's kind of the big thing that's popped up. I'm actually going to post this show today. We're recording Sunday. Usually I post Monday, but I feel like with everything happening, I want to get it out now. But Amir Smith-Marset was arrested for operating while or operating a motorized vehicle while intoxicated, going 70 miles an hour in a 35 mile an hour zone. I think the initial reaction is just,

that was a boneheaded mistake. I mean, I am never gonna support operating a vehicle intoxicated. My wife and I, even if we think we might have more than two beers, we take an Uber wherever we go, right? And especially you're in the city of Iowa or you're in Iowa city, you're in a smaller community.

It's not that difficult these days to get an Uber. And regardless, even if it was, it's just not appropriate to do. That's my thoughts, but I want to get your thoughts on the situation and kind of what the expectations are going forward with this situation that's continuing evolving. Well, I think, you know, you kind of hit it on the head as far as like a bonehead mistake, but I'm going to break this off from just football. Like he gets in the paper because obviously he plays football at Iowa, which is, I mean, you're, you're one of the more recognizable people unless you play basketball. Like that's, that's, you know, as far as athletics and things of that nature, you're

very recognizable. And so obviously can't do that. But two, I mean, if we're going to break it off in football, I mean, it's just not smart for anybody. You put a lot of different people's lives at risk I mean we know this that if like you just said get an Uber get a taxi there are usually taxis that are sitting all along downtown Iowa City just waiting to try and help people get back I mean you just gotta make smart decisions and thankfully he wasn't hurt at least I didn't read anything that he got hurt or anybody else got hurt. So that is a miracle and it's good.

But again, I'm not going to bring any positive to that. We just can't put ourselves in that situation. Excuse me, put ourselves in that situation, whether or not you play athletics or you're just a student or you're just down, you know, you drove in from Denver, Colorado to watch the game and then you're having to deal with some other stuff. So just across the board, I mean, you don't want to be put in that situation. Couldn't agree more, man.

I mean, like you said, it's not even about football at this point. It's just about what he was doing outside of football. And that put a lot of people in danger and no one should be doing that. From a football perspective, and we don't need to touch on kind of what your expectations are from a suspension standpoint, but it is something that's going to come up. I do expect there to be some sort of you know suspension that's involved we saw Tristan Wirfs got an OWI or I think it was an OWI a couple years ago or maybe it was just being in the bar past past curfew but he was suspended for a game Brandon Snyder was suspended for a game so that's kind of where I expect this to land

do you have any thoughts you want to add there you kind of want to just go on to some of the positives for the game I mean we always want to talk about the positives, but one of the things I just, I'm going to harp on it again, whether or not you're a student athlete, whether or not you're, you know, 46 and you just happen to be watching the bar downtown or watching the game at a bar downtown, you just can't put yourself or others in a situation like this. Couldn't agree more. So let's transition into some positive stuff because that is, that's the best part about this show. I hate having to touch on the negative. I hate having to touch on what went wrong, but it's also a part of the job.

But last time we kicked off the negatives and got into the positives, I didn't like how that – I liked the positives first. So Iowa started off strong, man. 17-0 lead. They got – obviously the fumbles were a huge thing. They were forcing some turnovers. I thought special teams was fantastic. What was your key positive takeaway from the game yesterday? I think penalties is a big one too. I mean, the fact that it wasn't, we weren't dealing with multiple false starts. We weren't

dealing with multiple times shooting ourselves in the foot and having to come back from that. I think that's a giant leap from week one. And again, I mean, like I talked about, it's the Caden, it's getting used to Spencer Petras callingras calling it's getting used to the guy next to you, knowing what known when you're going to snap it or the center's go call all that kind of stuff, making sure all that's in tune. So the fact that that was down, I think is a huge bonus. and got offsides quite a bit. And so the wherewithal from the offensive lineman perspective, as soon as they hopped off, they would move. It got a lot of, you know, neutral zone infraction penalties as well. So definitely a kudos to Spencer Petras on that.

Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, now that his line is starting to feel a little more comfortable with how his voice inflects, how he verbalizes everything. Like, again, once that gets happened, and thankfully we didn't have anything on the outside, which again, you should never have a false start on the outside because you're just watching the ball. You shouldn't listen to the cadence.

But I guess that's a new, you know, element to it now that you can hear, just because there's not as many fans or, you know, not the loud noise. But thankfully nothing on the outside, which means they were more in tune, which is good too. Yeah, it's definitely so good. Positive, no penalties or not as many penalties. Definitely clean that up.

I think from a ball security perspective, we'll get into the interceptions here in a bit. But for my ball security, ball handling, they did a really good job of holding on to the ball. I mean, there was a couple of big hits where I thought, oh, crap, this ball is coming out and nothing happened, especially after last week where we saw three fumbles. So I think that was also a big positive as well. And nothing happened, especially after last week where we saw three fumbles. So I think that was also a big positive as well. Absolutely. Anytime you can hold on to the ball, again,

we're going to stick strictly to the running backs and the ball carriers. But anytime those are – I mean, those should be easy yards. You don't want to give the ball up after you're going – I mean, Brandon Smith obviously last week with the fumble after he was 27 yards downfield. But, I mean, those types of things, if you can eliminate that, obviously you give yourself a better opportunity to win. Definitely. And last week we touched on this, but special teams was a good excitement point last week.

And this week you could argue it got even better. Tori Taylor right now in the top third of punting average. I know it's not all about how far you can punt the ball. It's also about kind of the spin you can put on the punt where you can direct the punt. And I thought that turnover, you know, where they actually got the muff punt that I think was part of Tori Taylor and also part of Terry Roberts having, again, the the excitement, the passion to go down there and actually be ready for the ball and then hop on and make a play.

But Tori Taylor kicking that ball. I have not returned a ton of punts in my lifetime. You have, though. So I wanted to get an idea from you from a Tori Taylor perspective what was going on with that ball because it looked like he had thought it was coming here it definitely overshot him a little bit so we tried making that catch and that's kind of where this happened but how much of that can you put on the punter for making that a difficult catch so he definitely gets part of the credit I mean he did most of the work in terms of punting it but another thing I mean wind plays a big factor into this and that's something that can also move it just a little bit and you're

trying to judge it on the run but you've got that as well as the natural spin of the punt will naturally make it go a little bit further that way so if it's so he's a right footed kicker so it's naturally spinning and so it's going to spin to the left of the returner and now it's going to go a little bit more because the wind's pushing that way. So now he's got to overcorrect and try and go there, which he did. He tried to come back and then you never want to catch a punt up here. I mean, you'd rather catch it, you know, cradle it, get your elbows together, make a nice good clean pocket. So any of that kind of stuff, I mean, that's, if you're up here, I saw Charlie Jones catch one like that. I was like, Hey, you know, let's, let's catch it in a bread basket. But,

you know, thankfully on their end end they weren't able to execute yeah and then Terry Roberts hopping on that ball I mean at first I was super excited I thought oh gosh we got a turnover that's awesome and then I was like did he actually get in bounds the fact that he's able to secure the ball and you know obviously get down a little bit that was an impressive play from a younger secondary player as well oh yeah and the the best part about seeing that kind of stuff. And maybe it's just cause like I'm an old guy now or whatever, however you want to call it, but watching the young guys get so excited to see the ball that they just want to jump on it. And you don't really think about where you are in terms of spatial awareness. I mean, I know that

you think like you see the line, so, you know, you gotta be inside, but the wherewithal to be able to act quickly and then also be on it. But Terry Roberts, I mean, let's not think that Gunner is not an important position. I mean, last week, stopping Purdue inside the five, this week coming up with a big thing. I mean, I think this is going to be a great Gunner as the years continue to go on. Yeah, it's been impressive. I mean, especially after a couple of years where I feel like special teams maybe wasn't the strength of the Iowa attack. So it's awesome to see that.

And Tori Taylor, just a freshman. I mean, granted, an old freshman. He's 23, but still a freshman nonetheless. Awesome to see that. You talk about jumping on the ball. Zach Van Bokenberg, I thought, had a great play early on in the game, forcing the fumble and then managing to secure the ball as well. I mean, that is, people don't remember.

He's a D2 transfer that came in here and is now making some big time plays for the Iowa Hawkeyes. I thought his play was pretty well in terms of the impact of that play for sure. Talk about a name that is probably going to become a household name just because it's so fun to say. I mean, Zach Van Valkenburg. I mean, that sounds like a football name if I've ever heard one. Granted, mine's got Vandenberg in it too. So you can take that for what it is. take that little bias there just a little bit but yeah i mean anytime you're able to strip the ball and then recover yourself that means you know you're hustling and you're doing what you need to do definitely and along the defensive line

davian nixon has been an absolute stud these first two weeks he was one of those guys i actually predicted as a sleeper guy to really break out this year. I mean, he looked good last year in pass rush situations. He's doing it again. I mean, people also probably don't know. I mean, this guy was at JUCO, went to Iowa, put himself in the transfer portal, was also recruited by Alabama. I mean, this is a big-time player that we have on the defensive line, and he is absolutely crushing it.

What are you seeing from Davion Nixon right now? I think right now he's just a high motor. I mean, dude's out there for almost all of the – I mean, he's almost out there for all the snaps. That's tough, too. I mean, that's impressive for an interior – oh, yeah, being an interior lineman, you're expected to take on double teams. You're expected to get beat reach blocks and beat pulling guards,

all that kind of stuff, and still being able to rush the passer and get hurries and forcing Peyton Ramsey, who had to take off, more, I think, than he would want to. But being able to just move him in the pocket. But, again, the hard job of being an interior defensive lineman to do that for 60, 70 snaps over the course of a game, I think is impressive. Absolutely, man.

I do have a couple other positives I want to touch on. Touch on the Spencer Petras stuff. I thought he started off the game really well. Definitely faded towards the end. Iowa went into much more of a passing attack than anyone would expect. I know from your wider sphere perspective, you love when they aired out. I think I want to get into that. But before we get into that, Matt, I know you're always on the go. You have some stuff you're going on in the city. You're obviously you're married. You have a pub,

a baby on the way, but sometimes you just need to relax. So when you need to relax, we need to watch an Iowa football game. What is the beer that you choose to go to? Coors Light is usually a good choice. I love it, man. That's what I go to as well. I live in Denver, Colorado. I'm only five minutes away from Golden, Colorado. And Coors Light is the beer that I go to when I need to chill.

It's a mountain cold refreshment made to chill. Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered, and cold packaged. It's literally made to chill. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies or a beautiful fall morning in Iowa. If you're in Iowa or Colorado, Coors Light is the one I choose and I need to unwind, so you should as well.

So when you want to hit reset, read for the beer that is made to chill. Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door at get.coorslight.com. That's right, you can have Coors Light delivered directly to your door at get.coorslight.com. And as always, remember to celebrate responsibly. This message is from Coors Light, a part of the Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado.

All right, man. So we wrapped up the first segment talking about a lot of the positives. There's still a few other things I want to get into, and then we do have to talk about some of the things that Iowa needs to improve. Spencer Petras, he's had a tough couple of games. I think as we talked about last week, the fact that he didn't have a spring practice, he is his first, second start. The last game, he was definitely putting a little bit too much oomph on it and missed a couple deep throws, definitely rocketing in a few passes when people are five, six yards away from him. To start the game, one of the things I thought was really important for Iowa was to get him in rhythm

and to get him throwing the ball and feeling comfortable. And it looked like that was happening. He was eight of nine to start the game. He had a beautiful fade pass to Brandon Smith. What did you see in the first part of the game from Spencer Petras that was good, that you thought was really good? I think part of it too, is they had all the momentum at that time. I mean, we'd already talked about it earlier, the two turnovers and being able to get the ball. I mean, inside the 30 yard line going in twice. I mean, that makes your quarterback feel a lot more at ease. He doesn't feel like he has to, okay,

I don't have to come out here and conduct a 90 yard drive. We got to go 30 yards or we got to go four yards. I mean, anything like that obviously helps him feel better. And having a guy like Brandon Smith on the outside, I mean, the fact that he can make that kind of play and this isn't a one-time instance with him. I mean, we saw it last year multiple times, whether it be Minnesota, Penn State. There are a lot of different times where he goes up and gets the ball. And I wouldn't be shocked if we start to see more go his way here, you know, moving forward.

But in terms of getting his rhythm going, I thought early on, again, he wasn't expected to bomb at 60 yards. He was expected to just move him down, let Tyler Goodson run from 15 yards out to get the second score. I mean, that's when everything was clicking. And obviously when you have momentum, things move better that way anyway. Absolutely. And I have two questions based off of that. The first is that fade route to Brandon Smith. It was successful. Brandon Smith is probably one of the best players you could have to run that route. I personally am a very strong proponent of never running I hate the fade route at the goal line I just have never been a big fan of it I just it's not a very successful play according to analytics but I want to get your thoughts as a wide receiver about the fade route the goal line

throw it up every time throw it up anytime I mean there are a lot of different route combinations we saw and the thing is you can run a fade you you know, one on one fade like that, which again, Brandon Smith was a was an elite high jumper in high school. He's got the build. He's got the hands. I mean, that's a guy that I trust going up every single time. So whether you got something like that or whether you want to do it schematically, like I don't know if you got a chance to watch the Ohio State Penn State game. Justin Fields actually missed his guy when they ran a little rub route and they ran a fade from the inside and the outside ran a quick slant. They ran into each other. He got an opportunity.

Unfortunately, he missed the throw. But there are a lot of different opportunities just to beat him to the corner and things like that where you can get different one-on-ones, whether you're in the slot or the outside. They give you an opportunity to make a play. And as a receiver, always throw it. Fair enough. So if you had to pick,

what is your favorite route combination at the goal line? If you said, hey, Matt, we need a touchdown, what are you going to? That's a great question. Honestly, so anything like from the slot, we did a lot of stuff where, you know, number three, if you got a three by two or a three by one set, number three runs a quick corner and one and two either run quick slants or something underneath

to keep it there. But a lot of times what's going to happen is the safety is going to sit inside our number three because he doesn't want to beat him across the field. Most teams go cover zero or cover one because they don't want to go zone. Otherwise, they get beat in instances like we did against Purdue where we're not really, you know, on the same page on that kind of stuff. So with this number three, the safety typically lines up inside, which means he's got depth to the outside.

If you keep the other two guys forward, then you get an opportunity to quarterback just lays it up to the pylon. You just got to beat your guy there. I love it, man. All right. And then one other thing I want to touch on with Spencer Petras is I thought he actually did pretty well on play action passes early on in the game. I actually thought his play action fakes were pretty solid, in my opinion. And his reaction after that was pretty good.

I want to get into the bad of that in a second. But is that something you also saw or do you feel like I'm off base there and totally fine if that's the second one? No, no, no. I think you're good. I think there were a lot of different opportunities. And I'm remembering one immediately. There was a crosser by Tyrone Tracy, and he ended up hitting him, I think, for like a 22 yard gain or something like that. So, I mean, there are different opportunities there, but we're also running the ball a little bit more effectively in the first first half, really. And that's what is able to open up those different play action passes.

Yeah, man. Well, that was a great segue that we did not plan, but the run game is a hot topic in the Iowa Hawkeye community because they did run the ball a little bit better in the first half. And it felt like in the second half, things kind of went off the rails and Iowa went away from the run. People are starting to say the Iowa run game is antiquated. They're getting, you know, obviously people are pissed off. Just we lost. It's going to happen. You're going to see some of these hot takes. But the run game did struggle in the second half, and Northwestern seemed to be bringing it every single time to stop the run. What were you seeing that made the run game maybe more ineffective in the second half? That's a great question because I've had a lot of different thoughts on it, whether it be they were stacking the box, whether it be that they were just giving us different books, different things like that. But I think, honestly, what was odd to me is that a lot of times,

I mean, I was going to run the football. And to go 50 – was it 50 or 51 passes to 23 rushes, I think. I mean, Tyler Goodson carrying the ball 13 times, Makai carrying it four. That's just something that's not very characteristic. And I think a lot of times in order to keep the run game going, you just have to keep running the football. I mean, as much as you're getting one or two yards.

Now I think there are times where you need to throw it again. I'm a receiver. I want to throw it, but I also understand the importance of having a good run game. Like I talked about in 15 where we had good running backs and you could really just hand it off to anybody because we knew that they were going to be good and if the run game's good then the pass game's good and then it forces the linebackers to back up a little bit because we're throwing it well well now we come back with the run now the linebackers start creeping so I mean all that kind of stuff plays into each other but it's just unfortunate that we were got away from it I think probably a little

bit quicker than we had wanted definitely and the And the fact that, I mean, Iowa ran so much shotgun in the second half, and we're really, you know, scripting their plays in a sense where Northwestern could tell they are going to pass the ball, especially when you're going five wide. Again, you love the pass, and I love when the pass is successful, but when you're going five wide, it's pretty clear Spencer Petras isn't taking off of that ball. You can basically devote all of your guys to making sure your road wide receiver group is not getting open. One of the things that I was interested in though, is Northwestern's defensive line is the weakness of that defense. They don't, they're not returning a lot of guys. It was supposed to be the weakness. And obviously the linebacker group for Northwestern is very

good. So take that all with a grain of salt, but they did a really good job. I mean, Tyler Goodson wasn't getting a lot of running room, but on the flip side of all that, Northwestern was having not that much success either. Initially, I thought they did a really good job of staying patient. Isaiah Bowser, I hate watching him play. It's so, it pisses me off. Every time he plays Iowa, it feels like he just does a really good job.

But when I was watching him, he was very patient on the cutbacks. I felt like Iowa was stopping him initially, but no one was ready, you know, back behind to make sure he wasn't cutting back. What else did you see? I mean, they just kept running the ball. And I thought Iowa was struggling to stop the run.

And when you look at the box score, and you can't always be a box score scout, that's not – anyone can do that. It doesn't always tell the full story, right? Exactly. But they only averaged like three yards a rush. So Northwestern wasn't having that much success on the ground. Clearly it worked though. They kept pounding it and they kept, you know, again,

Isaiah Bowser staying patient. What are your thoughts on Northwestern's run game and Iowa's defensive rushing, you know, how to stop the rush from the defense perspective? Yeah. I mean, like you had said, I mean, they were just kind of trying to find those little holes, but they were willing to take those three, four, you know, and then boom, you get one for eight. And you're like, holy cow, that was a good run because it was eight yard. I mean, they were willing to kind of sit there and do that.

And I don't I don't know if it's that they didn't. You know, it was clear that they didn't want to rely on the pass. Yeah. But the thing is, so, you know, you talked about I think a lot of people were saying that they only threw the ball so many times. It's like that's true. But it's also the amount of times that they call the pass play you know the amount of times he throws it doesn't mean that's every time they call the pass play so our dbs were doing pretty solid on the back end of sticking to guys it's just a matter of peyton ramsey then running um i think he ran 12 times or something like that he burned down good so well yeah 12 so you threw the ball 18, ran at 12.

I'm not, if we were to say that every time. Yep. You're saying like basically 30 passes. Yeah, 30 pass plays. Right, which puts them a little bit more balanced when you think about it like that versus he only threw the ball 14 times and that's it. But I think that goes to our DBs.

We're locked in on the back end. It's just a matter of being able to come up and make those tackles. And, I mean, that's just something that happens when you have a more athletic quarterback. Definitely. And, yeah, I mean, when I looked at the box score yesterday and I was watching the game, I was like,

this doesn't feel like they're passing the ball at all. And I looked at him like, he's thrown the ball seven times. What is going on here? So that's a really good perspective to have, the fact that, you know, he did have 12 rushes. And it is tough to guard an athletic quarterback like that. David, I talked about David Nixon, forced Peyton Ramsey to also get out of the pocket a lot more, but once he got into space, our linebackers really couldn't keep up with him. He was able to get the two, the three yards,

which allowed them a lot of the times to extend drives. It was usually the third and threes, the third and fours where Iowa might have had really good coverage. I agree. I thought the secondary did pretty well. I don't think Northwestern's wide receivers are really the most special group in the big 10, but I thought our corners did a fantastic job. But again, just the fact that Peyton Ramsey is an athletic quarterback, he was able to get out of the pocket and he was able to get those yards was definitely a big burner for Iowa. Absolutely. And I mean, like we just talked about,

it's just a matter of getting them on the move. Now the one time we got them on the move, burning full, he was running to his right. That was when he threw the pick right to our guy, which is great. But I mean, I think it was Jack Kerner. Yeah. Anyway, rolling right on the move. Finally got him where he wasn't comfortable. He didn't get an opportunity.

There were plays earlier where he rolled out and he would set his feet and then hit. And I think Hankins came back and tried to smack the receiver who caught it, tried to jar the ball loose. But a lot of times he's a guy that needs to set his feet. So when we got him in a position where he needed to continue running in order to get the ball off, that's when it benefited Iowa. It's just unfortunate that we weren't able to do that more. A hundred percent agree. Before we take a quick break,

are there any other things that you feel like Iowa really struggled with in this game? What was, you know, you talked a little bit about their d-line um there were times they were bringing three guys and it was getting to to Spencer making him feel a little bit uncomfortable now whether that's him not feeling super comfortable in the pocket or whatever it is but anytime there's a three-man rush we should should be able to give Spencer enough time to make a good throw. Yeah, that's actually a really good point because Coy Cronk actually got benched in the second half. If people who aren't familiar with Coy Cronk,

a grad transfer from Indiana, a four-year starter. I mean, he's basically a Larrick Jackson, but on the left side – no, the right side, excuse me, because the Larrick's playing left. He got benched. He was a guy that was expected to come in and replace Tristan Wirfs. But again, as you said, Northwestern was able to rush three guys and get pressure and drop a back. That is a bad recipe for success when you're trying to run an offensive attack, especially

when you're throwing the ball 50 times, 51 times. When you have eight guys back in coverage, it doesn't matter how good your wide receivers are or how good your quarterback is. That is going to be difficult. Spencer Petras clearly struggled a little bit with that. I mean, there was a couple of times he had to force the ball into very tight windows, which came up with a few drops. I thought he also did have some struggles though, throwing accurate passes.

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I love it, man. So go to BuiltBar.com and use promo code LOCKEDON, L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N, and you'll get 20% off your next order. Use promo code LOCKEDON for 20% off at BuiltBar.com. All right, Matt. So Spencer Petras, I think this is is a hot topic people are going to want to talk about spencer um what were you seeing from his play again we talked about the first part of the game he was getting in rhythm it's a little bit easier momentum's on his side towards the end of the game as iowa was needing to throw the ball over and over and over again um the windows got a little bit tighter his passes

got a little bit uh for lack of a better term for me, sloppier, I would say, but how much of that is Spencer Petras pressing? How much of that is the wind? Was there anything else that you might've saw that might've impacted why some of those throws seemingly were a little bit off the off target? Yeah, I think the wind it's, I never want to just chalk things up to excuses. I mean, they had to play with windy conditions too, which is why they didn't throw the ball that often. I mean, it's I never want to just chalk things up to excuses I mean they had to play with windy

conditions too which is why they didn't throw the ball that often I mean it's just both teams have to deal with these different issues but that being said some of the touch throws sometimes as I talked about with the punt the spin of the ball just carries it a little more I mean that happens with there were a few touch passes that that he missed on that I know that he wants back there were a few where he's trying to laser in and, and it just didn't quite have to be that, that hard of a pass, but I understand what he's thinking. I got to get it there now. You know, we're, we're, we're driving. I got to make something happen.

And a lot of times, I mean, guys get excited. That's the way it is. You know, he's a young guy. And I think, I think it's one of those things that he's just going to have to play through first starting Kinnick. I mean, it's a little bit different that there's no, that there weren't a lot of fans, but at the same time, it's his first starting Kinnick. He's still working with new receivers. And I mean, these are things that just takes time, just take time.

Definitely. And one of the things I seem to notice, and I need to go back and watch the tape again. I haven't went through and rewatch and wrote down all my game notes, but one of the things I thought I seemed to see was the fact that was a lot of thoughts and words kind of there that didn't make sense. But one of the things I thought I saw from him was that he wasn't getting off his first read very quickly. So it seemed like he was very scripted and where he was going to throw the

ball. So you have your first read, second read, third read. It seemed like a lot of the time he was going to his first read a lot. I mean, it didn't seem like he even looked to the other reads and some of those throws were fine. They were open, but some of the times it was a little bit forced. There wasn't a lot of room there and there was other guys maybe open the routes. I don't play quarterback. You played wide receivers. You have a better idea, but did you see that as well? Or is that something that I'm just kind of off kilter there? Later in the game, I think for sure, you could see that his decision-making process got a lot quicker, meaning that a lot of times, I mean, if you're going to come back to your third read,

or if you go one, two, three, and you've got to come to the backside based on how the plant coverage, you know, I saw a lot of man, but a lot of times Northwestern plays quarters, which means that those safeties are going to be coming up for the run. That's going to be a run support, which means that on the outside you're getting about an eight to ten yard cushion and you're getting some some uh some depth uh you

know you're able to run and really make a play but um you know it seemed toward the end of the game and he was starting to get a little uh excited and wanted to hurry up and get the ball out and again i don't know if that was just him thinking that he needed to make a play or if that was him not feeling comfortable in the pocket. But it did seem that Laporta was definitely the go-to there at the end. And maybe that's just because he feels most comfortable with him too. I mean, that could absolutely be another idea there. Yeah, I mean, 13 targets for Sam Laporta.

It seemed like he was trying to go over the middle to Sam a lot. But you talked about the safeties coming up. There weren't a lot of windows, so he was trying to force that in. That's actually what happened on one of the interceptions. I mean, just rocketed the ball in. It was a tight window. Sam Laporta got his hands on. I kind of follow the mantra, if you get your hands on it,

you probably should come down with the catch. However, he did it. Not a big deal. It was picked, and that was really kind of a big blow from a passing game perspective. Yeah, I mean, yes, you should probably catch almost anything that touches your hands, but I've had a lot touch my hands that I didn't quite corral. And whether you want to call that a drop or just an uncatchable ball, I mean, all that kind of stuff happens, but anytime you're

trying to catch a rocket across the middle, I know it's tough getting your body into the right position. I mean, I didn't see it from any other angle. I only had the one angle. So it's hard to know how much he actually got on it. But again, I mean, just the more time they spend together, the more time Spencer is able to settle down and understand that I just got to get it there. I don't have to get it there now. You know, I just have to get it there. There's the window. There's a hole. We got the first down. We can keep the chains moving. And then, you know, being able to understand that versus we need to make a play now, now, now, now, now, I think that that kind of decision-making helps him kind of settle down and then he'll be able to make those throws.

Definitely. And I appreciate you. This is why I need you on here, man. Cause when I'm talking about it, I see, you know, the ball touches his hands. He needs to catch it. You're like, well, let's maybe, let's maybe flip it down a little bit. It's not, he doesn't shouldn't catch every single time, but yeah, a hundred percent agree. um great insight there so i want to touch on a few things that are kind of going on in the twitter you know twitter is a very active space uh anyone with an opinion can say it and right now iowa fans are seemingly losing their mind um the season is not over i think if you come into the season you predicted the way the first two games were going to go i would have said two and oh is my number one.

1-1 is number two, and 0-2 is number three. However, we are here, and Iowa is 0-2. They still have six games left, though. What needs to be improved on going into a game against Michigan State where I honestly don't know what the hell is going on in the Big Ten, man? I mean, last week you thought Rutgers was okay. Illinois was the worst team in the Big Ten. You know, Michigan State looked garbage.

And then you come back this week and Michigan State beats – or Michigan, Minnesota loses. I mean, what is going on? What are your thoughts going into this game against Michigan State, though, which I think is a must-win game at this point? I mean, anybody in the building would tell you that every game is a must-win. And the reason that they say that is because you only get so many opportunities. I mean, the big 10 already nixed four of their 12 opportunities. You work all year for 12 Saturdays. Think about that.

All year you work for 12 days. Every win, every one of those games is going to be a must win in your head because you don't get to go out and do it every day. You get to go out against your guys and do it, but to really like go compete and go at the highest level. And this is we do it for we do it for the for the fans for the tv for all that stuff and then you only get 12 opportunities i mean well now eight i mean like i said every game is going to be a every game is a must win i don't think they look at it any differently every

game is the biggest game and and that's real i mean you probably hear it a lot you know it's a lot of the media answers, but again, when you think that you're working 365 days for 12 of those to pay off and now eight, I mean, that's something that you, you can't have those moments back. Yeah. And I think people need to realize this is a weird year. I mean, we all know as 2020 COVID has really set everything back and made everyone change their lifestyles, made everyone change what they're doing. Iowa only playing eight games.

You said they also didn't get nearly as much time in the spring as they wanted and made everyone change their lifestyles, made everyone change what they're doing. Iowa only playing eight games, you said. They also didn't get nearly as much time in the spring as they wanted to, very, as we talked about, dysfunctional, I would say, off-season and pre-season, just the fact that they're in training camp, they're out, they have a COVID breakout, they're not playing for a week. A lot of things went on. So this year is kind of a weird year,

but as we talked about last week, they lose to Purdue. The message is 24 hours. We watch the game, we notes we get on we move on to you know Northwestern this week it's probably the same you know a cyclical thing getting ready for Michigan State but if you're the coach if you're Kirk what are you saying or what are you kind of working on this week to get ready for Michigan State what are kind of the three things you're focusing on that's that's that's a great question um first all, he gets paid the big bucks for a reason because he knows how to handle these types of situations. I mean, the biggest thing I think is just making sure everybody understands that you got to pull together in order to get to the

right and get to where you want to be. When a team is pulling in a lot of different directions or when a team isn't all pulling the same way, you got a few pulling this way, you're not going to go to where you want to go. If everybody's vision is the same and everybody has the same mentality of, hey, we're going to go out there. We're going to play the best Hawkeye football. We know how. It's hard to beat a team that does that.

The second part is you got to understand in order to be a high clicking team, you got to have fun doing it too. I mean, there's, there's a lot of different ways in which, you know, guys show they have fun. I really didn't like do a whole lot outside of giving a few first downs. I was, my wife jokes that I was part of the high five committee because anytime that somebody scored, I was the first guy giving high fives because I get excited about that kind of stuff. We work so hard that you got to get excited for the eight or 12 days that you have. And so being able to have fun, being able to understand that, hey,

we all got to pull in the same direction if we're going to do what we want to do. Team still has a lot that they can play for. The thing is, guys are using a year of eligibility on this. Again, even though you don't get your full 12, you get a solid eight with the potential to play more. And so if you all put in the right direction, you understand that, hey, this is where we see ourselves. How do we get there?

And let's stay on this track. I mean, that's really where you can start to really see improvement. And then guys play at a high level, they have fun. And then it becomes, Oh, this doesn't work anymore. Now we get to go out there and have fun and play. And I think sometimes that that message can get skewed a little bit. Definitely, man. And so you talk about having fun, but if you go O and two, and now again, we're talking about we're playing Michigan State, you get Minnesota the following week.

I mean, you talk about Spencer Petras and late in the game, putting a little bit more pressure on himself. Maybe that was part of it. It's tough to have fun when you start putting that pressure on yourself of thinking, oh gosh, if we lose this game, now we go 0-3. So the concept needs to be a little bit more positive, probably thinking we are going to win this game. Not, oh my gosh, if we lose this game, we go one and two from an Iowa Hawkeye perspective. And I don't agree with this take just to be fair, but I think it's important to at least bring it up. Kirk Ferentz, he's the longest tenured FBS coach. I think he's done wonders the program. Any player I've talked to, I've not heard a single player talk bad about Kirk Ferens on the show. I probably interviewed 30 or 40 guys. People are talking about this being Kirk Ferens' last year.

Oh, and two, oh my gosh, Kirk Ferens, no way he makes it past this year. Iowa getting a new president. I already see what, I think I knew we were going to go with this, but wanted to get your thoughts on that take and why fans should maybe relax a little bit as as Aaron Rodgers might say just relax let them play Kirk Ferentz is a good coach is a tough season and people don't realize I mean again we have a new quarterback uh we have a pretty much new entire defensive line I mean

there's a lot of things that have kind of changed what are your thoughts though what would you like to tell the fans about Kirk Ferentz and the belief or lack thereof in him? I think KF's last year will be when he decides that it's time to retire. Whenever he feels it's the time for him to go spend more time with Mary, then I think that's the time when it goes. Until then, I think we've got somebody in the building that's going to make sure that we're ready each and every week. And the thing is, you know, we talk about we're sitting on one, too. How can you have fun? Well, now you just go out there and you play play Michigan State's coming off a big win against Michigan I mean they're going to come in there thinking they're top dog right now we're the

underdog now it's oh it's just the Iowa Hawkeyes yeah well look what happens to most teams that come into Kinnick at night most teams that come into Kinnick period I mean it's an opportunity to go out there and just show like hey if we just go play and we just do what we do there's no issues there's no oh my goodness we go oh and three doesn an opportunity to go out there and just show like, Hey, if we just go play and we just do what we do, there's no issues. There's no, Oh my goodness, we go on three. It doesn't matter. Just go out there and go play your game. And the times that when you start thinking about that, you're thinking too much about what you're doing. I mean, I was absolutely somebody that thought too much when I played like, Oh, if I go inside, then I do this. Then I do that. We'll just react. If he, if he goes there, I guess I'm not going there anymore. I got to go over here.

Like, that's the way you got to think about it. But if you start breaking down things and you start looking too much into it, you can kind of freeze yourself up. You know, you start free, sorry, R-E-E-Z-E, you know, where you get frozen, not necessarily freed up, but you get frozen because you're too, you know, paralyzed by anything that could happen. You just got to go out there and play and have fun doing it, being able to understand, all right, so on this particular play, I'm reading two. So, okay, he did this. Now the ball goes here.

I mean, make it simple again, understand, get that confidence up, and then just go out and do what you do. And KF is one of the best at being able to do that. I love, man. I love the support. Like I said, I was teeing that question up for you. I feel like it was kind of a softball and you could just knock it out of the park. And you absolutely did. I've taken up a lot of your time, man. And obviously, I appreciate you jumping on for another Monday morning with Matt. I appreciate all of your insight, keeping me honest on some of my insight as well.

Before we drop off, though, what are you doing around the community? I meant to bring this up way earlier in the conversation, but then the ISM stuff came up and wanted to make sure we touched on that. But what are you doing around the community? I meant to bring this up way earlier in the conversation, but then, you know, the, the ISM stuff came up and wanted to make sure we touched on that. But what are you doing around the community right now? Where can folks find you? I know you're doing some awesome stuff. Thanks. Yeah. So I'm currently a realtor for the Bales team at Urban Acres Real Estate. We do all everything, you know, whether it be Solon, Tiffin, Cedar Rapids, Lone Tree, anywhere in the surrounding area, Iowa City, Coralville, we can make sure to help you out. I also am doing a youth speed and agility clinic right now going on in Solon,

getting some little kids, trying to get them to understand the mechanics of running without being too crazy about it. I mean, we play games, we get all that kind of stuff, but making sure that we do everything correctly, safely, all that good stuff. But basically that's what we got going on. I know Laura is doing a pregame show for any of the home football games two hours before. So make sure you all check that out. I love man. And real quick, that's speeding, speeding agility clinic.

How can parents get their kids signed up for that? Unfortunately, so this one, it's all we're booked out. We just finished the first week, but I'll be sure to blast some stuff out when we when we pull that back up. Probably going to be mid spring or so. It's probably when we do it again. Awesome, man. Well, dude, Matt, I appreciate you hopping on again. I wish it was under better circumstances.

Hopefully we can be talking next Sunday after a win over Michigan state. I think I was going to turn it around and as you know, Hawkeye nation will be back and happy again. Once, once Iowa gets that first W under the belt, everyone's just a little bit, I think excited is the best word to put it. Very, very excited just to see Iowa win a football game. There's been a lot of anticipation for a lot of reasons coming up to this

season. So I understand it. Awesome. Matt, have a great day, buddy. Thanks, Andrew.

I appreciate it. And that concludes our second Monday morning with Matt recap of the Iowa football game this past week. And I appreciate you all tuning into today's episode of the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. I thought it'd be good to give it to you Sunday just cause if you're like me, kind of wondering what the hell is going on,

you know, with the program, obviously just wanting to see this program be successful. Yesterday was a tough pill to swallow, but wanted to get this out there so you could get some of the postgame analysis a little bit quicker. And obviously hearing from all the great and valuable insight from Matt. If you liked the show, please make sure to give us that five-star review.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well so you can keep up with everything that's going on on the show. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, have a fantastic weekend and go Hawks!