Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Pt 2 - Former Hawk and NFL lineman Julian Vandervelde joins the show + what the Hawks latest 2021 recruit brings to #Swarm21

Episode Date: July 30, 2019

The Iowa Hawkeyes landed their third recruit in the class of 2021, so we take a look at that before jumping into part two of our interview with Julian Vandervelde where he discusses the transition from Iowa to the NFL, what he thought of Mike Vick, and what he is up to now.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are listening to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering the Iowa Hawkeyes for the Locked On Sports Network, hosted by Andrew Wade, editor at dearoldgold.com. Welcome to our Wednesday morning edition of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Wade, back on a day two of this week with a podcast episode. That is right. We're finally getting back into the swing of things. I know it's been a little bit rough the last month or so. I'm getting episodes kind of sparingly here and there.

Basically took off the whole month of July, but we're back in full force. We have four episodes coming at you this week. We had one yesterday talking about the Iowa United and the TBT tournament. Then also on part two and part three, we aired the beginning part of our interview with Julian Vander Velde, the former Iowa Hawkeye offensive lineman and NFL offensive lineman. So make sure to check out that episode. You can find it literally anywhere you can get a podcast at. So Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and the brand new Himalaya Podcast app. Today, we're going to be continuing that theme with Julian Vander Velde. He talked to me for a really long time, wanted to make sure I share that in bits and pieces throughout the week. So part two is going to be today. Part three is going to be

tomorrow. And then on Friday, we have a special episode. We're going to be talking to Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United, and really answering some of your questions. Some of the questions that we had as we were watching the game, lots of interesting things and dynamics that went on that we want to make sure we get clarification on. And we're also going to be talking about what the future of this team holds. So that's going to be coming up on Friday. If you are tuning in for the first time, though, again, make sure to go like and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at.

That helps us get found by other Hawkeye listeners that want to listen to Hawkeye podcast. That's again, that's how we get found. So make sure to download, like and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and the Himalaya Podcast app. And if you are on Twitter, make sure to follow us at LockedOnIowa, and you can also follow us at LockedOnHawkeyes on Facebook. So that's how you're going to get the most up-to-date information if we're having an episode, if we're not having an episode, and just some witty remarks by me about the Iowa

Hawkeyes and the Iowa United. On today's episode, though, segment number one, we're going to be talking about Iowa Hawkeye football recruitment. The Hawks just signed another kid in the class of 2021, Jaden Harrell. Want to talk a little bit about him, talk a little bit about the class of 2021 in general, and then we're going to jump into our interview with Julian Vander Velde. You're going to really love this portion of the interview. Today we talk about his transition to the NFL. We talk about what kind of guy Mike Vick is in the locker room. We also talk about Julian's transition in Philly and what he is up to now. So that's going to be coming up on segment two and segment three.

But for now, let's jump right into segment number one. The Iowa Hawkeyes signed their third recruit in the class of 2021, and that cannot be understated. That's huge. All right. The Hawks already have three recruits in the class of 2021. They cannot be understated that's huge all right the Hawks already have three recruits in the class of 2021 they still have two seasons of football left they're just going to be juniors starting in a few weeks Jaden Harrell he's an urban to Iowa kid so that makes it even more important right the Hawks are successful when they get the in-state guys and

then grab some guys around the area because when you you get an Iowa guy, they know what it means to be an Iowa Hawkeye. They know what it means to play Iowa football. We talked about with Julian Vander Velde. You're going to hear this on the podcast with him as well. He grew up wanting to be a Hawkeye. That was his dream was to be a Hawkeye. You want to get kids who grew up Iowa fans. Obviously you want to get talented kids that are willing to work hard regardless.

But when you get a kid from Iowa, that's even more important just because there's not as much talent typically in the state. And you want to make sure you secure that as opposed to letting that talent go to an Iowa state or even a Nebraska who actually offered Harrell as a sophomore. So again, he is from Urbandale. Sounds like he grew up an Iowa fan, wanted to be an Iowa Hawkeye. This again is the third commit in the class of 2021. Also kind of cool, Jennings Dunker, the first commit in the class of 2021, has been upgraded to a four-star recruit. So the Iowa Hawkeyes currently have two four-star tackles in the class of 2021. Plus Jaden Harrell is a top 400 recruit. Depending on how his growth works,

what kind of camps he goes to, there's an opportunity there that he may grow into a four-star recruit as well. On tape, though, I really liked what I saw. He's 6'2", 215 pounds. He has a sophomore, right? So he has an opportunity to maybe gain 15, 20 more pounds, be an inside linebacker at 240, 6'2", 6'3". On tape, though, he was really adept at going to the ball, attacking the run game.

When they're doing sort of stretch plays, he was able to make his way down the line, kind of transition from blocker to blocker to make that tackle and follow that guy. He has the speed to go sideline to sideline. As far as coverage goes, I wasn't as impressed about his coverage skills. A few times on tape, he made the tackle, but he wasn't really where he needed to be in zone coverage from my perspective on that but again he's a sophomore right that that comes with time some of those instincts are going to grow as he gets more playing time for urbandale you know

a big time program in the state of iowa so really excited about that commitment really excited about the class 2021 it's a little bit early you know we still have a year and a half left but right now that class is ranked seventh in the nation. And a large part of that is because they go by total stars and not a lot of places are getting commits pretty early. So again, though, just like what happened with the Hawks in the class of 2020, getting that momentum is huge. It allows the Iowa Hawkeye coaching staff to focus on the future years out

and really build relationships with those guys. And as we saw the class of 2020, once you get one or two commits kind of going in, you know, just like you did with Deuce Hogan, you start really rolling in those commits very quickly. So some pretty awesome stuff all around, really excited about the progression of the recruitment at, you know,

the university of Iowa. Another big thing here is that Jay Neiman, the recent coaching hire has obviously been doing a pretty good job. Jaden Harrell actually, you know, shouted out Jay Neiman or coach Jay Neiman on the recent coaching hire, has obviously been doing a pretty good job. Jaden Harrell actually shouted out Coach Jay Neiman on his Twitter account. So it's nice to see him have an impact in the recruiting phase already, considering Reese Morgan's retired. And as much as people don't realize, that's a huge loss. So seeing Jay Neuman hard on the recruiting trail

and getting a guy to sign for Iowa is fantastic and a good sign for things to come in. So I'm excited about it. That'll do it for segment number one, though. Wanted to make sure we touched on, you know, the Hawkeye recruiting and what that kind of means for the Hawks right now. We're going to jump into segment two and segment three, which is our interview with Julian Vander Velde, but I do have a few messages for you.

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Get your 20% off and you'll never be happier about what you put on your feet again. All right, we are back with segment number two. I'm going to jump right into our interview with Julian Vander Velde. Like I said, if you haven't listened to yesterday's episode, I highly recommend doing that. We're going to be jumping in right where we stopped on yesterday's episode. And again, we're going to be talking about his transition to the NFL, Michael Vick and what kind of guy he is, what kind of locker room they had in Philadelphia, and also what Julian is up to now. You're going to love this part of the episode today. And we're going to be back with part three of our interview with Julian Vander Velde tomorrow morning as well.

So let's jump right into it right now. Yeah, so what was the hardest transition from college football to the NFL? I mean, you talked about the politics. Obviously, there's a lot more talent there as well. What was that like for the transition perspective? perspective? I think it was the most difficult thing I think for me was handling the adjustment in like the people around you and then the lifestyle, you know, carrying over. Like going from Iowa where, you know, I had grown up in the Quad Cities and in Iowa City, and then to throw me into Philadelphia,

there was a bit of a culture shock period. There was a time where the only places that I went where I would go from my apartment to the football complex to there was a little strip of town where you had like a Lone Star Steakhouse and like a Chick-fil-A, uh, and like a sports bar. And those, and that was like the only places that I went, um, cause I didn't know what sort of, you know, trouble you could get into in the, in the, in the big city, right. I didn't know, um, You know, any of that stuff.

So there was this big culture shock, you know, the first year being out there. But aside from that, I mean, you know, football is football at the end of the day. And, you know, Andy Reid's playbook is pretty extensive. He's a very creative guy. You know, but the guys in the room are still there's still offensive linemen the age range is a little bit uh more you know there's guys that have been uh playing in the

NFL longer than I've been playing football um and I think that having some of the the veterans that we had around guys like Jason Peters and Todd Harriman and uh you know those guys uh really helped uh me transition from college to that level. Yeah, was there any guy in particular that kind of took you under their wing as kind of a mentor to you? I mean, a little bit of everybody. It was kind of cool. You'd hear horror stories of veteran players who were, you know, who were worried about young guys coming in and taking their spot and taking their livelihood and so they'd sabotage them or wouldn't help them out

or would actively campaign against them or whatever within the locker room. I don't know if that really happens anywhere, but it never happened in Philly. The guys that we had in there were always happy to help you. If you ever had a question, one of the guys who's been around for a while, Mike McGlynn helped out a lot. A.Q. Shipley from Penn State was there. He helped out a lot.

We had a really good environment in that room where if you needed something, there was always going to be somebody there to help you. I made fast friends with Dallas Reynolds, who was from BYU, and then would go on and play for the Giants for a little bit. It was kind of cool that first camp that Austin Howard was still with the Eagles, and Austin and I played together at Davenport Central. He was a year ahead of me there and went on, you know, played at UNI, got picked up by Philadelphia,

and he and I got to share a camp together before he went out. And I think he went from there to the Jets and then to the Ravens. And, you know, I mean, he ended up playing like eight, nine years in the league, something like that. that's really crazy to think about especially Iowa football I mean you're familiar with Iowa football you know there's not people in high people in Iowa take high school football very serious I remember my I'm from Newton Iowa so everyone in Newton you know they loved Friday nights uh watching the football team play um you know at the stadium in town but there's not a lot of bigtime talent that comes out of the state of Iowa.

And so to see two guys from the same exact high school be in the same exact NFL camp is a pretty crazy experience. Yeah, it was pretty nuts. And it was, you know, I got pretty fortunate with the guys that I did play with. You know, Matt Tobin getting picked up by the Eagles and being in the same locker room, having that Iowa connection. You know, Marvin McNutt spent a little bit of time with us. You know, we had some Iowa guys come through,

and I always kind of felt like there was, you know, a little community of people that I could turn to, whether it was people that I knew from, you know, from home or from Iowa or, you know, just some vet guys that I managed to form relationships with. There was always, and we always had, you know, good coaches too, which is a big deal, you know, except for one time, and I'm not going to get into that, but, you know, we had Howard Mudd, who's a Hall of Fame offensive line coach, and Jeff Stoutland, who won a couple of national championships with Bama, you know, we had Howard Mudd, who's a Hall of Fame offensive line coach, and Jeff Stoutland, who won a couple of national championships with Bama, you know, when Chip Kelly came in.

You know, having those coaches set that culture and that environment in the locker room, I think, was a big help as well. Yeah, it sounds like Philadelphia wasn't as bad as, you know, coming from a guy who's obviously never played college football or NFL football. You know, you think of the transition from college to the NFL, and you hear all these horror stories and it doesn't sound like you had that bad of an experience from that perspective, which is great to hear. I mean, nice to know that there's potentially, you know, different locker rooms that don't necessarily handle things the way you expect them to from stories and movies and that kind

of stuff. Yeah, the big part, I mean, you know, we had Andy Reid coming in, and Andy's a devout Mormon, and so character was his first thing. There was, you know, no hazing allowed, and he set an example. Him and his, you know, wife would set an example for players and the way that they were supposed to behave. And, you know, it was kind of interesting to have this total switchover halfway through my career from Andy, who was very much so, you guys are professionals.

You know what it took to get you here. You're either going to do what it takes to stay here and be great or you're not. And he kind of gave us a lot of freedom and leeway. As long as you're not embarrassing the program and yourself, you're pretty much free to kind of do whatever. And then to have Chip Kelly come in straight from Oregon, who really, really ran that team like a college team to the point that there were some problems with some of the bets with the way that they were being treated.

I think it was a weird dichotomy to kind of see these two extremes of coaching at that level. Yeah, and while you were with Philadelphia, another kind of veteran I'm curious to hear about is Mike Vick. Did you form a relationship with him at all? And what was that like dealing with that controversy and then him having a breakout season with the Eagles? I mean, Mike was always cool.

We were pretty fortunate with the quarterbacks that we had. Mike was a great guy. I still kind of get upset that people get so, you know, even to this day people will use Mike Vick as the example of bad character in the NFL when there's people who have done so much worse things playing in the league. As far as a teammate, Mike was always a great guy.

He'd stick up for you. He'd come and talk to anybody. It didn't matter what position on the depth chart you were or how much money you were making. You can't say that for everybody. There's some guys who just hang out with people in their pay grade. Mike was always really cool. It was real helpful.

I was fortunate enough to have Nick Foles his first time through Philly. I was the backup center when he was the backup quarterback until Mike got hurt. And so I got to get to know him really well. We formed a friendship. We had Matt Barkley. We had Mark Sanchez.

We had Tim Tebow there for a little bit. I forget how crazy that locker room was. I completely spaced out on how many good quarterbacks came through there. How many high-profile quarterbacks came through there? I think that was one thing that really struck me was

when you think about the talent level of teams and the superstardom, we started out we picked up, we had, you know, we picked up Vince Young my first year there. And then we came, I forget what they called it. The Dream Team? Was it the Dream Team? Something along those lines.

They gave us like a name for that because, you know, Asante Samuel and LaShawn McCoy and all these, you know, LaShawn and we had all these superstars on the team. It was like, oh, so much talent in one locker room. And then I, you know, it was kind of like, well, how can they lose with all this talent? And I remember the first, like, away game we had, we went to play in Atlanta.

And I remember, like, looking out at the field and seeing the guys that were starting for Atlanta and just going, holy crap, this isn't like an us thing. Like, every scene, I isn't like an us thing. Like every scene, I forget sometimes because you're around these guys and you're like, oh my gosh, you know, every day you're around all these superstars. Literally every team is made up of those guys. Like every team's going to have their six or seven starters who make buku bucks and everybody knows their name and their household face.

You know, they are legitimate superstars, superstars, locking down other superstars, just superhuman freak athletes out on the field. You can label one team as too much of this or too much of that or so much talent, how can they be beat? But there's always going to be somebody on the other side of the ball who is at that level. of them might be playing in the NFL and only one or two of those might actually be starting which I think is just something that people don't always think about or realize as just a fan or a spectator yeah it's it's a very it's a very small percentage it's very elite company and um and it's really it's kind of cool to get to to see those guys and uh and and know them as as

people uh you know they get I think there's so much that goes into the mystique of the professional athlete. And they're just dudes, right? Like some of them, yeah, have been gifted with borderline superhero abilities, you know, from a physical perspective. But at the end of the day, they go home, they got families, they got kids, you know, they got a house and a mortgage to pay and then they got uh you know they they get in the car same as everybody

else you know like one person in the parking lot has a tesla there's a bunch of people driving you know like forbes and and stuff just in the work like it's not it's not insane right you get your handful of dudes who like i said are on that top end of the contract spectrum, but the vast majority of the guys in the NFL are just the best dudes that you ever played against in college out here working their butts off trying to make a buck. Yeah, I think that's one of the nice things about the NFL today is that they're trying to let people get a better inclination as to what happens on the daily. I think the shows like All or Nothing nothing or hard knocks really give an opportunity to

see inside the camps and give people that, you know, take away some of that mystique and aura of, you know, the camps you realize these people are just people. I was watching all or nothing this morning, actually. And Cam Newton was listening to Beyonce and they're all just kind of

dancing to it. And I thought like, well, that's interesting. I just never, you don't think about that when you think of NFL players. So pretty cool kind of, you know,

spectrum would come from. Yeah, it is. I really enjoyed that part of it. And how many guys are just, are just, you know, weird dudes.

I love how like with, with the, you know, guys like Mike Daniels, Adam Geddes, you know, kind of the, the other side of the NFL is coming out.

These guys who are, you know, me, Mike and Adam, you know, we're, we're really good friends in college. And we, we'd hung, we'd hang out and watch anime and play video games and stuff. And, you know, me, Mike, and Adam, you know, were really good friends in college. And we'd hang out and watch anime and play video games and stuff.

And, you know, I had a Dungeons & Dragons group that I'd play with on the weekly with some of my friends from my Japanese class and stuff. And, like, there's dudes in the NFL who are into everything that normal people are into. And I agree with you. I think that kind of gets lost sometimes. I can't remember how many times people would ask me, like, so what's it like on the week? What's a week in the life like for you?

Do you guys just show up on Sunday, put the pads on, and it's got to be crazy to have that much free time. What are you talking about? We're in that football complex from like 6 in the morning to 5.30, 6 o'clock at night, you know, four days a week. And then you travel for a day and then you go hit each other for hours on end. And then you get maybe, if you win, like you get one day, maybe two days off, you know, to hang out and recover. And you're going to spend that whole day like in the hot tub or the cold tub or the chiropractor or whatever uh you know getting your body to do it for another week like

it's it's not an easy thing it's not a small time commitment it's a it's a big big time commitment um you know and it's and it's a hard thing to do or else more people would do it absolutely and actually speaking of mike daniels i'm sure you probably saw the news that he just got cut actually I did, I saw that a couple of minutes before our phone call Somebody else's defensive line is going to get a lot better here in short order Oh absolutely Daniels and I'm sure especially because he wants to play for a Super Bowl contender it's gonna be pretty interesting to see where he signs but it's gonna be a huge upgrade for any defensive line. Oh absolutely, it's gonna be crazy. Well cool man, so obviously your pro career, you know a few years longer with the Eagles and the

Buccaneers what are you what are you doing now though what are you up to now that you're back in Davenport? So I'm selling solar power. Came back home, sold life insurance for like a month or something like that. Hated every minute of it. Love the company I was working for. Love the guys in the office. But it's just I'm not made to sell people on that. Someday when you die, and you will die, right?

Somebody else is going to get this money that you're paying for. It's the worst sales pitch in the world. right somebody else is getting this money that you're paying for like it's the worst sales pitch in the world um and i was fortunate enough to be approached through through linkedin by uh by jason hall who's the ceo of uh moxie solar here in the midwest um you know recently ranked the number one uh solar company in the state largest solar company in the state uh and we've moved into illinois and uh in our in our you know hot moving hot up the ranks of Illinois solar installers as well. So they were opening up a Davenport office right here on the river, wanted somebody to kind of run this middle market between the home office in Illinois

and the home office in Iowa and kind of stretch our influence. So they came after me, and I was happy to accept that. That's awesome. So do you think you'll stick around Davenport for the long term then? to stretch our influence and so they came after me and I was happy to accept that. That's awesome. So do you think you'll stick around Davenport for the long term then? That's the plan. You know, I wanted to, when I was picking out, you know, this, I did a bunch of research on renewable energy and different companies, you know, within the solar spectrum and whatnot and, you know, one thing that I wanted to do is I didn't want to, I to to find some place where i was going to be able to a stick around for the long term right

like i wanted to get with the company i was going to retire with someday um and then b i wanted to be able to do something that was going to enrich uh you know my my community and not from uh you know like a not necessarily from a large perspective but from a from a person-to-person perspective. So I don't see myself going anywhere. Moxie's humming. We've got a really good thing going right now. We've got a lot of big plans in the future. I like the position that I'm in.

I love this community. I love being back home and having that support structure around my wife and our three kids and just being able to every single day take somebody who's been sending money to Warren Buffett their whole life, who's got more than enough money, and put that back in their pockets that then goes to their kids' graduation or their college fund or their life insurance if they want to spend it for that or spend it at the mom and pop shop, you know, their college fund or, you know, or their life insurance if they want to spend it for that, or, you know, spend it at the mom and pop shop, do whatever, like keep that money circulating here in the Quad Cities. And, you know,

to be able to go kind of town to town and community to community and, you know, and help them become more sustainable and, you know, put that money back into their own communities and enrich their local economy. That's a great feeling every single time. So I don't see myself going anywhere. I love it.

And yeah, much better sales pitch than you're going to die at some point. So you should have insurance for someone else to be able to take money for your death. Yeah, like this is tangible, real stuff. Like, oh, you're paying $100 a month for power. Do you want to pay less than that? Cool. I can do that for you let's put more money back in your pocket yeah all right that will do it for our episode today again

i appreciate you tuning in on this wednesday morning i appreciate all your love and support if you did like what you hear today please make sure to go to wherever you downloaded this podcast at right so apple podcast google podcast spotify or the himalaya podcast app, right? So Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or the Himalaya Podcast app. Like, subscribe, review, rate us, do all that fun stuff. It helps us get noticed by other Iowa Hawkeye fans, so make sure to do that. Also, follow us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa, and follow us on Facebook at LockedOnHawkeyes. We have some great giveaways coming up, and I want to make sure you're available and in the know about what's going on. A lot of those giveaways are going to center around, you know, we treating reposting that kind of stuff from our Twitter and Facebook

account. And if you don't have a Twitter or don't have a Facebook, or you're not following us on either, you're not going to be able to get as likely to win one of our prizes that we're giving away. It's going to be a little bit easier if you have Twitter or Facebook. Again, just a quick reminder that on tomorrow's episode,

we are going to be having Julian Vander Velde back on for the final segment of our kind of three-part series of interviews with him. And we're also going to be having Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United on the show Friday morning to talk about all of your questions, talk about how this team kind of came together and talk about what we expect for this team next year. So again, I appreciate you tuning in on this beautiful Wednesday morning. Have a great day, Iowa Hawkeye Nation, and go Hawks! We'll see you next time.