Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Reactions and analysis of Iowa's shutout win over Northwestern

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

We break down Iowa's 20-0 shutout of the Northwestern Wildcats. What went well and what are areas of opportunity for improvement plus Zach gives the rundown of just how crappy Ryan Field actually is. ...Spoiler: they use porta potties as restrooms inside the stadium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of the U.S. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off right away! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith!
Starting point is 00:00:21 Oh! He's got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. High on. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.
Starting point is 00:00:32 It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network.
Starting point is 00:01:18 I am Andrew Wade, and I'm joined here by my co-host, Zach Cohen. Zach, like we've always talked about before, it's great to be talking about a game that we actually won. You were actually at the game though. How was your weekend? How was Evanston? How was the crap hole known as Ryan field? Yeah. So I, so that's the first Iowa game I've been to against like a big 10 opponent. I went to the 2015 big 10 championship and Indy, but this was the first game actually at another stadium.
Starting point is 00:01:48 And it was – so I knew a lot from people that it wasn't the best, that, you know, the field wasn't great and stuff like that. But once I kind of got into the stadium actually, I mean, it's – I'm trying to be nice. So you could tell it's very – It's a cesspool of crap. Yeah, you could tell it's very old. I mean, some of the stuff's okay, but it's – I'm trying to be nice. So you could tell it's very – It's a cesspool of crap. Yeah, you could tell it's very old. I mean, some of the stuff's okay, but it's just like they come out through
Starting point is 00:02:10 like inflatable, like wildcat thing. Like it's just very – it's like high school. And like it's just – the whole thing reminds me of a high school stadium. And even my girlfriend who was with me was like, this is crazy. This is like – from this, from Kinnick, feels like completely different. And it was just – this feeling stinks. It's not great. I mean, I don't even think there's a guy's bathroom.
Starting point is 00:02:32 There's just like porter potties inside. That's all there is, like lined up. Wait, there's legitimately just porter potties? So they have a woman's bathroom, but I don't think they have a men's bathroom. Yeah, no, seriously. Like I was like – I didn't see men's, I only saw women's. And then there was just port-a-potties like five next to each other. I'm serious. Like by the concourse, it's insane. And, um,
Starting point is 00:02:51 this is a D one football program. No, it's really bad. No, it's really bad. And like, they have like a lot of donors and they actually just donated for the basketball stadium that got a little better, but dude, I don't know what they spend their money towards with the boosters, but that stadium is terrible. But, um, all But all in all, it was a terrible day. It was windy, chilly, and it rained, but we stuck through it. I was really happy. Got to see, you know, the final score here,
Starting point is 00:03:16 the PA announcer say 20 to zero, I will win, which is awesome. And it was cool. Cause it was actually, I found out the first shutout at Ryan Field since 1999, so over 20 years. So it was awesome to be there and kind of be a part of that. And obviously everything wasn't perfect, as we'll talk about later, but it was really cool to be there. And like you said, dude, it's awesome to be there for a win. My last two games have been to Kinnick against Wisconsin and Penn State, and we both lost those games.
Starting point is 00:03:42 Oh, man, those were rough games to watch. Yeah, I know. So I'm happy to actually see a win for once because I started to think that I was just Hawkeye bad luck yeah man uh well I'm glad you had a good time or at least you know enjoyed the win yeah seeing it on television it looked like it was a lot of Iowa fans man like dude like it was just an Iowa home game no there was no Northwestern fans they had fan cams that they would like do during official timeouts and things like that.
Starting point is 00:04:06 And they were literally showing the same people just because, like, there was not many – there was – like, my whole section was all Iowa fans. It was great to talk a little, you know, a little crap about Stanley, if you want to, about play calling. Like, people understood why isn't Goodson out there. So it was nice to be able to, like, shoot the crap with all the people around me and kind of make fun of northwestern uh together and it's uh yeah i wasn't really by much northwestern fans so that made it even better too definitely man i mean big
Starting point is 00:04:33 shout out to the iowa football fans that made the trek um obviously a big population of iowa fans and the chicago area so awesome to see that support out there um today's show though we're going to be basically talking about the game we already started talking a little bit about the field and Northwestern in general. I just really wanted to know that quickly. So cover that. It's how you think it is. Don't worry. It's exactly. I mean, it literally looks like it would be probably a top 100 Texas high school field. Like it wouldn't even be. No, I think it would. Yeah, exact top 100. I think there's probably a great deal of them better than that state. Yeah. I worded that so poorly, but basically I meant like there's 90 Texas fields that are probably better. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:11 But on today's show, we're going to be covering basically the game, just giving our thoughts on the game, kind of where Iowa is going to go from here. Just basically breaking it down like we do every single Monday after a football game. Before we jump into that, though, just make sure to go follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Zach is going to be announcing who won the Jordan Kanzari autograph memorabilia later this week. I know we've been teasing it for a long time. We've had some technical difficulties, but we're going to be dropping those winners this week and we're going to be getting those memorabilia autographed pretty soon so we can send it out to you hopefully within the next couple weeks. So stay tuned for that.
Starting point is 00:05:46 Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And if you've been listening to us before and you haven't done this already or if you're listening to us for the very first time today, I know you're going to love it. So make sure to go to Spotify, Google, Apple Podcasts, or Himalaya Podcast app and review us and subscribe so you can get every single episode downloaded directly to your mobile device Zach let's jump into it man um the game let's start off some positive stuff before we
Starting point is 00:06:10 get into some of the negative stuff I think personally if you I mean I'm sure you're on Twitter after the game you probably noticed that Iowa football fans still are not happy and I think there's there's some reason you know there's some merit to that but at the end of the day we won 20 nothing we beat a team that we can't usually beat for whatever freaking reason prior to this game Pat Fitzgerald was eight and five against Iowa and we were going I mean Northwestern sucked yesterday I mean they are really that bad but we won 20 nothing man um what were your thoughts uh what what was probably the highlight of the game for you so walking into the game um I know that we've kind of talked about it in a sense um about you know I was pretty confident
Starting point is 00:06:51 that we were going to win and obviously I thought we were going to play well and we did and but you there was kind of a thing where I understood um whether it's Purdue or Northwestern that you kind of thought that you know we're a better team but for some reason they found out a way to scheme against us to win so i mean even things in the beginning i had nervous uh stan we were driving stan they got sacked um as you saw i when i literally walked in as keith duncan missed a field goal and i was like holy shit it's gonna be a long day but um unfortunately it worked out well um some things that i liked was that our defense looked incredible. I know that Northwestern's offense isn't anything to write home about, but we really did look good. So I was really proud of
Starting point is 00:07:30 those. I was really proud of those guys out there and thought that, you know, we really hunkered down. We have to, and I think it's good and reassuring to see that our defense plays well and it has to, especially on the road and bad weather. So that was awesome. Is there any kind of, we'll get more into the good things that happened, but kind of what was your kind of perspective on the game? Yeah. I mean, I completely agree. The very first, like the first five minutes I was like, Oh God, we're going to do it again. Aren't we?
Starting point is 00:07:55 We're going to blow a game to Northwestern. I mean, we, we got that, that interception we're on the 30 yard line. I was like, there's no way we don't score here and then to get sacked you know and again to be sacked because of the interior offensive line blowing pass protection again was very frustrating and then to see Keith Duncan miss a field goal you know he's usually pretty consistent I mean even now he's hit 19 field goals which is first in the nation he's still three ahead of the next guy been really good good throughout the year, but obviously I'm fortunate to start to the game. I thought, like you said, the defense played fantastic. The defensive line, I thought was really impressive, especially as they rotated so many guys in. You saw a lot of
Starting point is 00:08:34 pressure. And I mean, kudos to the Northwestern quarterback. He did a pretty good job of scrambling out of pressure a decent amount. We could have had even more sacks had he'd been an immobile quarterback like a Joe Flacco for the Denver Broncos. So those are some things that I really like to see. Coming up, though, we're going to be talking about some of the things we didn't like. Maybe touch a little bit more on the defense, talking about Tyler Goodson. And I think we both probably want to talk about Sam Laporta and what kind of game. Oh, yeah.
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Starting point is 00:09:53 roman.com slash locked for a free visit and get started today. All right, man. You know, let's, let's talk about some of the things we didn't like as much. i do want to touch on one first let's talk about some fourth down stuff um what was the sentiment in the stadium i can only imagine people were pretty pissed off when iowa decided to not only not only punt the ball but not even try to draw people off sides take a delay a game and then punt the ball. What, what was the sentiment inside the stadium? What were your thoughts on that? I mean, I was screaming like when you're in the fourth and one we had to do it, it wasn't even, I was like,
Starting point is 00:10:35 I was right by the yard marker and it wasn't even like a yard. It was like inches, dude. Like it was bad because I thought that we're going to have Stanley fall forward or do like a quarterback sneak works in those situations in like a yard situation I think it was like over 75 percent of the time or 70 percent of the time in the NFL or something I saw and it's just one of those plays that it's the most efficient run you can have as a QB sneak especially when your quarterback is as large as Nate Stanley is and I thought that it was kind of just us Kirk and Brian having their tail between their legs and it's just not wasn't really showing any aggression and things like that but then at the end of the game as you saw what we went for it
Starting point is 00:11:08 on like fourth and eight and buyer had like the 10 yard catch so it's like I don't get the kind of difference in discrepancies why you go for it on that but you won't go for it on the fourth and one and I mean at that point with Western's offense it wasn't even looking good so it's like our defense was looking better than our offense so why not trust this thing that's been doing better which is our defense um i'm telling you if nate stanley quarterback steaks on fourth and inches i think he makes it eight out of ten times like without a doubt maybe even nine out of ten so the fact that they weren't able to do that and didn't show the kind of having the stones to be able to do that kind of worried me but um i thought going for a fourth and eight was awesome that they did that and they schemed up good play calling um
Starting point is 00:11:44 and obviously the iowa fans were pissed off i know that uh throughout the game a big I thought going for a fourth and eight was awesome that they did that and they schemed up good play calling. And obviously the Iowa fans were pissed off. I know that throughout the game a big kind of getting a feel for the crowd is that a lot of people like Goodson more than Makai Sargent. I know that's probably not a surprise to anyone, but even with Sargent being in the game, like mostly coming out a lot, like people were booing or kind of like chanting, we want Goodson and stuff like that. So I'm kind of getting a feel that the Iowa fans are starting to get tired
Starting point is 00:12:11 of Makai Sargent, not that he's terrible, but I think everyone loves the explosiveness and kind of grittiness that Tyler Goodson has if it wasn't shown last week or on Saturday when he lowered his shoulder on that big run and basically ran over the safety or cornerback. So, um, that's just the big thing as well. I mean, kind of watching it from your perspective, was there anything that, um, you were kind of mad about besides the fourth downs? Um, definitely. I do want to touch on the fourth down. Cause you mentioned, I don't know why they would go for it. And I thought a lot about this, right? Cause,
Starting point is 00:12:42 uh, when they didn't go, I think first I'm still pissed off about the fourth down and taking the delay a game. That was so stupid. Like you're trying to get more yards to the punter. It's like, come on. At least do a hard – like at least try to do a hard count and get the guy off. I mean, at least try.
Starting point is 00:12:55 I also do agree. I'd rather see them lose – I'd rather see them not convert the fourth down because Nate Stanley got stuffed than to see them pump the ball because Nate Stanley hasn't – like, dude, I don't know know what it is that guy can run forward behind Tyra Linder on pretty darn well so that was just really frustrating I saw some some good opinions on it and and part of it was trust your defense you don't need to score that many points but I'm really much more of the the mindset of you never let Northwestern stay in the game so in that situation I think you go for it you trust your defense to to be able to
Starting point is 00:13:25 stop them on a short field as far as the fourth and eight and why they went for it there i think it was that weird situation where they were not no man's land yeah there were no man's like they couldn't kick the field goal but they weren't far far enough back yeah i mean they're on the 30 yard line so at that point i think you do have to go for it um which is kind of my thoughts on that i will say i think it's crap that fans would be booing. If fans were really booing Makai Sargent, that's such crap. Not necessarily booing, I would say, but there was a kind of disgruntledness, I guess would be the better word of kind of like, you know,
Starting point is 00:13:56 like you would miss a block or we would see things and maybe the naked eye wouldn't see because we were kind of close to it. And fans just want Goodson. He's the new shiny toy and I don't blame them. As we know, we love Goodson. We talk so much about him. His mom and dad even have a lot of interactions with us on Twitter, so we love them.
Starting point is 00:14:13 He's a great family. So it's just one of those things. Like, it's hard. They weren't booing him or anything, like booze, but it was just a disgruntledness of, like, you know, he would have, like, a run for one yard, and it's kind of like, oh, when are we going to get Goodson in? Or he would be in for four straight plays,untledness of like, you know, he would have like a run for one yard and it's kind of like, oh, like when are we going to get Goodson in? Or he would be in for four straight plays and they'd be like, oh, like where's Goodson not in?
Starting point is 00:14:30 Like, is he okay? Like there was a kind of a rumbling that, you know, like there's going to be more of a timeshare than it's thought to be. And then Goodson would have these big plays and it's just kind of like, okay, so why isn't he in more? Like he's the only one having explosive plays. He got that 30 or whatever yard run called back, but that was amazing. Like, so it's just, I don't know, man.
Starting point is 00:14:49 It's just when you're Iowa and you're running and the only guy making the big plays is Goodson. It's really frustrating to see why when he doesn't get many touches, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, no, I definitely get it. I mean, I think the fact that he only got one touch in the first half was a little bit ridiculous.
Starting point is 00:15:05 I will say this though. I mean, I do get it. I mean, I think the fact that he only got one touch in the first half was a little bit ridiculous. I will say this, though. I mean, I do like Sargent. I am probably a Sargent apologist, if anything. I think he's a pretty good back. He does a really good job in pass protection. I think he does do a really good job of falling forward quite often. There's a lot of little nuances that I think he does that some people may not realize.
Starting point is 00:15:20 I do think Goodson is a more explosive back, though. And unfortunately, with our offensive line, Sargent is just not getting a lot of opportunity to even make a first cut before he's getting hit where I think Goodson has the speed and the explosiveness where he might be. He's better at vision and cuts. I feel like, you know, when McKay's in the open field, we're in stuff like that. He's pretty good when you know, one-on-one,
Starting point is 00:15:38 but Goodson has like this ability to make the right cuts, to be patient, to hit the right holes you know and then when he gets an open field the kid's super fast so and i and the thing that sucks is i do love sergeant last year that is a good running back and i really thought he was going to become almost like an ackham wadley type but dude just seeing goodson with the bonus hands and even he was lining up a receiver a lot you may have not seen but he's lying he was lining up in the slot on the outside there they really are trying to get the ball in his hands. And like you said, one touch in the first half, we're lucky we weren't losing. Yeah, I mean, I will disagree, though.
Starting point is 00:16:08 I do think Sargent – so the vision piece, I think for the running game, it's less about the vision and more about the fact that Goodson can get away from the defenders when he's getting tackled in the backfield. And I do think that's really important, too. I do think Sargent has good vision. That at least has my opinion. But I do agree, Goodson should be getting the ball a little little bit more I also like the way Torin Young ran the ball I thought he was kind of lowering his shoulder and bulldozing through people I think we probably hit this pretty hard though I do think we'd had a good
Starting point is 00:16:36 discussion on that coming up though we're going to touch on you know Sam Laporta talk a little bit more about this defensive line how well they did and I also want to cover the Oliver Martin situation in the wide receiver group. I felt like that was a kind of an area that was masked because of Tyrone Tracy, but there was definitely some issues there. So coming up, we're going to cover all that. All right, man. Let's, let's touch on some Sam Laporta stuff. I thought he played really well, man. And people,
Starting point is 00:17:03 people didn't know who he was. I mean, he was a three-star-star recruit he's a tight he's been getting in the game every single game he just mostly been used as a blocker or special teams but um he looked explosive man like he actually he looked like the next you know great titan i think you actually posted something about that on our twitter account this guy is gonna be good no dude i didn't know who he was and then he had the phenomenal catch that they called not a catch and then he had the phenomenal catch that they called not a catch and then he had another good catch um this kid's the real deal and I didn't know who he was but he's actually from Illinois so it was kind of he probably had a family there so he wanted to show out more but this guy was all state in high school dude and as an offense as a receiver and
Starting point is 00:17:41 a cornerback so he's all state both sides of the ball. And his senior year, I posted this, but he had, okay, so 68 receptions. This is all in high school, guys. Think about this. High school players do not put up these type of stats. He was 68 for 1,457 yards, and he had 19 touchdowns. And then on defense, he played cornerback, had 53 tackles and seven picks. That's absurd. Dude.
Starting point is 00:18:08 And even for career stats, if no one knew about him now, but he also ranks second in Illinois history. I'll repeat that again. The whole state of Illinois, since high school football has been around, he's second in the history of touchdowns with 50 touchdowns in his career. He's been on varsity since he was a freshman. Dang. I mean, that is really impressive. I'm excited. I mean, I think people don't realize Iowa was probably not expecting to lose TJ Hawkinson and Noah Fant in the same year. Obviously, we're having a little bit of a
Starting point is 00:18:39 down year now, but the tight end position is going to be freaking phenomenal the next four years. We got Sam Laporta. We got Josiah Myman coming in as well he was the same class as sam he's going to red shirt this year next year we got elijah yelverton um we also got luke lachey there's a chance we get theo johnson although i feel like he's going to go to penn state this tight end position set up pretty darn well for the future man dude but it's. And the fact that one thing is guys like, you know how we talked about how I was a very athletic tight ends. This guy is a receiver and a tight ends body. Like he got bigger, but he is receiver. He played receiver throughout all high school and he was a cornerback. Can you name someone? Does it even make sense to you, Andrew, having a college tight end who played cornerback in high school? Like that's crazy. So he's kind of like a prototype, almost like a Noah fan, right?
Starting point is 00:19:27 Where if you line them up wide, you won't be surprised. But if you also line them up on the line, you won't be surprised either. And I think that it was awesome for us. I mean, seeing him and like even doing the research really made my day. I think Hawkeye fans, this guy is serious. He's very good, especially with Brandon Smith out. He could be a serious mismatch for a lot of these linebackers and he's the biggest games we have come up against
Starting point is 00:19:49 minnesota and wisconsin right yeah man it's gonna be huge if it's gonna definitely be a weapon that we can utilize and something they're gonna have to watch out for i mean on that one play that got called you know got called back it was unfortunate um i think he the thing if nate stanley leads him a little bit better he comes out that catch as opposed to him having to kind of reach behind himself. Agreed. Which is something people aren't talking about, but definitely something to keep in mind as well. But the fact that he came out of the backfield,
Starting point is 00:20:12 the linebacker didn't even realize he was coming, that is going to be huge for the offense going forward. Also, I want to talk about the wide receivers. And we didn't see Oliver Martin again. And, again, I don't want to keep harping on Oliver Martin, but it is kind of – It's right. No, it's just because after everything we've done through this offseason, after all the Iowa fans, everyone freaking out about him getting
Starting point is 00:20:31 the transfer papers and being eligible this year, he might as well not even be eligible this year. I really wish he redshirted or got another year of eligibility because he's basically just a practice team player. He's a practice squad guy. He's maybe getting in, but he's not doing anything. It's not really fair. They aren't really scheming him the ball.
Starting point is 00:20:48 But I'll tell you what, Nico Regani had like two or three bad drops, like bad drops. Yep. And it was just not very good looking. And I'll tell you what, now they have Max Cooper returning punts now. I don't know if they're trying to phase Nico Regani out. I don't know if they're – Yeah, that's interesting.
Starting point is 00:21:04 Dude, seriously, think about that. Geno Stone and Max Cooper back for punt returns. Geno Stone was the kind of close man, and they had Cooper back. So Reganey's out there now. And I'm telling you what, I don't know how many chances they're going to give Nico Reganey. But, I mean, after that game, I saw some horrendous drops he had. And he's not even on special teams anymore.
Starting point is 00:21:23 You really got to start wondering when Oliver Martin's going to getting a chance because um it's kind of bullshit to be pretty frank with you pardon my French but he needs to be getting an opportunity right yeah I think I completely agree I mean before you know earlier in the season I was okay with the fact that Oliver Martin wasn't getting in the game mostly because I felt like with Brandon Smith Amir Smith-Marset and Tyrone Tracy and Nico Reganey, the four of them are doing really well. And up until the last two games, I thought Reganey was doing pretty well, and he's been leading the team in targets in some of those matchups. But, yeah, he got taken off special teams against Penn State.
Starting point is 00:21:55 No, against Purdue, excuse me. It was Max Cooper and Geno Stone back there as well. That's two games in a row. He's not even listed as the number one punt returner anymore on the depth chart. And the fact that he had three – I would say i would say too bad dude two of them are really bad too like i think you could suit out there and go out there andrew and still make the catch even in the rain i got i got good hands man so yeah no come on but but two i mean two drops the third one he probably should have came down with it hit him in the hands i know it's a diving catch but
Starting point is 00:22:20 you're d1 dude you got to catch that how at what point do you put over martin in i i think you have to put all the martin like okay here's the thing i gotta trust in kirk ferens and that they obviously know something but it does seem very weird that he's just not getting in the game um is it something he doesn't understand the playbook is he not up to snuff they said he was going to be playing and well the funny yeah i completely agree and note the funny thing is andrew too the whole beginning of the year, you know what the show I remember, they were all talking to Oliver about what positions he's learning. And they said, what are you going to play at this year?
Starting point is 00:22:51 And he literally said in the interview with David or whatever, 24-7 sports or whatever, he goes, I've been practicing at every position so I can get a better understanding of the offense. And guess what Brian Ferencz came out and said right this week, or Kirk, they go, oh, Oliver's been practicing at the X or the Z instead of the X which Brandon Smith's at um so he's not really learning that he hasn't been practicing at the position Andrew am I crazy or conspiracist or does it kind of seem like a little bit of a witch hunt going on right now
Starting point is 00:23:17 where um they're not really giving us an answer why he's not playing either yeah it does I mean they're they're pretty they're usually pretty uh mom is the word on type of things like that. So we're never going to get a true answer, but it is getting really frustrating. And again, I was okay with it until I saw the drops on Saturday. We cannot have the drops when we play a team like Wisconsin, we need everyone to have sure hands. I will say Tyrone Tracy had a fantastic game, but he's also had some issues with drops as well earlier in the season.
Starting point is 00:23:43 But you know, it's just an interesting thing. I'm very curious to see what they do against Wisconsin. Regan's been losing his spot, so. Yeah, no, I wonder what they're going to do as well, too. Because, so one thing is that, you know, tell me if I'm wrong, but do you agree with this? So, obviously, Shimon Tracy's playing the outside X, where Brandon Smith used to be.
Starting point is 00:24:04 But could you see us maybe playing not necessarily Laporta being the X or the X or slot receiver, the Z, but could you see a little more him working out of the slot? Um, as well as Oliver Martin, do you think they're going to give both of them a try out of the slot just because Laporta was a former wide receiver? Or do you think we could see a situation where Laporta gets more playing time over a buyer or something like that do you see him making his lineup in either of those senses more I think so Martin to me his build his like play style fits the slot receiver position better anyway so I think it makes a lot of sense to have Martin in the slot I don't think it makes sense to have Laporta in the slot I understand his wide receiver background but that transition to tight
Starting point is 00:24:43 end is tough already. They already have someone like an Oliver Martin who I think would be ahead of Sam Laporta anyways if they were to put Laporta at the wide receiver position. I think what we're going to see, though, is more two tight end sets or more even three tight end sets with the ability to use Laporta. And we've seen Laporta play a lot of times, and actually rolling him out and getting him in the actual passing game and getting him involved there. So I think we are going to see Laporta play a little bit more and play in those two, rolling out and getting him in, you know, in the actual passing game and getting him involved there.
Starting point is 00:25:05 So I think we are going to see Laporta play a little bit more and play in those two, three tight end sets, especially if Nate Weeding continues to stay injured. But I do think Martin makes more sense in the slot and I'm hoping we see that happen against Wisconsin. It'd be an interesting wrinkle that, you know, we don't have Brandon Smith, but we can get Oliver Martin in there and we still have a pretty solid wide
Starting point is 00:25:22 receiver group, maybe get Laporta involved. I also, to be fair, I think Sean we still have a pretty solid wide receiver group. Maybe get Laporta involved. I also, to be fair, I think Sean Byers a pretty solid tight end. He played wide receiver in high school, the kids athletic. I just, I feel like it's hard after seeing Laporta's athleticism do it. And I'm like, Oh, you know what I mean? We haven't seen that all year until Northwestern, which is awesome. Yeah. But like you said, we touched on a lot of great points,
Starting point is 00:25:42 talked about the good points. You know, it was still a shutout there for the first time in 20 years. Our offense didn't look great, but we still had two touchdowns, so I'll take it. We had over 100 rushing yards, which we haven't done in a while. So I'm really excited about that, dude. We found a diamond in the rough in Sam Laporta. Perfect timing for this conference play.
Starting point is 00:25:59 And also I heard David Eichold or something tweet out that I guess the reporters or something, or he heard that people think, like college reporters, that this could be a situation where people are going to start seeing Sam Laporte and be like, why did we not offer him? So I think he could be his coming out party pretty soon. It wouldn't be bad if it's on national TV against Minnesota or Northwestern. But a lot of positives to take away from this man. I don't know about you, but I do feel better. I'm not 100% great, but I feel like we do have building blocks and some things to improve on and build off of for Wisconsin, right?
Starting point is 00:26:33 Absolutely. We're on the way there. I do feel a little bit better knowing we can probably match up with Wisconsin, especially after seeing the Illinois blueprint. We'll talk about that later this week. Absolutely, man. We're going to have a lot of stuff to talk about. I definitely want to cover Minnesota because I've been getting into some Minnesota folks on Twitter. I want to talk about my thoughts on Minnesota later in the week.
Starting point is 00:26:53 But we have a lot of content to cover, and it's a bye week. So we don't need to touch on Wisconsin until next week. Then I'll end it for today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Again, we've got to win. The win's a win. Be happy with the Hawkeye fans. We got a shutout 20-0. And Iowa wasn't putting the pedal to the metal on offense either.
Starting point is 00:27:10 They were playing a little bit conservative. So it's just one of the things, got to take it with what you can. We got a W. Two weeks from now, we're playing Wisconsin. We appreciate you all tuning into the show, though. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And make sure to go give us a five-star review and subscribe wherever you download this podcast app.
Starting point is 00:27:26 Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation. And go Hawks. Go Hawks.

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