Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Reactions to Iowa's blowout win over MTSU | Nebraska got stomped | AP Poll is about to get interesting

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

We're doing a breakdown of Iowa's easy win versus Middle Tennessee State. What did we like and what were the few issues we actually saw? We end the show by covering a few of the games in the Big Ten and the top-25 giving a few minutes to specifically hate on Nebraska. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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!

Oh! He's got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. High on. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.

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 Lockdown Sports Network.

As always, I am one of your hosts, Andrew Wade, editor over at dearoldgold.com. And today I'm actually not joined here by my co-host, Zach Cohen. He had to go to a Bears game, watch that kind of misery of an offensive performance, but they did win the game. Anyways, he is not here, though, for our Monday morning show of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. So I will be flying solo today. We're going to be breaking down everything that happened in the Iowa versus Middle Tennessee State game. Obviously a huge win for the Hawks in terms of the scoreboard, 48-3.

Again, Middle Tennessee State, Conference USA team, a team that isn't supposed to give Iowa a lot of problems. But nonetheless, we saw a lot of really great things from Iowa, and there are some good takeaways. Also some interesting takeaways from this weekend's action in sports as well within the AP Top 25 and the Big Tense. We're going to cover all that on today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. If you are tuning in for the very first time today, make sure to like, review, and subscribe

wherever you downloaded this podcast at, whether that is Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the brand new Himalaya Podcast app. And also make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. That's where we're going to be posting a lot of great content. We've got some awesome hype videos coming out. Lots of great stuff on Twitter. We have lots of giveaways. The Jordan Kanzari stuff was something that just concluded a few days ago. I know Zach's planning on getting the posting up to draw the winner for that, but he was having some technical difficulties. So we'll be getting that out as well. But again, if you're following us on our social media stuff,

you're going to be having the opportunity to enter into contests. We're going to be giving away some Iowa Hawkeye autograph memorabilia. Probably the next time we reach another follower milestone, we'll be doing another giveaway. So stay tuned for all of that. But again, let's jump into the Iowa game. Obviously a huge win for the Hawks, winning 48-3. What an offensive explosion. One of the things coming into this game that I thought was going to be interesting was,

first off, Middle Tennessee State's run defense was absolutely atrocious. The 11th worst in the nation. It showed big time in this game. The Hawks just absolutely dominated Middle Tennessee State on the ground. Something I thought was just really impressive all around. Putting together maybe the best performance I've truly ever seen from the Hawkeyes. 351 yards on the ground, averaging 6.9 yards a carry, which is just absurd. Torin Young led the way. He had a big

breakaway run. I believe it was 52 yards. Basically took down, had 131 yards, rushing on 11 attempts for an 11.9-yard average. Tyler Goodson, another fantastic day for the freshman. Brought in 97 yards on 12 carries, and Makai Sargent had 91 yards on 14 carries and one touchdown. Even Amir Smith-Marset got involved in the mix on that end around. Had two carries for 28 yards and one touchdown. Even, you know, even Amir Smith-Marset got involved in the mix on that end around. Had two carries for 28 yards and that touchdown. One of the things that really

has stood out for me though from just the rushing attack is how well they're actually doing getting these guys into the mix. You know, it's tough when you have four talented running backs. I mean, I'm including Ivory Kelly Martin in that as well. He's a guy who kind of has dropped on the depth chart, but keep in mind, this guy was a starter as well. He's a guy who kind of has dropped on the depth chart. But keep in mind, this guy was a starter last year. He was a starting running back prior to having some ankle injuries and kind of losing his job to Sargent. Now it looks like Goodson has kind of passed him up.

But that speaks more to Goodson's talent than it does to Kelly Martin's talent. Man, every freaking time I see Tyler Goodson run with the ball, just absurd. It just reminds me of Akram Wadley so much. I mean, some of the stuff he was doing, his vision, his open field vision, his cuts, just so smooth and so quick. I mean, yesterday, or excuse me, on Saturday when he caught the ball and almost hurled the defender, barely got tripped up. Stuff like that is something that we're not used to seeing from Iowa Hawkeye football players, you know, from a skill position standpoint.

Iowa typically doesn't recruit as well from an athletic standpoint, right? We do a great job of building people up in the trenches, and we don't typically have those big-time athletes at those skill positions. And this year, we're seeing that with the offense. We really have it all around. Brandon Smith is one of the best, if not the best, jump ball threats I've seen in my time watching the Iowa Hawkeyes. Amir Smith-Marset is an absolute burner.

Kind of reminds me a little bit of Tim DeWight, a little bit taller, obviously. But Tyler Goodson is a guy that looks kind of Akron Wadley. And having those three guys all together is just absurd. And then you think about Nico Regani and Tyrone Tracy and all that stuff. This offense just really got me going. I'm excited. That was really the big takeaway I took from this. Obviously, Middle Tennessee State, again, not a powerhouse program,

not a team that's going to be upsetting a lot of Big Ten teams. I mean, they've never even beaten a Big Ten team in the history of their program. They're 20 or so years in FBS play, but that doesn't mean they're not a good program. In addition to the offense, one of the things I really loved was the offensive line. I thought the offensive line play was fantastic throughout the game. Until later in the game when they were doing some blitzes and trying to do some play action stuff, I thought the backup, the second string interior offensive line, struggled a little bit with some of the blitz protection.

But during the first part of the game, I thought the offensive line handled Middle Tennessee State's blitzes absolutely perfectly. Sargent, again, stepped up huge as a running back, knocking down a couple of the defenders. Going into this game, one of the guys I was really worried about was Khalil Brooks an outside linebacker and the fact that Middle Tennessee State loves to send him and other guys on big time blitzes and you saw that throughout the game I mean Iowa was getting a little bit ballsy doing some of the play action passes while Middle Tennessee State was bringing pressure but you know kudos to those guys up front they did a fantastic job of making sure Nate Stanley stayed mostly clean in the pocket. Only two sacks on the day, so not a bad day for the interior offensive line and the tackles in general.

Going to be even better once we get Aleric Jackson back next week, hopefully. It sounds like he did dress for the game. Obviously, he did not get into the game, but I think Kirk is excited that he's going to be able to probably play against Michigan. Just a quick shout-out to the interior offensive line. If you do follow pro football focus, I'm not a huge advocate for it. I think just like with any stat, you've got to take things with a grain of salt. There's a little bit of give and take to each thing.

The one thing Pro Football Focus does do, I really do like to use them for, is offensive line play. It can be tough to evaluate offensive line play in a vacuum, but they do a relatively decent job of trying to grade out some of those guys. And Tyler Linderbaum and Landon Paulson graded out as two of the top linemen in the country, not in the Big Ten, not on the Iowa Hawkeyes, but in the country. So that, again, just speaks volumes how well the offensive line played. And obviously you could see with the rushing attack just how well that worked out. And the

fact that Middle Tennessee State was bringing those blitzes and only managed to get to Stanley twice. And a lot of that was, you know, play design. It wasn't like he was just sitting back in the pocket. It was play action passes where they were able to get a little bit more pressure than I think he anticipated or even Iowa anticipated. So lots of great stuff from the offense. We're going to cover some more of that stuff though. After a few messages from our sponsors, before we do that though, make a memory that lasts a lifetime and let the vivid seats app help you get to your favorite live event, enter promo code kickoff at checkout to receive a discount of up to $100. With those kinds of savings, you might be able to get to the Iowa Penn state game

on a relatively decent budget. We are back with segment number two. Also, just as a quick heads up, if you are thinking that I'm not really bringing the enthusiasm today, you might be a little right. I'm a little bit hungover. I'll be completely honest. Also, I am recording in my buddy's basement. Came out to see my best friend from high school for his 30th birthday. Obviously, I had a pretty late, crazy night. I'm trying to get this recorded, though, Sunday night before I get up early in the morning to fly out to Pittsburgh for work. The point of this whole thing is he has two young daughters,

and they're right above my room in his house. So I want to make sure that I am not disturbing them or waking them up. That would be the last thing I'd want to do as a guest in their household is disturb their 2-year-old daughter and their 1-year-old daughter. That would not go over well, so I do apologize if it doesn't feel like I'm bringing as much enthusiasm as I'd like to. With that being said, though, let's continue talking about the Iowa-Middle Tennessee State game. Another big thing, the defense, I thought, did a really great job of bending and not breaking.

They were put into some tough situations, especially when Michael Sleep Dalton booted that ball out of the end zone, only 34 yards. Middle Tennessee State got the ball in the Iowa 41, and Iowa managed to push them back five more yards. I thought the defensive line did a great job. A.J. Epineza obviously involved in a lot of plays, but really the interior is what really impressed me. Davian Nixon, I think, was one of the studs of the game. Doubled his career total in tackles in just one game. Had two and a half tackles for a loss and a sack. Big time play from that guy, especially considering he was looking at transferring this offseason. Wasn't a starter coming into the season, but with Brady Reifert, got his opportunity, and I thought he played really well.

And it's going to be really important that we get some of those younger guys involved in the defense. As we saw last year, Phil Parker loved to rotate basically entire defensive lines in and out, in and out. And this year we're really seeing the same core four guys play for the most part throughout the game. And so being able to build some of that quality depth, building some quality backups, is going to be huge for the success of the program as they move into Big Ten play. And if there's any injuries, you know what I mean? Just like with the Brady Reefs thing. It's nice that Nixon can come in and play solid football and we can feel comfortable with him at that defensive tackle spot. One thing I do want to call out though, I thought Iowa's defense did a good job, but let's be honest, they were helped a little bit by Middle Tennessee State. I thought Asher O'Hara played a pretty good game, especially

when he was getting out of the pocket, putting Iowa defenders on their heels as he was trying to break them down with his rushing prowess, but he wasn't really helped by his wide receivers at all. Multiple drops on the game. He went 15 went 15 to 22 and honestly take away those drops he might have went 20 to 22 so did a decent job of spreading the ball around but that being said again it was very much a bend but don't break defense from the Hawkeyes again with a banged up secondary Hankins missed another game Merriweather wasn't in the game either he's gonna be back next week as well Julius Brent out Riley Moss Riley Moss out. So even with all that, O'Hara attempted 22 passes, completed 15, and only got 110 yards.

So even though he was completing them at a high clip, wasn't really going very far, again, very much to that mantra of bend but don't break. And then some of the drops obviously did not help them. A couple other guys I want to call out that I thought played really fantastic, Brandon Smith, six catches, 71 yards and two touchdowns. Just another step in his evolution as a wide receiver coming into the Hawkeye football program. You know, he was an under recruited guy out of Mississippi, but had a lot of big play potential. And we've been hearing about

it a lot. A guy who can go up and make those big time catches, a guy you can throw the ball up to, and he's going to win the contested battles. But what we're seeing is the development of him as a route runner and as the number one guy in the Iowa Hawkeye offense. And considering he's just a junior, we still have another year of him next year, which will be absolutely fantastic. Tyrone Tracy got back in the mix a little bit. We saw Nico Reganey really bust out last week. This week was Tyrone Tracy. I thought he ran a couple really good routes. I had three receptions for 85 yards. His counterpart Reganey, I thought had a beautiful seam route, kind of fake to the outside and then went up the middle of the field and caught a long

ball. I thought he did fantastic as well. So overall, just a fantastic offensive performance. If there's one thing I honestly had to complain about in the entire game, I thought the special teams unit was a bit of a disappointment. And this is set from the really high bar they really set for the first three games of the season. Keith Duncan hadn't missed a single field goal. Michael Sleep Dalton made us forget about the tormenting performances of Colton Rastetter last year. But in this game, Sleep Dalton only had that one punt, not a good punt. Definitely reminded me of a Colton Rastetter type of situation where he's barely getting the ball out of the end zone and really putting the defense in a tough position.

Against Big Ten teams, we can't afford to do that. We got away with it against Middle Tennessee State, but we really can't do that against really big-time teams. Keith Duncan missed his first field goal, really shanked a short field goal attempt. Also had a career-long field goal at 49 yards, but I don't know what happened with the shanked field goal. I need to go back and watch the tape and see what I thought happened. Maybe he slipped, maybe it was a bad hold. I don't really know. And then Amir Smith-Marset, you can tell he's getting antsy.

He wants to return some balls. He wants to help his team out from a special teams perspective. Got a ball three yards back in the end zone, tried taking it out. And I thought, you know, I was really excited. I was glad he took it out. But the end result was him, you know, getting stopped at the 19-yard line. I didn't feel like he had the vision when he came out of the end zone. He really pushed the right. Maybe that was where the return game was kind of directing him towards, but I just wasn't super impressed with the return itself. Hopefully when we get into

big time play, we're going to get a little bit more of an opportunity to see Amir Smith-Marset bust out from a returner position, especially now that Rondell Moore got injured in the Purdue game. Not sure what the status is of that, but Amir Smith-Marset is a guy who really could go on to win that Paul Horning award, being a very versatile guy, getting a rushing touchdown, catching four balls in a receiving game. If he can get the kick return game going as well, we could see him be another one of those Iowa Hawkeye guys who wins a national award. And that's a really cool one, just because we don't typically see that from Iowa Hawkeye players. Again, the Hawkeye football program has really prided itself on developing those guys in the trenches,

not necessarily the skill position, the speed type guys. We don't typically see that from the Iowa Hawkeyes. So I think that would be just absolutely fantastic. Again, coming up with the Michigan game, I was just hoping we managed to get out of this game without injuries. We did that. Geno Stone got a little bit banged up, but it seems like he is good to go. We saw the backup secondary get in there. I thought they did a solid job as well.

Saw some true freshmen get some time. Saw Spencer Petras, or Petras, again, I butcher every name, but love the fact that he got a drive in there and got an opportunity to bring the team down the field. I loved his enthusiasm when he got that touchdown run. It was a little bit disappointing that Tyler Goodson didn't get it because I thought his run a few plays earlier was just fantastic footwork, barely went out of bounds.

But you could see the emotion on Spencer Petras. I'm really excited to see what he can bring to this program. Very much an innate Stanley mold, not as thick but as tall, 6'5", 200-something pounds. I think he's actually 240, but just doesn't seem nearly as thick as Nate Stanley. But love seeing the second string get in there, especially, like I said, the injuries, not getting any before we go into that Michigan game is fantastic. Hopefully we can get a few guys healthier. The Matt Hankins, the Aleric Jacksons, Kayvon Merriweather, that kind of thing.

It would be great to have those guys healthy and available for the Michigan game. That being said, though, lots of me talking. I'm going to take a quick break, give a few more messages from our sponsors, and then wrap it up with segment number three. We are back with our final segment of today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast and me flying solo. I definitely forgot the amount of talking that is involved when I am flying solo. A little bit different than obviously communicating directly with Zach.

So bear with me as we get through this final segment. The big thing I want to cover on segment number three is just the top 25. Obviously, the new poll was released. Iowa didn't move up at all. I didn't expect them to. No one in the top 25 lost. There was a few movers in the top 25. Obviously, Clemson struggled to beat UNC. Florida, they basically didn't do anything wrong. Notre Dame just beat Virginia and was able to move up.

So again, I wasn't expecting Iowa to move up. I don't know if people are actually upset that Iowa didn't move up, but we can't expect them to move up after beating Middle Tennessee State when no one above them actually lost. I definitely think that's going to change in the next couple weeks. We're going to see a lot of movement from the Iowa Hawkeyes, whether that is up or down. If they are able to beat Michigan in the big house, we're going to see them take on number 19 Michigan.

That'll definitely be a bump up for them, possibly moving one or two spots depending on you know how well they beat them if they do then the following week obviously getting Penn State who is currently ranked 12th depending on what that game looks like we can even see Iowa you know if they if they do win both those games we could see them bumped up into the top 10 and at that point I think you really got to start talking about the college football playoffs because the only game on their schedule that really scares me that they shouldn't be favored in from then on out is definitely the Wisconsin game. I do think Wisconsin is a good team. They were off on a bye week this week.

I do think they're a good team, but I don't think I don't think the Michigan Wisconsin game is as much Wisconsin being good as I think Michigan is a little bit overrated. Even still, I do think Wisconsin's good. I don't know if they're not an unbeatable team by any means. We've seen them play against Iowa even when they're much better, and it's really a battle in the trenches, and it's going to be an interesting game if it gets to that point, if we have two undefeated teams, which I think would be unlikely considering Wisconsin has to go to Ohio State in a couple weeks. Other games in the Big Ten, I thought there's a lot of movement at

the bottom of the Big Ten. Michigan State staying at 25. We have Michigan obviously at 19. Penn State at 12. Ohio State with a huge win over Nebraska. And I don't mean huge as in Nebraska is good. I mean huge as in they kicked the crap out of Nebraska. I honestly feel like there's not a team I hate more, NFL, college, baseball, doesn't matter, than Nebraska. For a program and a state that pretends like we are not rivals, they sure do a lot of things that say completely the opposite. Most notably, the fact that they were on college game day chanting Iowa sucks. There was multiple signs against Iowa on college game day. Another ode to the fact that they do think we're rivals. A guy on DL Gold, Matt Opad, put out a really great article as well

about the fact that Nebraska is not a rival because they can't even make it a relevant game. Teams like, if you want to be a national title contender, you can't go at home and get just absolutely spanked by Ohio State like they did. Their defense is not there. Adrian Martinez, let's pump the brakes a little bit. He's a good quarterback, but he looked like crap against Ohio State's defense. This Nebraska team is not there yet.

I will say, I do think they have some talent. I think they're going to be good in the future. I think Scott Frost is working on getting this program in the right direction. be good in the future. I think Scott Frost is working on getting this program in the right direction. But at this point, maybe let's pump the brakes and let's realize Nebraska isn't a top 25 program and they're not ready to compete in the Big Ten. And this is a much tougher venture for them. But I think the big thing that really just pisses me off is the fact that you still hear Nebraska fans talk so much smack about for no apparent reason. Another thing I thought was interesting, Matt on Daryl Gold posted a great statistic that I thought was really interesting. You know,

Nebraska is like 27 and 14 against Iowa, right, in the whole time history. But 20 of those wins came before 1945. So if you even want to look at the last 50 years, 60 years, Iowa is still very much in line with Nebraska in this rivalry, and we've beaten them the last couple times. Let's wait until Nebraska actually has a real team until we call this a rivalry. Other news in the top 25, like I said, I think there's not really a lot of teams that are going to possibly jump Iowa at this point as long as they keep winning. Beating Michigan is going to definitely move them up.

Beating Penn State as well, that's really going to put them on the national radar. The Clemson game dropping them down a little bit. Ohio State winning against Nebraska was, like I said, a very good win. Ohio State is quietly becoming a team that Iowa fans should be rooting for every single second. I know that sounds ridiculous, but hear me out. Ohio State plays Nebraska and Wisconsin. Wisconsin is going to be a very good team.

Like I said, there's a chance that they only have one loss going into the game against Iowa. That one loss could be Ohio State. And we want Wisconsin to have more losses, obviously, in conference than we do Iowa, so Iowa can make the Big Ten championship game, especially if Iowa, you know, if they lose one game, maybe if they lose to Michigan, right, then Ohio State beats Wisconsin. They beat Wisconsin to Madison. That still gets them into, you know, the Big Ten championship game. lose one game, if they lose to Michigan, right, then Ohio State beats Wisconsin, they beat Wisconsin and Madison, that still gets them into, you know, the Big Ten championship game. An undefeated Ohio State team going to the Big Ten championship game as well against a one-loss

Iowa team, if Iowa beats them in that championship game, Iowa still has a really good opportunity to make the college football playoffs just because of how well Ohio State is doing. So a lot of different variables, we're only four games in the season, so a lot can change. We've got to obviously see how this Iowa-Michigan game plays out. That's going to be a really big indicator to us and Iowa football fans about what kind of team this is and what kind of season this is going to be. And that's what we're going to be covering throughout this week on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

We'll be covering all the Michigan stuff. I'm getting you pumped and prepped for that game taking place Saturday morning at 11 a.m. That'll do it for our Monday morning episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Again, I appreciate you all tuning into today's episode. My apologies if it wasn't as energetic or you were expecting Zach to be on. He'll be back for our next episode either tomorrow morning or Wednesday morning. Obviously, we have the episodes coming out Thursday and Friday. If you did like what you heard today, make sure to like, review, and subscribe

wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We do have giveaways coming up. We just finished a giveaway for Jordan Canzeri's stuff, so don't miss out on some great opportunities to win some awesome Iowa autograph swag. And thank you for tuning in on this Monday morning episode. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and go Hawks!