Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Reactions to loss to Michigan | What actually went right | What will define Nate Stanley's legacy

Episode Date: October 8, 2019

We needed two days to recover from the game vs Michigan but today we are breaking down our thoughts and reactions to the game including what went right, what we wrong on offense, who actually played well on offense, and our thoughts on Nate Stanley. 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. It's a beautiful Tuesday morning here on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast,

a part of the Locked On Sports Network. As always, we are your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes. I am one of your hosts, Andrew Wade, and I'm joined here by Zach Cohen. Zach, I think we need to take an extra day to kind of get our breath together, get our feelings in straight, maybe get our emotions under control. Wasn't that a rough freaking Saturday? Yeah, that kind of summed it up. It just sucked. A lot of hype going into the game. I was looking forward to this game more than I've looked forward to a Hawkeye game in a while. So, I mean, it definitely stung, but we'll kind of get into that a little bit later. But yeah,

just all in all, it did suck. So, I agree. Yeah, man. I felt like, I mean, Sunday, I was still a little mad. Even today, we're recording Monday night for the record, but even today, I woke up and I was still a little pissed off about the game. I mean, just something tough to get over, man. It was a rough game overall to watch. The offense was absolutely terrible, but we're going to get into all that on today's show. Today's show, we're going to basically be covering the entire Michigan game, giving our recap, our reactions to all that. And then on Wednesday morning show, we're going to be covering kind of what we think needs to happen to get this team moving in the right direction against Penn State. Before we do that, though, make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, wherever you have social media.

Make sure to follow us. We have some great stuff going there. And also, we have some giveaways and whatnot. And if you are tuning in for the very first time, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, whether that is Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast google podcast spotify or the brand new himalaya podcast app all right man let's get into it um let's let's maybe start with something positive first i think that'll get us off on a right note the defense played outstanding man i thought i thought the defense was really great especially backed up in their own end zone um on that fumble by makai sergeant um overall held michigan at 10 points and and really made Shea Patterson look

uncomfortable most of the day. Yeah, I completely agree. One silver lining is that even just combing through Twitter, I saw that Iowa's defense right now is the fifth best in the country and the nation. So I think that's amazing. I think that that's definitely a bright spot. With these type of games, you kind of have to evaluate everything.

And, you know, it's not a complete dumpster fire. You know, a lot of situations like, for example, when Nebraska played Ohio State last week, that type of game, you know, Nebraska couldn't score and the defense gave them a million points. This type of game, you look at it, it's a 10-3 game. Our defense held Michigan to zero points for three and a half quarters. Just putting that into perspective, you know, being a top 25 team on the road in that environment and holding a team to zero points at home for three and a half quarters.

Look, I mean, it was 10-3, but you have to think, how do they get those 10 points? Well, the first field goal was on the Mackay-Sargent fumble in our own area. So the defense was bed, not break. They did their job and only gave up a field goal, which looking back at it, it's at the end of the world. And then they got their touchdown off of that drive when Nico Collins had that amazing catch over DJ Johnson, I believe, in the first quarter. So, won a fumble on our zone and an explosive play, and we still hold them to 10 points. I mean, if you told me, hey, if we hold Michigan to 10 points in this game, do we win? And I would have probably bet my whole savings that we would have won that game. So, it's just kind of the games where,

you know, the defense was definitely one of the bright spots. And like you said, that was something that, you know, one positive, we could kind of pull out where, you know, the defense was definitely one of the bright spots. And like you said, that was something that, you know, one positive we could kind of pull out of that before we get into the negative, right? Absolutely, man. And I think you talked about Nico Collins. Let's, you know, let's back up. DJ Johnson is a redshirt freshman and Nico Collins is an experienced wide receiver, one of the best in the Big Ten. So, I mean, the fact that, I mean, overall throughout the day, the defense did a fantastic job of holding, I mean, the fact that, I mean, overall throughout the day, the defense did a fantastic job of holding, you know, the Michigan offense to, you know, pretty low, you know, statistics, doing a good job of stopping them outside of that explosive play.

Shea Patterson only had 147 yards passing, 5.7 yard average, one interception. Literally just his QBR was 27.4, so just slightly above Nate Stanley's, which everyone was pretty upset with. From a rushing perspective, Michigan only had 122 – or 120 yards on the ground for a 3.6 average as well. And, again, outside of that 51 yards, Shea Patterson threw for under 100 yards outside of that one explosive play. So I was pretty impressed with the defense. One of the guys who I thought was really impressive was actually Geno Stone and even Jack Corner to an extent too. I thought the safeties played

phenomenal. There were multiple plays where, you know, there was, I keep thinking about the option where AJ Ibaneza read the quarterback, went to the quarterback, Patterson, you know, pitched it over to, I believe it was Zach Charbonnet. And then Geno Stone came flying out of nowhere to make the tackle and I thought that was just very resembling of how well he's played this season yeah he looks really good and kind of I remember kind of when the season started we were kind of like hey so Amani Hooker's gone we don't really have that explosive hard-hitting safety ball hawk that you know we've been blessed to have before and we kind of talked about hey is you know still on that guy we don't know so i think that this game really cemented uh the fact that gino stone is a ball hawk that guy

the guy absolutely runs to the ball and i think that he's a huge bright spot and even jack corner i think that having those two going into the Penn State game gave me that much more confidence in our secondary which as we any listeners heard about before me and Andrew talked was definitely one of those areas that we kind of didn't feel so easy about yeah man the secondary let's let's touch on that because I think the secondary itself especially with all the injuries is an area where I was really concerned about the last couple of games. But because of the injuries, we've actually been able to see some of the depth and how talented they are.

We got Julius Brentz back. He's the backup corner now. DJ Johnson has played phenomenal. Terry Roberts has gotten in the game a bit. Imagine when we get Matt Hankins back. Kayvon Merriweather is a backup now, even though he started as a starter. I mean, the secondary went from being a weak spot, a spot that kind of scares people, to a really really big strength of this team and something

that's going to really help us as we continue to progress in the Big Ten play. Yeah I completely agree I'm really excited too because if a lot of people remember last time we played Penn State Geno Stone actually had a pick six against them. And one of the big storylines is that he's from the Pennsylvania area and he did not get that Penn State scholarship, obviously. They kind of touched on that last game. So this game is always kind of circled for Geno. So I feel like coming off that performance

and kind of opening the nationalals, national crowds perspective on him. I think that he could, we could be experiencing a big game from Gino stone coming this weekend, Penn state, which I'm very excited to be looking forward to. Yeah, man, he was named from one of pro football focuses, you know, players of the week on the big time team of the week. So just another fantastic performance by geno stone and and like amani hooker against minnesota geno stone is the

guy who's going to ball out next week against penn state like you said he feels slighted but um we're gonna you know the defense played awesome we have a lot to cover though about this offense and kind of the things that we thought were absolutely atrocious before we jump into a few messages from our sponsors 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. All right, man. So we know the defense did well. I thought the defensive line played a little bit better as well. I liked what the linebackers did and obviously the secondary played phenomenal against one of the best groups of wide receivers

in the country, but this offense was downright nasty. Were there any bright spots, though, to this offense that you want to call out? Let me see. Bright spots. Yeah. Okay, we'll start. the obvious pick as everyone knows probably

Tyler Goodson right so kind of he was the he is the shiny new toy this year um we kind of know what we had with uh Ivory Kelly Martin Makai Sargent and Torin Young kind of three-headed monster we had and then Tyler Goodson kind of kind of threw his hat in the ring this offseason and preseason and kind of opened a lot of people's eyes. And the fact that, you know, this guy could definitely be an asset to Iowa this year, and we didn't really know into what capacity. But listen, Iowa, we can talk about on the other end, they only ran the ball 22 times, which is a, we'll talk about that later.

But not when things, the players like these running backs, the best ones in college football, when they can't get the running game going and they can't get those yards, they still have to be an asset in some type of arena of the game. Right. So that came into the receiving end, you know, they couldn't get it going. He knew he couldn't get the holes, wasn't being able to do that. So what did they start doing? They started lining him out wide.

They started having him run routes out the backfield. And he ended the day leading the team and receiving was five for 62. So I think that just the will of Tyler Goodson being able to affect the team and help the team out in any asset, even pivoting to the receiving spectrum, just showed how much of a commodity he is and kind of showed flashes of Akron Wadley being that dual-threat running back. What kind of player on your end did you think stood out to you, Andrew? Yeah, man, I definitely think Tyler Goodson is one of those guys.

I love the fact that got him involved in the receiving game, and he looked so natural catching that 31-yard pass over his head in the fourth quarter. Another guy I want to call out is Torin Young. I thought he actually ran the ball pretty well, and he was the only guy who could really get much going on the ground. But for some reason, Brian Ferencz just wanted to move away from the run game and was really quick to abandon that.

And I also, you know, not just a player, but I think in general, one of the things we're forgetting is that Iowa did a pretty good job of converting third and long situations, multiple times getting third and tens, third and fifteens, third and twenties. And for a team who struggles to get third and threes, third and twos, and third and ones, I thought that was pretty impressive. Again, they were in those situations because of the stuff we're going to talk about in a few seconds, but that was another bright spot from the game. Zach, is there any other bright spots or are you ready to jump into

some of the crap that really pissed us off? So that was, that, that's one of my bright spots and just kind of elaborate on that a point I wanted to touch is that I found out that, so I think Iowa for a third down, like third and more than four or something like that was a seven for 12 or something, something like really good. And to put that in perspective of, so the one positive that we did is that, so we were like seven to 12 or six to 12, over 50%. And I found out that Michigan was the number one team in the country against third and more than four yards in the country. So teams were only converting a third and more than four yards at a 9% clip in Iowa, multiply that by five, basically. So that is a bright spot.

You know, a lot of the third downs we saw, whether it was a third and 22 with the bomb to Brandon Smith and these other plays, kind of showed that, you know, when our offense looked like we couldn't get things going we kind of out of nowhere you know we're able to extend these kind of longer drives based on these longer plays and this great play calling that Ferentz is able to drive Brian Ferentz is able to drop but like I said that was a bright spot there was kind of few and far between bright spots but um i'm interested to hear what is the uh what made your list of things that kind of pissed you off this weekend andrew

on the offense i mean where to begin um i want to first cover just how bad this offense even was um in case you know fans were watching at home and probably thought man this looks bad no even statistically it was one of the worst performances by a Kirk Ferentz offense. Just a couple quick stats I want to throw out. One yard of rushing offense is the second lowest total from the Iowa football team this decade. The eight sacks, I haven't been able to get statistics on that, but that has to be one of the worst totals in this decade.

The four turnovers, it is terrible, right? There's been, in this past decade, there's been four, four turnover games, including Michigan. So, pad again. And then the eight penalties for six yards was only better than 12 games this entire decade. So, pretty bad. And then finally, from a scoring perspective,

Iowa has not scored less than three points this decade. They've only scored three points twice outside of this game. So that kind of puts it in perspective. And those were all in different segments, right? This all happened in one day, though, for the Iowa offense. I thought Brian Ferencz's play calling was just garbage. When Kirk said that they were expecting some of those blitzes, then why in the hell were we not protecting Nate Stanley a little more?

The guy is not Justin Fields. He's not Adrian Martinez. He can't move that well. And when you're going to play him at the empty backfield and five offensive linemen, and Michigan is going to bring six or seven guys, you better believe he's got to get the ball out quickly, but they're calling long play. So I just thought, I thought the play calling was just real, real bad. And it didn't seem like Iowa was adjusting at all throughout the game yeah so um here's the area so I actually listened to some podcasts and um I so the area of so any fan of any team has these games and has these situations where things happen you sit back and you're like x y and z should happen this would have made the game better if you did blah blah blah blah this that and the other thing

um you would have won the game so i kind of interesting to uh not to give anyone free promo but i kind of listened to the wash on washed up walk-ons podcast and kind of just wanted to hear their perspective because you know these games are different from a lot of people's eyes whether it's the players in the locker room and whether it's a casual fan on watching the game at home like us right so I wanted to just see you know because it's good to hear the other side and listening to them they kind of had the route of you know which I agree with some of their points about some of the points they kind of went with if you know if you've never worn the jersey if you've never been out there on the field and you can't you know talk crap to us you can't tell us what we're fixing you can't sit here and give brian ferentz a

lesson um because obviously you know they know what they're doing and stuff which i i mean i agree to some point i think that um you know it's a lot easier you know being uh in our position saying what we could have done right and wrong you know everything is 2020 you know in hindsight right but i do think that me and you andrew we do have a right as fans right we do have done right and wrong, you know, everything is 2020, you know, in hindsight, right. But I do think that me and you, Andrew, we do have a right as fans, right? We do have a right as people who follow the team is, you know, do our research and everything to kind of point things out when we do see that there is things happening in the game that, you know, could be fixed. And look, me and you are not offensive coordinators, me and you are not coaches at any level, but it doesn't take a coach to see, hey, you know, he's getting a lot of pressure. So why are we going into an 11 formation with one tight end? Why are we not doing more of

a 22 formation having two tight ends and two extra blockers to help Stanley when the pressure's happening? And just to build on what you said, I mean, I could be wrong, but I do agree with you in the fact that if he is getting pressure, why are we not kind of making more plays where he only has to do one or two quick reads? This is just kind of this offense kind of showed shades of a Baker Mayfield offense that's going on or a Mitch Trubisky where these guys don't have a lot of time. So what you're gonna have to do is kind of dumb the plays down and only have one or two reads, right? So in that point, Mitch, he can look at the slot running back, nothing, throw it out of bounds or run it or throw it away and things like that. But didn't it kind of look like that Mitch was going through progression, progression, progression sack? You know what I mean? Didn't

it kind of seem like there was a little too more complex of reads going on for the pressure and time you had? Yeah, I mean, well, considering the fact that he got the ball and was getting immediately pressured, and a lot of it was they were doing three- and five-step drops. They were doing play-action fakes, which automatically makes it even more difficult because he has less time to read the field. I thought just that kind of play calling was just really frustrating, like you said, because he wasn't getting any time.

The blocking wasn't that great. And instead of doing that quick stuff or, you know, putting a safety valve on the sideline, they weren't allowing that to happen because they were doing these play action fakes, these long drops and that kind of stuff. So just definitely a very frustrating experience overall. We're going to cover that, though, in a few more minutes, but we want to take a quick break and get a few more messages from our

sponsors and let you know who is sponsoring the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. break and get a few more messages from our sponsors and let you know who is sponsoring the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. All right, man, we are back. Final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And when we took a break, we were kind of covering the Nate Stanley and the play calling and whatnot. And I do want to touch on Nate Stanley as well, because I think a lot of Hawkeye Nation was pretty upset at Nate Stanley. I even put a tweet out there that this game kind of defines his career, and I don't take it back, but I do want to kind of give a little bit – kind of an apology on it as well. When looking at the tape again and watching the game a second time,

it wasn't all Nate Stanley's fault. Like we just talked about before the segment ended, a lot of that play calling just seemed really suspect to me because he wasn't getting a lot of time to do things. But still, good quarterbacks make things happen. And at the end of the day, he couldn't lead his team. And we've seen that time and time again in big time situations where he isn't able to bring the team down the field and get that game when they drive in they had an opportunity but then we had what was it like a sack a penalty penalty sack something just absolutely ridiculous so want to get your thoughts um people talking about

nate stanley what does he got do you think that was a career defining moment for him in a bad way almost so you know during the game um obviously you know i run the twitter for our account and kind of poked fun a little bit at nate and kind of was obviously everyone's you know the first reaction is that nate sucks you know we only have three points it's all his fault but it kind of takes a more introspective fan and a little more analytical analysis to kind of uncover, you know, these three points, what happened, right? So our defense kept us in the game, and we were into the game until, you know, the last couple drives, right? So we were in a good position. That last drive that we had, I mean, it was literally embarrassing how many flags we had on offense.

And a lot of that was due to our offensive line. So I think, you know, the coaches at the end of the day, they call the plays, right? They don't execute. And I think it's up to the players to execute the plays. So that's one of the tricky things is that, you know, Ferentz did have bad play calls. I think he could have done a lot.

He also had good play calls too. So, so you know there's a give and take but I do think he could have manufactured some more quick read decision plays just to get Stanley a little bit of a rhythm because you're getting hit after hit after hit like that I mean he has no confidence he's getting anxious and you just need to get the ball out of his hands and it's just like when you're a basketball player when you once you see a couple shots go and you get that confidence back and that's something that nate couldn't do he couldn't get a couple throws completions in a row because he didn't have the time so i think that a majority of the fault was the offensive line alaird jackson looks horrendous look i know it was the first game back but dude you're supposed to be a first round draft pick and if you're playing you got to be 100% I know you could be a little banged up but when you make that decision to get

on the field you make that decision to suit up and represent us you know you got to make sure you're busting your ass out there you know and he could have been doing that but he just looked really slow he looked like he didn't have the technique he wasn't getting in front of the defender and things like that our offensive line was right us with too many penalties and that sends holdings and false starts and things like that um Our offensive line was right. We had too many penalties in that sense, holdings and false starts and things like that. I think that Mitch, I think what will be career-defining is,

I sent out a tweet earlier, I think you can judge someone more not on when they get knocked down, but how they respond and get back up. So I'll tell you this, I think that how Nate responds at home on national TV, on ABC, for millions of people to watch against the number 10 Penn State team, where, you know, based on this game, people are probably going to predict us to lose by more than two touchdowns or probably 10 points, two scores. How he responds in that game, how he rallies the troops, how he decides to represent himself as, you know, his last senior season

at Iowa on the national spotlight after putting up a goose egg and being a dud last game, how he responds to that, that's how I'll define him. So if he can go out there, he can get rally the troops, get the confidence back and be the Nate Stanley and show the good flashes we've seen and the great throws we've seen this year and play mistake-free football because at the end of the day, when your defense is as good as us, the quarterback loses the game. A lot of it's in the other people's hands, but the quarterback basically can win or lose the game. I'll keep making the same comparison. Mitch, like Mitch Trubisky and the Bears. I'm a huge Bears fan, and our defense, for the most part, has been solid. And when you have a quarterback that's a game manager, can make the throws he needs to, and eliminates the turnovers,

you will win games, I promise you, no matter who you play. So if Nate can go on there, be a game manager, make the throws he can, and lead us to victory as a leader, then I think that Hawkeye Nation can ease the sting of this week's loss. Do you kind of agree in that aspect, or are you kind of off the screen? Yeah, I actually don't. The only reason why is because for me, Nate Stanley is a good quarterback. I don't think he's a bad quarterback. I think in 10 years we're going to look back and think very fondly of Nate Stanley. It seems to be an

Iowa football thing where we don't like our quarterbacks until they're gone and then realize what they did when they were here. But I think for me I've been wanting Nate Stanley to make that jump to be the all-time best quarterback in Iowa history. And to do that, I wanted to see that it factor. I wanted to see him take over a game and win that game for a team. It felt like, for example, Ricky Stanzi, you know, if there was a close game, you were going to win it. And with Nate Stanley, I don't get that feeling. And until he leads a game winning drive or until he goes into an away, you know,

a visiting field or visiting teams in locker room and comes out on the field and wins the game for Iowa. I'm not going to feel like he's made it yet. At this point, I would put him at maybe a top, top six quarterback all time for Iowa. But if he can do that, if he can make the turn this team around, if they can go 10 and 2 or 11 and 1 if he can lead a game-winning drive if he can go into Madison and play superior football that's what I think it defines his career in a successful light and maybe you know prompts him into the top two top three quarterback discussion of all time. So do you think that if he can beat penn state at home and then beat wisconsin

on the road do you think that could be a top two for sure um i think if he to make it top two he needs to win out and win the big ten championship game okay or or win a new year's six bowl um if they i mean ohio state was freaking dominant yeah i i i'm not i – I'm setting my expectations in a reasonable light here, but that's kind of my thought. If they do make a bowl and they do like that, I think that will be – I think that will be his third bowl win too, I think, right? Yep, and that will be – I mean, he's one of like six quarterbacks all time

to win three bowl games. Guys don't play this much, so, I mean, that kind of speaks for itself too. But I do agree, and I think that that kind of speaks for itself, too. But I do agree, and I think that we kind of touched on everything. We touched on the negatives. We kind of touched on our perspective from a fan of how to improve everything. People can take it for what it's granted, but there is some silver lining, as we talked about.

Yeah, man, I think we'll get through this on the next show for Wednesday morning as well, but what are some of the things that Iowa can improve? This isn't the end-all, be-all. But what are some of the things that Iowa can improve? You know, this isn't the end all be all that, you know, they've had stinkers like this before even last year, you know, they scored a lot more points, but against Purdue, that was a game that was really frustrating. This felt like Iowa couldn't pull their foot on out of their butt and win the

game for themselves and end up losing to Purdue. So we're going to cover all that stuff on tomorrow's episode of the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. This is just some of our reactions and reca recaps and we would have loved to get a show out to you for monday morning but um some personal stuff going on for for me so obviously i had to delay some of that and obviously i think our we were able to get our emotions a little bit more in check i think it's a little bit better the personal reason was depression what was that the personal reason depression yeah we had. We had to meet a depression guy. But anyways, we do appreciate you all tuning into this episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes

podcast. As always, we appreciate your support. Make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you've downloaded this podcast at. Give us a five-star review and let us know what you love about the show. Or let us know what you'd love to see about the show as well. Again, thank you for tuning in to this Tuesday morning's episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and go Hawks.

Go Hawks. We'll see you next time.