Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Short-handed Iowa Hawkeyes defeat Illinois: Charlie Jones jump starts scoring and Jack Campbell finishes it off

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

The Iowa Hawkeyes got off to a slow start against the Fighting Illini finding themselves down 10-0 after a strong Illinois opening drive followed by a bad snap on the next Iowa punt gave Illinois good field position to tack on another 3. Then former walk-on Charlie Jones kickstarted the Iowa Hawkeyes with an electric 100-yard return and the Hawks never looked back from there. Defensively, the team looked much improved in stopping a strong rushing attack than they did last week against Minnesota and they secure their 9th win of the season. We break it all down with former Iowa running back LeShun Daniels Jr. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.PrizePicksDon’t hesitate, check out PrizePicks.com and use promo code: “LOCKEDON” or go to your app store and download the app today. PrizePicks is daily fantasy made easy!NetSuiteOver twenty-seven thousand businesses already use NetSuite and RIGHT NOW through the end of the year NetSuite is offering a one-of-a-kind financing program to those ready to upgrade at NetSuite.com/LOCKEDONNCAA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back Hawkeye Nation to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes and the Locked On Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade. And as we are always joined on Sundays, we're joined with LaShawn Daniels, former Iowa running back. LaShawn, my man, how are you doing, buddy?

Doing well, doing well. Always good on Sunday after Hawkeyeye w so we're doing all right man it feels good we're nine and two and i absolutely love it before we get to any of that though i want to thank you all for making the lockdown hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day you can find the lockdown hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get podcasts and also on youtube by searching locked on hawkeyes and this episode is brought to you by Sonos. Sonos is the official sponsor of ESPN college football. Go to Sonos.com to learn more.

LaShawn, my man. So we get the W. That is the biggest thing, the most important thing. Illinois came out kind of hot. We kind of expected that. Illinois, the last couple of years, they've done a really great job of starting well against Penn State this year. They did a great job of starting well against Penn State this year.

They did a great job of starting well against Minnesota. They got a 14-point lead and just sat on the football. This year, this game, they come out, they get a 10-point lead. Were you worried at all after that 10-point lead? Or were you thinking, you know what, Phil figures this out? What were your thoughts after the 10-0 lead by Illinois? Yeah, I know I wasn't too worried about it. What were your thoughts after the 10 to nothing lead by Illinois? Yeah. I know I wasn't too worried about it. I mean, early on, I mean, it looked like I see the first part of their game plan, you know, basically work to a team. I mean, they were probably doing a little bit more things that, you know, I probably quite wasn't expecting.

And I was allowing them to move the football pretty effectively those early drives um in the ball game but we know that football is a long football game it's a full 16 minutes um and you know momentum can shift at any any point in time um and you know knowing the guys knowing that uh the type of fight that they have and the staff that they have that um you know they're going to make the make adjustments to get back on track. And, you know, they went ahead and did that. So, but, you know, obviously give credit to Illinois. They came out ready to play.

I mean, that first drive they had going 75 yards, taking over six minutes off the clock. Again, that was probably their game plan and how they wanted it to be. But, you know, our staff is too smart and our players are too smart to really let them continue to do that. And so, no, I wasn't too worried at all. I love, man. I think, honestly, the biggest concerning thing to me was that Illinois

on that first drive threw for 60 yards of their 80-yard drive. Coming into this game, Illinois was fourth in the nation in rushing attempts per game the last three games. It was all right. They're just going to run the ball. They're throwing the ball consistently. They're throwing it to Jamari Harris. They're throwing it wherever Jack Kerner would have been,

but he was not because he's out with an injury. So that part was a little bit concerning to me. But after that, Iowa did a fantastic job. The Charlie Jones kick return. Wow. That was electric. The, the stadium was like,

oh man, we're down 10, nothing. We're down 10, nothing. Charlie gets the ball. He cuts up and you're like, maybe you'll get 40 yards.

Like people were getting excited about getting like 40 yards. Then he burst past the corner and everyone is going absolutely insane charlie jones changed the momentum of this game in my personal opinion uh you're right 10 nothing against illinois not a problem we've been down worse than that last year against illinois but charlie jones being able to take that kick back was it was absolutely huge anything you saw on that kick return, anything about Charlie Jones you want to talk about before we get into the next segment? First off, obviously, great blocking by the return team. Everybody was doing a fantastic job,

basically getting on their man and staying on their man long enough just for Charlie to get by those guys because it's hard to block on kickoff return. I didn't do it in college, but I did it in the nfl and that is hard it is a hard job to be able to do um and uh blocking those guys um and making sure that you know those blocks are being held long enough just for charlie to get by them was was huge and obviously i think uh coach Woods came up with a good return play call for the opportunities, right? I mean, they tried to pin Charlie all the way on the far side of the field.

And, you know, they really set it up to, you know, obviously bring it up and then use his speed and expand, you know, to that wider side of the field and obviously use his speed to get by those guys. So it was a huge, huge momentum shift. Obviously, having Charlie back there and his type of speed back there was huge for the success of that football play, but also the blockers on that, I think, were really the MVPs of that play for sure.

I love it, man. For you, what was biggest adjustment going to from college football to the nfl uh really probably the speed the speed is probably like the biggest thing um like without a doubt like i mean like you think about um playing in college and you know the best guys you play against in college i mean like they're athletic guys right but i mean they're nothing uh spectacular anything crazy like that like every now and again right you will go against crazy athletic athletic people um and even like the best players on the other teams that you go against i mean a lot of them again they won they won't have sustained NFL careers at all. But like when you get to the NFL, obviously everybody is that freaky athletic guy.

Everybody, all these guys were the best people on their team, probably best people in their conference. Right. And all that speed flying around is is huge, is a huge difference in comparison to college, the NFL. And on top of that, these guys are consistent every single play. It's not like in college where, you know, the consistency is probably not quite there, you know, and probably not quite as locked in every single play. Well, in the NFL, it's every single play. There is no taking a play off,

not whether you're in a game or in practice. Like there is no, because these guys are literally the best of the best. When you think of some of like really the best, you know, 1600-ish football players on the planet, right? These are going to be the most athletic, most consistent players that you could possibly go against. And that's really the biggest difference.

Because, I mean, as far as football smarts and concepts and everything, for the most part, you learn a lot of that stuff in college. That's not really the toughest adjustment. But really, that speed adjustment and that consistency thing, play after play, is really the biggest change. At least it felt like for me yeah very interesting do you feel like charlie jones will return then or no do you think he's gonna go to the nfl or not um you know you know i don't know you know it's a good it's a good question i mean uh you know charlie's really coming into his own i think, more as a pass catcher. Obviously, we knew his ability as a return man last year.

But I think really this year he's shown off plenty of his ability to be able to be a pass catcher and be a weapon in the offensive football game, which, you know, I'm not sure what's on his mind. If he's thinking, hey hey maybe i come back show you know more of my offensive skill set and um you know just gets more tape out there and um puts me in a better opportunity to be able to um you know obviously go ahead and uh get on the nfl roster but i mean i think you know at this point in time, if he continues to continue to play well throughout the year, he's going to test well. You know, even if he were to go to NFL this year, I feel like he'd obviously be able to do a lot of special teams, right? Be a gunner on punt, you know, obviously catch punts, kick return, things like that. He'd be asking on special teams just because of his athleticism. But, you know, yeah, he could, you know, want to come back and say like, hey, I want to show, you know, more of my ability as a receiver.

And honestly, wouldn't fault him for that. So, I mean, it's probably just a toss up at this point. And, you know, because he was a transfer guy. So, again, he didn't have all this time here, right? So, like, he could, again, still want to get more tape out there and things like that and just enjoy playing Iowa football. To me, it's kind of interesting. It really depends.

I think when you look at his kick returnability, his punt returnability, NFL teams are going to look at that and say, we can work with this. We want this. But I think it's really the question of do you have more to add at the widest your position and does what you have to add make a contributing impact to our team and will it impact your draft stock i think that's really the question is going to kind of answer obviously it goes out for a senior day i would love to see charlie jones back but does it impact his draft stock? I don't know.

But whenever you are that good of a kick returner, you always get Devin Hester. You know, this, you're a bears guy. I mean, Devin Hester was a phenomenal kick returner and didn't really do a lot else anywhere else. And was drafted the second round out of Miami. So it'll be really interesting to see where Charlie Jones ultimately ends up if he decides to actually officially graduate and leave the school.

But again, like you said, he transferred in. He could have another year if he wanted to due to COVID. So it'll be really interesting to see where Charlie Jones heads. I want to talk about the offense a little bit. 33 points. We only scored one offense touchdown. We're going to talk about that, though, in a few moments. I want to tell you all about PrizePix.

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daily fantasy made easy. And again, I want to thank you all for making the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get podcasts at and also on YouTube by searching Locked On Hawkeyes. So Sean, I didn't tell

you this before we kick the show off, but yesterday I was at the stadium. Being at Kinnick was amazing. Anyone who's watching the show can tell I'm struggling, I think. But we have you here, and that's what's the most important thing. I was talking to two guys, and my buddy's dad was like, hey, have you heard of the Lockdown Hawkeyes? They're like, oh my gosh, we listen every single Sunday when LeSean's on. So that was pretty cool. They loved your show. It was super cool to meet some people who listen to our show on Sundays,

which I think is awesome. So I definitely appreciate that and thought it was awesome. Before we take a break, we talked about Charlie and the fact that he is an amazing and phenomenal returner the offense though i think we have some question marks we win we score 33 points but we only score one off as a touchdown now my question to you is alex padilla went 6 for 17 do you think alex or spencer gets to start next week? I still think Alex starts next week, to be quite honest.

Obviously, six of, what was it, six of 16, 17? 17, yeah. That's not ideal. Six of 17 with the interceptions, not ideal, right? But a big part of that was, was you know he had a lot of drops yesterday uh it felt like every single time especially early in the game it felt like every single time the ball was on like on target right the guys just couldn't come up with the football um which was i thought an issue um right, because we really didn't put up too

many offensive points, right? Caleb Shulak was obviously doing a great job, you know, hitting field goals from 50 yards out because we couldn't really drive the ball into Illinois' territory at all. So 6-17 is not ideal, but I still think Alex gets the start because the reason being is just I just feel like with Alex back there, it makes the offensive line perform better in the passing game. And I really think that that's that's really kind of how it's going to have to be, you know, for Iowa to be able to have success. I mean, as we've seen this year, the offensive line is really not an offensive line as it's been in Iowa standards. Granted, there's a lot of young guys on there, guys who haven't played a lot of football,

really outside of Tyler and Kyler. So, like, having Alex in there, even though he's not, like I've said before, he's not Lamar Jackson back there, but he is mobile enough to be able to, you know, move around in the pocket and, you know, avoid taking sacks. So I think it's huge. It's just, you know, that completion percentage and, you know, actually getting the ball downfield and moving the football is very,

very important, but I still feel like the offense just flows better with alex back there right now so i would be shocked if spencer gets the start next week um but those are just my my initial thoughts yeah i would completely agree with that um i just took a quick look at the drops four drops for iowa in that game um alex's adjusted completion percentage would have been 62.5%. So you're absolutely spot on. I mean, there's definitely some issues, the wide receiver core. And, yeah, 6-17, it's not good.

We can't – I'm not going to sugarcoat it. 6-17 is not a good stat line, including one interception there. What I liked, there were a couple things. First and foremost, I did think he played well. I thought when he threw the ball, he's throwing it confidently. He's throwing it in places only his wide receiver could catch it. The Keegan Johnson interception, I go back and forth, but at the end of the day, I like the fact that you're giving Keegan a chance.

It was a bad throw, but you take away the bad throw, you are trying to give Keegan a chance in one-on-one coverage to come up and make a play. I'll take that. I just want to challenge the defense. The other piece is I felt like there was probably five or six times in this game where I looked and I'm like, this play would not have been called if Spencer was quarterback.

The rollout, the bootleg, not called. I mean, there's just so many plays where I'm like, Brian Ferenc's offense, and people, a lot of people on here don't like Brian Ferenc, they don't like his offense, they don't like his play calling. Everyone's always going to be pissed off. If you haven't won every single game, people are going to be mad about your play calling.

I thought the play calling, though, the playbook clearly, in my opinion, opened up because of Alex Padilla's presence. And I don't know how you look at that and say, we're going to go back to the tree. Like we're going to go back to Spencer Petras and we're going to go back to an offense that is clearly limited because he cannot move at all. So I'm excited. I'm thinking this is the Alex Padilla express train the rest of the season. It'll be really interesting to see how Iowa handles this in the off season as well.

One of the things I thought was really cool about this offense though, I loved the, the fake jet motion, not fake jet motion at the same time that I thought was cool. We saw a reverse yesterday. We saw Charlie Jones try to pass a football. I mean, like I,

these are things like I haven't seen in, like, a long time. So any thoughts on the play calling for you before we get into a few freshmen that I want to talk about a little bit, like Arlen and Keegan? Yeah, so I felt early on, like, the play calling was, I feel like it was much better than it was than how it got later in the game. I feel like our first 15 that we had out, I thought were like really good. Like there was a lot of,

there was a lot of different things like we were throwing in there. You know, we had chat suites, we had the dive pitch, right. We had rollouts. We had, you know,

basically everything that was different than what we've been been doing uh you know for a lot of the season um but then i don't know what happened right when we had the opportunity at the end of the half had like the worst two-minute drill i've ever seen um i don't know what was up with that and what the play calling was up with there. But I definitely feel like early on the play calling was much, much stronger than it was later in the game. And I don't know if they adjusted to the things that they might want to call or what, but I definitely like the variability and the creativity that we had early

in the game and i feel like we kind of got away from that um in the second half and we really weren't able to put you know too much of anything together in the second half so yeah it was frustrating the second half for sure um when you kick what was like four or five field goals uh it gets annoying you can move the ball between the 20s and you can't move the ball in the 20s you want to be able to capitalize and score touchdowns on those plays but nevertheless Iowa does win um what I what I was very interested in is the fact that we were seeing some creativity as you mentioned that first first 15 plays that was awesome to see Arlen Bruce they clearly want to utilize him in a number of different ways.

Arlen is a kid who played quarterback in high school, can play running back, can play wide receiver. Let's get him involved. I was talking to my buddy. I was like, what if we saw him in the Wildcat? What if we saw Arlen as the Wildcat quarterback with Tiger Goods next to him? Maybe that's a little bit too aggressive. But even in the last game, he had four runs, which is awesome to him. Maybe that's a little bit too aggressive, but even in the last game, he had four runs,

which is awesome to see. Arlen definitely being a bigger part of this offense. The jet motions were cool. When Arlen has the ball in his hands, I loved Amir Smith-Marset, but Amir Smith-Marset was a north-south speed guy. Arlen, to me,

has significantly better agility than Amir. Maybe not significantly, has significantly better agility than Amir. Maybe not significantly, but has better agility than Amir. And what Arlen can do with the ball in his hands is really impressive. Did you see anything about Arlen or even like Gavin Williams, who had 10 carries in this game? Anything you want to call for those two freshmen? Or well, Arlen's a freshman and Gavin's a sophomore.

Apologies. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're doing great things. apologies yeah uh yeah i mean they're doing uh great things i think um you know they want to use arlen kind of how florida used to use percy harvin back in the day obviously arlen's not that type of ability um that percy harvin had but i think they wouldn't be able to use him like that because again he does a great job in the passing game and then he does a great job in the passing game, and then he does a great job in the running game with the ball in his hands. And he can create some explosive plays doing those things, which I think is huge.

It just tells you how much, first off, the coaching staff trusts him to be able to put him in that many different positions and be able to call that many different plays for him. And then it also speaks to his ability as a freshman and talent that he's bringing in to the team to be able to provide, provide spark. And then, yeah, I mean, Gavin was doing,

you know, a great job bringing football yesterday, you know, reading the holes pretty well. Again, watching it from the TV, right. You don't have the end zone,

the end zone view or whatever, but I mean, it seemed like he was reading the holes pretty well. Only thing that my only critique that I had for him was just his pad level was high. But as a younger guy, it's a natural thing. Your pad level is naturally higher as you are when you're younger. But, I mean, I thought he did a really good job running the football and helping spell Tyler a little bit. Because, you know, yesterday, obviously, we thought that him pretty, pretty well.

And, you know, having another back in there that can come in and make plays as well. And, you know, keep the keep the ball moving is definitely a huge asset to the team. So the future is definitely bright for those two young guys. A hundred percent agree. I mean, Gavin Williams had 10 rushes. the team so the future is definitely bright um for those two young guys 100 agree i mean uh gavin williams had 10 rushes tyler gets that 27 for 132 yards a pretty good day for him but gavin 10 rushes 56 yards a five point seat 5.6 yard per carry average um love to see it with gavin i i thought when he ran the ball he ran hard it was definitely a different he has a different running style than tyler and so anytime he gets in the game it is going to be a little bit different and honestly

a little bit more reminiscent of the you and akram days now grant i know i know you wish you would have gotten some of the like the the tosses and the plays made for uh typically faster guys you're like i should have gotten those but. But when a two running back system, it feels like Gavin's kind of more of your kind of speed and Tyler's more of the acro speed in this game, which I think it's definitely, it's good to have that. It's good to have kind of a yin and a yang when it comes to that. I want to talk a little bit more about that here in a few short moments,

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So last week, we talked a little bit about Tyler Kutcher. And I asked you, do you feel like he's going pro? You gave a very good answer in that regard. Like what does he have to prove to the next level? He has done so many great things and people have a pretty good understanding of what Tyler Goodson brings to the table. Is his draft stock going to improve? That'll definitely be a question we try to answer as we get closer to that

decision day. But I feel pretty good seeing what Gavin Williams is doing. Gavin Williams unseating Ivory Kelly Martin. Ivory Kelly Martin, those are the snaps he typically would get. But Gavin Williams is there. With Jack Kerner out yesterday, with Matt Hankins out yesterday, we also saw some other freshmen show up. Cooper Dejean.

Cooper Dejean is a guy who I am so excited to see on the defensive side of football. That special teams tackle that he had was phenomenal. We saw him play a little bit of cornerback. I don't remember Iowa playing this many younger guys this late in the season. Am I making that up? Am I just thinking that out loud that it's actually happening? Does Iowa typically play this many younger guys this late in the season. Am I making that up? Am I just thinking that out loud that it's not actually, it's actually happening? Like does Iowa typically play as many younger guys late in the season?

Well, tough question to answer. Yeah. I mean, just thinking of, you know, the time I was there. No,

no, not really granted. So what the rule changes and the four games before, like, you lose the red shirt, obviously it allows, you know, more guys to get reps in ballgames. But, I mean, still, like, you still have to be able to earn those reps, right? I mean, even if, you know, you're a freshman, like, you still have to earn playing time, right? You just don't. It's not just given to you. like you still have to earn playing time right you just don't it's not just given to you um so no i can't think of you know a time you know where we've had a lot of young guys in this late

um in the season because i mean like you think of november november football and college just like that's the time where it's like hey it's like time to buckle down we're trying to um you know finish the season now you see win a division championship and things like that. So it's really got to give plenty of credit to these guys that are coming in, you know, really ready to play. You know, obviously, they've had a lot of great work ethic, you know, building on their talent and their ability in high school and then obviously continuing that, you know, as they get to Iowa and not just feeding into the hype of like, oh, now I'm a college football player. Right. They're trying to earn the reps. Right. Putting in the work in the weight room, putting in the work on the practice field, showing the coaches like, hey, I have some ability to I can help out the football team too. So, um, I thought it's definitely rare. And, but, uh, for a coach parents football team to have this many young guys playing and, you know, really this many impactful positions so late, um, in the year, which I think is, I think it's good

because there's always a lot of talent, um, you know, young guys that can add value to the team, even though they might they might not quite be, you know, ready yet in a sense. But they still have, you know, that ability that can help when football games. And I really think that that might be I think that's a little shift. And I think Coach Ference's mindset and like, hey, we have these guys. Right. Even though they might not be perfect, they might not know every little thing, but you know, let's go up there. They've been doing a great job in practice. Let's give them a shot and see if they can help us make a play. So I do love seeing that from, from just a team in general. So, yeah. And anytime you can have younger guys contribute and you still win nine

games. I mean, I think people are, people are very interesting when you talk to them, the Iowa Hawkeye football, especially this year, because if you would have told me we would go nine and three or 10 and two this year,

I would have taken that. Like let's roll. I love that. I'm excited. We had a very tough schedule. Yes. Iowa state has not looked as good as Iowa State has. Indiana was going to regress, but they were not a bad team. Yet,

you look at the schedule and think, wow, 9-2. That's awesome. You're playing so many young guys and a lot of these guys can return. You look at the offense. You have Arlen and Keegan. If Alex Padilla is the quarterback, whoever the heck the quarterback is, they're returning as well. Tyler Goodson could still return. Gavin Williams is definitely returning.

You have several offensive linemen who are getting their first collegiate snaps ever this year. I mean, Connor Colby is a true freshman. These guys are all coming back. Defensively, we're finally not losing three or four defensive linemen in the NFL. We have these guys come back. Yes, the defensive line has struggled at times, but they are finally all coming back.

The linebacker group is coming back. Our secondary is the only one who's really being hit, and I truly think Riley Moss could come back, depending on how he wants to handle testing with that injury. So, you know, playing a lot of younger guys, and it's working. And I'm really excited to see the kind of future development of this program. But when you're 9-2 and you're playing a lot of young guys, I'll take that. Last week we talked a lot about tackling.

Minnesota's rushing attack seemed to really target some weaknesses from an Iowa perspective. Tackling wasn't good. We got an article from Chad Lysakow this week where he was talking about tackling as well and the fact that the team is just playing so many snaps. They're tired. They're worn out.

They're exhausted. So I was a little bit worried coming into this game where Illinois typically features six or seven offensive linemen. I want to ask you first. I'm going to tell you a stat after this. How do you feel like the tackling, how do you feel like, what would be your grade on the tackling for this Iowa-Illinois game? Let's see.

I mean, just off the top of my head, I mean, it seemed much better than it was last week, right? So if I had to give them a grade, I mean, I'd probably give them a B. I mean, it seemed like they were doing a relatively pretty good job defensivelyly tackling. If I told you, and I didn't mean to set you up like that, that bad. Last week, PFF. Now, PFF is not the end-all, be-all of statistics.

However, they gave Iowa a 69.1 tackling grade against Minnesota. Against Illinois, Iowa got a 65.2, and they had eight missed tackles. It felt like Iowa was doing a significantly better job, at least early in the game, of wrapping up, or if nothing else, grabbing the guy and hanging on and letting three other guys come,

as opposed to previously where they were just allowing them to run over them, and it was very frustrating. I don't know. I thought the tackling was phenomenal, especially compared to last week i thought the game plan defensively was significantly better you saw iowa swarming to the football and even when illinois came out throwing the football iowa was able to make some adjustments um and really just kind of shut down the illinois attack which has been a good attack that's here and they've beaten penn state they've beaten minnesota they've beaten teams that are quality quality opponents yeah yeah no agreed definitely

agreed um yeah i don't really have much to add there no i mean definitely definitely agree i think uh i think why we probably thought the tackling was better this week was probably because they weren't creating like explosive plays really throughout the run game and i think that's where like it feels like where you're missing tackles like a lot of times it comes from there and it comes from running backs breaking you know two three tackles in one play um and creating explosive run out of it and you know that's just my guess and why i probably felt that way um yeah they created a whole bunch of explosive in the pass game, which was probably a shock to us. And we probably weren't expecting that at all.

But I feel like that's probably why the difference felt like in the game yesterday. I mean, I think it's a call-out, though. When you're running the football and you do create explosive play because of missed tackles, it seems exponentially worse than if you're in a passing game and like someone breaks tackle okay it's a cornerback not a big deal but in the running running game like when someone breaks tackle it it feels like the bottom just dropped out of your soul like it is bad uh against illinois that was not the case um we're going into nebraska so iowa is nine and two they're going into play nebr Nebraska this week.

Nebraska did Nebraska things against Wisconsin. I was really hoping they could actually pull out a W, but it's Nebraska and I can't rely on them for anything other than being within one score of every team they play. Do you hate Nebraska? Really getting right into the questions today. There's no sugarcoating these questions i mean you know i don't hate them but like i don't have i mean i definitely don't like them i mean i have i mean there's no there's no really anything there really like for me uh obviously like you Obviously, it's a trophy game and whatnot.

It's becoming, I feel like, a bigger rivalry in a sense because obviously before really 2014, Nebraska really didn't think too much of us. I mean, honestly, you could obviously tell by the comments they would make through their athletic department and so on and so forth. Iowa was like the lowest they could could ever go it seemed like yeah like you see where you're at now because you're not at the point of even being close to touching iowa's jockstrap so but i mean yeah i mean i definitely don't like those guys at all um because first off they couldn't get a win yesterday when we needed them to um you know just sold at the end of the game uh you know as usual um but you know you know i

never really had any issues with them we just always want to really beat those guys because i mean they're stuck in the past for some reason like they're still like some powerhouse football team blue blood football team and they're frankly they're frankly, they're just not, they're just not. And, you know, we've obviously shown that to them really the past six, seven years. So, you know, I was believing just, you know, keep that up and keep that, keep that going. Yeah. I texted my buddy. He's a huge Nebraska fan.

So you can only imagine the suffering and the pain he's felt. And I said, I really don't understand Nebraska football. this was like halfway through the fourth quarter he said no one does are you watching and i said yes he's like you know how this ends right i'm like yes nebraska loses by seven he's like yep i've seen this happen seven times this year we're gonna lose by seven and we'll do it in a ridiculous way sure enough they absolutely do Iowa has the opportunity to get to 10 wins and if Minnesota does some cool things maybe Iowa's playing in the Big Ten championship game just to take a quick look back for the last question of the day would you have taken this I mean is this is this what you expected for the season or is this better or worse? It just depends what was the alternative. It depends like what was the alternative.

What was your alternative? What did you think Iowa would get? So I predicted Iowa to go nine and three this year. So I'm looking at this like, we're good. We lost the games I thought we were going to lose. I'm a little annoyed about how we lost them, to be fair. I hope we would be a little bit more competitive. But what did you think this team was going to do this year

coming into the season? You know, I was really thinking probably, I honestly thought you'd probably get to 10 wins, if not more, get to 11. Oh, man. So your expectations were high. Yeah, my expectations were high because, you know, obviously last year was a COVID year, right? And, you know, everything was weird last year was a covet year right um and you know everything was weird last year

but you know when it comes to you know iowa football and you think about you know really like the past um you know like tennis years right i feel like the wisconsin game is really like a real good like barometer i feel like of where like kind of like a program is at and kind of where I'm moving forward. And I felt like how dominant the win was against Wisconsin last year. Granted, yeah, we lost some pieces. Right. We didn't know we had awesome skill guys. We lost some people on defense. Right. We lost players everywhere on the field. I know players, you know, everywhere on the field, but I felt like, man, like we got a really, really strong offense. I feel like still moving forward here. Right. I mean, you know, I was thinking like, Hey, Spencer's going to have an,

has a full year on his belt. He's got more development, all this stuff. You know, the offensive line is going to be led by Tyler running back room. Skill guys can be led by Tyler as well. We're going to have some success on the offense. As the season went along and we got past the Penn State game, I'm like, okay, we got past Penn State, who I felt like was obviously a really, really good football team at the time with still minimal

offensive production. i'm like looking ahead i'm like i don't know like we're like i'm like we're looking pretty good like um you know uh for i mean i should have known better right we haven't had success we haven't had success against purdue for really a long time now. And, you know, obviously the Wisconsin is Wisconsin, right? And, you know, I was, I had high expectations. I felt like, you know, we were going to do good things this year and we still did. I mean, we're still in a really, really good spot, right? Pretty, almost basically in line of, you know, where I expected us to be. I just think that we got there probably a little

bit differently than um you know i might have expected yeah it's uh it's been an interesting year i mean uh it's been an up and down emotional year um like i said i predicted i would go nine three i'm i'm happy if i if i take a holistic look i'm okay with this i'm happy with with potentially getting 10 wins. It feels like we could have done some different things against Wisconsin or Purdue. I know we got just our crap rocked in those games, but it felt like we were a more talented team.

We could handle that. That being said, going into next year, my expectations are through the roof. I mean, this team, we returned most of our starters outside of the secondary, and the secondary is the one area where I don't have a lot of concerns because Phil does such a good job of coaching these guys up. Yes, it is the best part of our entire team, but a lot of these guys have starting experience.

Terry Roberts is a phenomenal corner. I cannot wait to get him back on special teams. Jamari Harris has not looked that bad. I mean, Sebastian Castro played yesterday. Quintus Schulte played yesterday. I mean, Dane Belton probably will be back. So, I mean, the secondary is going to be good as well. So, in my opinion, the expectations, the sky's the limit next year.

So, I'm really excited for next year's team as well. LaShawn, anything you want to add before I close out the show today? I know I've kind of jumped around quite a bit here. No, no, no, no. I don't really have too much. Um, yeah, obviously next year expectations again, they're going to be, they're going to be high, right? Iowa starting to put themselves in a really good spot in the big 10 and consistency really

over the past, really, you know, eight years, um, putting us in a really good spot and being able to compete for the west and being a big 10 championship game um to have opportunity to win the big 10 and but you know as we've seen right it's hard to go uh undefeated in the regular season right we've only it's only been done one time one time right so like it's hard to do um so obviously expectations are high um but you know football is football right things happen all the time changes happen and you know you never know what's going to happen in the next game let alone the next play so excited though definitely excited because there's a lot of players on the team i feel like they have ability like recruiting classes

have been pretty good getting guys in that have ability as well. So definitely excited. But, you know, just looking forward to obviously a good week this week, being Nebraska on Black Friday and, you know, just keeping that streak rolling. So definitely go Hawks, though. Should be a lot of fun. I told you I was done, but I have two last questions for you. Okay.

One, are you gonna go to the bowl game if they make it to a new year six bowl and two what is your favorite thanksgiving food item so if they do go to new year's six i was thinking about this i was like gotta go right gotta go um if they somehow luck into the big 10 championship game i'm definitely going because indianapolis is right up the street so definitely going to that but um i don't know if i i definitely want to go for sure um it just depends it just depends how the how um when it is and how things line up because uh yeah it'll just depend it'll just depend but i definitely want to go because i mean it'll be fun and you know to see see the boys play and um be around the hawkeye fans and

everything um and then favorite thanksgiving item it's probably probably mac and cheese that's probably that's probably my favorite that's like without a doubt like that's always the one thing i'm like homemade mac and cheese yeah yeah yeah homemade for sure um either that either my mom makes or i make um you know it's gonna be good so yeah yeah that's probably that's probably top tier everything else um it's probably just like a step below that um but the mac and cheese is definitely top tier i love it man i love man i didn't realize i asked my team this at the hospital i work at and they all said uh cranberry sauce like who likes cranberry sauce i i that's terrible so i appreciate your answer and actually being

an answer of a food item that I actually would enjoy as well. Cranberry sauce isn't terrible. I'm not a big fan of it. It ain't the favorite food item. My family, my family loves it though. My family, my family loves cranberry sauce. I, but I don't like love it.

I definitely still get it, but I don't, I don't like love it like they do. So yeah. Cranberry. I, I just don't like fruit. So like cranberry sauce is not doing for me at all. Um, the Sean, as always, my man, I appreciate you hopping on. I appreciate you carrying the show today. Um, while I am struggling to formulate thoughts and words in my head.

So, um, as always, man, you are much appreciated. Uh, your work is, is truly amazing. Um, and appreciate you chopping on,

um, Hawkeye nation. Appreciate you tuning in. We will back every single day this week, Monday through Friday, we have free episodes dropping wherever you get podcast at, and also on YouTube by searching a lockdown Hawkeyes. LeSean is with us every single Sunday,

recapping your Iowa football team, hopefully getting a W. As always, Hawkeye Nation, I appreciate you tuning in. Have a phenomenal Sunday, an even better weekend, a better week, a great Thanksgiving, and as always, let's go Hawks.