Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Spencer Petras will have a better 1st year than Nate Stanley and why the opener vs Purdue is a sneaky good matchup

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

We begin our two week positional breakdown of the Iowa Hawkeye football team and the schedule breakdown starting with the quarterback position and Iowa's season opener versus Purdue. How will Spencer Petras manage at the QB position after Nate Stanley has held down the starters spot for three seasons? I believe he will do better. Find out why on today's show. As for the Purdue game, that one is sneaky, and could make for a tough opening weekend for Kirk Ferentz's squad. Jeff Brohm has consistently found a way to exploit the typically unbreakable Phil Parker defense, and that scares me. We also cover the men's basketball team and their potential non-conference schedule.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get $10 off your first order. 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 on the Locked On Sports Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and I hope you had a fantastic weekend. There was finally some real college football, and I know there's been technically college football the last few weeks, but we finally got some good football playing this past week, and it gets me even more excited for the Big Ten to start and the Iowa Hawkeyes to start playing football in just under

a month. So with that being said, over the next two weeks, we're going to be doing a season preview. Every single day, we're going to be breaking down a new position, and every single day, we're going to be breaking down a game in the schedule. So today, we're going to be talking about the quarterbacks. Who are the quarterbacks? What are the biggest questions? What is the depth like for this position group? And then we're going to go into breaking down the Iowa versus Purdue game. We're going to be doing that for each and every game in the order of the schedule.

So tomorrow, we're going to be talking about that running back group and why Tyler Goodson might not be getting as many carries as we all expect. I expect the carries to actually get split a little bit more than we probably think. Tyler Goodson is a fantastic back, but there's four backs on that roster who probably could be getting carries this upcoming year. I'll explain why historically that has been the case. Also, we're going to be talking about Iowa versus Northwestern and why this Northwestern game is not expected to be as terrible as it was last year.

Northwestern is going to be a better team than they were last year, so I highly expect that game to be a little bit more competitive than we saw last year's game to be. So that's going to be coming up on tomorrow's episode. And again, we're going to be breaking down every position group, every single game over the next two weeks. And we have some great interviews with former Iowa Hawkeyes coming up after that as well. On today's show, again, jumping into the first part, though, we're actually going to talk about the men's basketball team's non-conference schedule and a few other news and notes along

with the AP poll before we hit into that football positional preview on segment number two. So let's get into that right now. So as most of you know and are probably along in the same boat as me is, the NCAA basketball season is something near and dear to our hearts. This is an opportunity for the Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball team to win a national championship. So any news and notes we can get on what is going to happen with that season, I want to make sure we're covering on the show. And specifically, one of the big topics of conversation has been what is going to happen for the non-conference schedule. There's been a lot of different proposals out there. There's been a lot of different questions about how they're

going to play these games. But Fran did say they are planning on playing the Big Ten ACC showdown. They're planning on playing the Gavit games, which is the Big Ten versus the Big East. They're planning on playing Oregon State and Sioux Falls. And they're planning on keeping their own Thanksgiving tournament. So basically, they're planning on keeping all of their non-conference schedule. And I believe Iowa State was also included in that as well. So it'll be interesting to see who they get in that Thanksgiving tournament. I'll try to take a look and see what teams don't have tournaments and then come up with my projection for who that could be.

Obviously, if they are able to have some fans in the stadium, that'll be a better opportunity for them to make a little bit more money. And speaking of the money side, and I'll get back into the basketball side, you know, the Iowa Hawkeyes athletic department, Gary Barber, they have really doubled down on saying that they are not bringing back the four sports that were eliminated, despite the fact that the budget deficit is projected to be between $40 and $60 million, which is about a $40 to $60 million dip from the original projection.

So despite the fact that having football games is going to help that budget, and if we are able to have fans in the stands even a little bit, that'll continue to help that budget. That is not going to change the future as of right now for the four sports that were eliminated. Obviously, those athletes are not happy about that, and I think it is a little bit ridiculous. At the end of the day, it is a business. However, how are you going to just eliminate those programs like that, especially

a few programs that are doing pretty well and have done pretty well historically. So I find that to be a little bit ridiculous the way Iowa's handled that. Again, the biggest thing for me in the Big Ten and canceling the football season was not necessarily the decision to cancel the football season. It was how they handled the entire process. And I think Iowa is doing the exact same thing with the four sports they eliminated. I think they're handling that terribly. But trying to make another switch back into basketball, the ACC Big Ten, right now they're kind of running into a few issues about when to schedule those games.

The ACC apparently only has two really open windows as they're trying to schedule a few conference games in December. December 15th to December 16th and December 29th to December 30th. Those are the two windows they're looking at playing those games. And then as for the Gabba games, that Big Ten plus Big East, I would absolutely love to see Iowa versus Creighton. We talk about Iowa wanting to have a tough non-conference schedule and get some of those marquee victories like they did in that Thanksgiving tournament last year in Vegas over at Texas Tech. I think playing Creighton would be huge for them. That would be an opportunity to show how you match up against another team that's going to be ranked in

the top 10, top 15 in the nation. So as we get more information about the actual schedule, we'll definitely be breaking that down right here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. But that's it for right now for the non-conference games. And as we talked about rankings, the AP poll came out after an interesting week in college football. And the Big Ten is back in the AP poll. Ohio State checked in at 6. Ohio State checked in at 6. Penn State checked in at 10.

We had Wisconsin at 19 and Michigan at 23. Iowa did not make the AP poll, despite the fact that they were in the original AP poll. They are now just receiving votes. So they are, let me see, 1, 2, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. They're the ninth team receiving votes with 16. I really don't care a ton about AP polls, especially preseason AP polls. I do think with what has been happening,

the AP poll group has been handling this also pretty bad with the fact that last week they did not include the Big Ten despite the fact that the Big Ten is in. And then we knew that. I don't know. I just think the way they're handling it is pretty bad. But we're going to start seeing a few of these teams lose some games.

And once Iowa starts playing, if they can do well and if they can get off to that hot start that I believe they can, if they don't slip up, we're going to see Iowa hop in the A people, though, sooner rather than later. Also, bowl games, they're working on you know they changed the requirements to get into bowls so that is interesting it shouldn't impact iowa i expect iowa to be um i guess it would impact iowa just because the bowl eligibility and the wins that you need to get there obviously the the ball requirements are going to be changed since

most teams aren't even going to be playing a 12 game season um iowa for example is scheduled to play an eight game season so that is changing uh it is going to be interesting since most teams aren't even going to be playing a 12-game season. Iowa, for example, is scheduled to play an eight-game season, so that is changing. It is going to be interesting to see how the bowl season shakes out. So we're going to be covering that on a future episode as well, figuring out what bowls could Iowa go to if the bowl requirements and all that stuff shakes out pretty significantly. What are some interesting matchups we would like to see? For example, I know I've seen on Twitter people float around the idea of what about Iowa and Iowa State playing in a postseason bowl? I think that would be

fantastic television to watch, so we're going to be covering that on a later episode as well. We're going to take a quick break though and then hop into our position preview and talk about why we feel like the ceiling for Spencer Petras is pretty darn high, and the reason why there's questions about him I think are honestly a little bit ridiculous.

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Use promo code LOCKEDON for $10 off at BiltBar.com. All right, we are back for segment number two of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes. And as I've been kind of teasing, we're going to be breaking down position group by position group. And today we're going to be starting with the quarterback position. And how this all started, I kind of took a look and thought,

Iowa plays in three weeks. What is something we can do to get ready for that season? And I wanted to make sure we're spending plenty of time. I saw a lot of question marks, right? A lot of Iowa State fans talking about how Brock Purdy is better than Spencer Petras. A lot of Minnesota fans talking about how they have an advantage because Minnesota has a better quarterback. I've even seen Purdue people talk about how Purdue has an advantage because they have a quarterback with starting level experience. So I want to make sure we're covering every single position group on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

And we'll be doing that each and every day, starting with the quarterback position today. So let's just quickly break down that quarterback room right now. It's definitely doesn't have as much experience as it had. Nate Stanley is gone. Former three-year starter Peyton Manziel transfers. He is now playing down in Texas. So the quarterback group right now is Spencer Petras who enrolled in January

of 2018, which I think is very important to keep in the back of your mind. We got Alex Padilla enrolled in January of 2019. We got Deuce Hogan, a highly hyped four-star quarterback who joined this year. He was expecting to join in the summer and ended up doing that anyways. He was not a guy who was going to be enrolling early. He felt like he wanted to really enjoy the last semester of his high school and wasn't ready to leave his family and his brother and whatnot. And then finally behind them we have Connor Kapusak, a walk-on from Connecticut. So those are the four quarterbacks in the room.

We essentially have a redshirt sophomore, a redshirt freshman. I think Connor is a redshirt sophomore as well. And then Deuce Hogan is a true freshman. Hopefully, in an ideal world, Deuce Hogan, if he does win that backup job, that is fantastic. But I think it would be great to see him redshirt this year and get Alex Padilla some snaps if there are some blowout games and then have Deuce and Alex really battle it out next year

to see who could win that backup spot, similar to how Petras and Manziel did last year and the year previously as well. But the biggest questions to me are, what are the expectations for this group? How does Iowa replace Nate Stanley? And what are the concerns about Spencer Petras? And then what are the concerns about the depth overall? So when I look at this, let's start with the Nate Stanley piece. And I don't want to make this any Nate Stanley slander. I think he was a fantastic quarterback for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Overall, he did really well. And he did a good job of leading Iowa to some really big wins. I mean, he beat Nebraska every year. He beat Iowa State every

year. He also beat Minnesota every year. But he never beat Penn State or Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, there were several really close games. In Penn State, there were a couple of really close plays. They were in some really close games, and he had a couple of really big plays that could have made a difference, and he just didn't get it done. And I don't mean, again, I don't want to slander Nate Stanley, but he was a good quarterback, but he was not great. There's a reason why he is currently on our practice squad.

He was not this amazing quarterback that we had all hoped that he would develop into. His ceiling never really got that high. We never saw the top of what his ceiling could be. He still struggled with accuracy issues, and it sounds like that wasn't really something they worked on in Iowa, but I just want to be clear here. My point of this is we're not trying to replace a Baker Mayfield or a Kyler Murray. We're trying to replace Nate Stanley. And the expectations there are not as high as I think people are looking at. And then going into those expectations, when we look at what Brian was trying to do,

Brian Ferencz was trying to do last year, he was clearly focused on getting Spencer Petras worked in the mix. Last year, he got real snaps and real game situations against Rutgers and Middle Tennessee State. Typically, when you're winning by 30, you're going to run the ball and just kind of run the clock down. He had Spencer Petras going for it on fourth down. He wanted him to get into those game situations to get an understanding about what to do in college football and to get some of the nerves out. So I really thought that was a great, great idea by Brian Ferenc to be able to take advantage of those opportunities. And then again, the expectations for me, when we look at how Nate

Stanley did his freshman year, his sophomore year, he threw for 2,432 yards, 26 touchdowns and six interceptions with a completion percentage of 55.8%. And keep in mind, his wide receiver group was pretty weak. He had Nick Easley and Matt Vandenberg, and that was it. That was it for veteran guys. He also had Amir Smith-Marset and Brandon Smith, but those were freshmen. This was the beginning of Iowa really developing that wide receiver group. Now they go five, six deep, whereas then they really just had Eas and Vandenberg to rely on and Vandenberg was coming off an injury. So, or sorry, I think that was the prop the following year. But and then as far as like, the wide receiver group goes, this is the best wide receiver group I think I was had in the Kirk Ferens tenure from top to bottom. And I do believe their running back group

is one of the most dynamic running back groups we've also had in quite some time mostly with Tyler Goodson Tyler Goodson as a running back is I think above has a ceiling higher than an Akram Wadley and is a guy who will be playing on Sundays in the NFL in a few years and then you look at the guys behind him Ivory Kelly Martin has starting you know starting experience Makai Sargent is a guy who could be starting, depending on how the Tyler Goodson situation shakes out with the fact that he hasn't had a lot of practice time. He's definitely going to be getting some carries, though, and he's, I would say, maybe the best blocking running back on this team.

So around Spencer Petras is a lot of weapons that Nate Stanley did not have. Nate Stanley did have Akram Wadley, but a lot of weapons that he did not overall have in his arsenal for the Iowa Hawkeyes. So when I look at it for Spencer Petras, I don't think they're going to hold the reins and not let the ball lose. I do think they're going to rely on the running game quite a bit, but I do believe that Spencer Petras will be putting up numbers similar to Nate Stanley's in a shortened season. So if it's 2,400 yards in an eight-game season, maybe 1,900, 2,000 yards. I don't believe they're going to just hand the ball off

and not let him take chances. I think the big thing to remind you all here is that he's been in the system for quite some time. January of 2018, that means he's had January 2018 to January 2019, 2019 to 2020, and now we're at the end of 2020. He's had two and a half years in the Iowa Hawkeye system. Brian Ferenc said it best. He said Spencer Petras is mastering the offense.

Nate Stanley only had a year in that system. So when he started as a true sophomore, Spencer Petras is in a position to really go and do some damage as a quarterback. Petras is in a position to really go and do some damage as a quarterback. I do think the floor is lower right away than Nate Stanley, but the ceiling is so much higher than Nate Stanley's was because he's coming from a system in high school that allowed him to chuck the ball all over the field. He has a huge arm, an absolutely phenomenal arm, and the high school he went to, he broke all sorts of records that were held by Jared Goff. So just keep that in mind as well. Again, the depth here, I think is a little bit concerning because you only have a lot of younger guys. But what makes

me excited about this team is the fact that they do have a lot of weapons around them. Their offensive line, I believe is fantastic as well. They're hopefully not going to have as much of the issues in the interior with Tyler Linderbaum returning for a second year. And a couple other guys, Mark Kallenberger, for example, Kyler Schott, they've had experience now on that offensive line. I expect the offensive line to give him some time. So I know the football positional preview for the Iowa quarterback position,

it's concerning to outsiders, but I do believe we're in a good position to make that transition. And every team has to make a transition to a veteran quarterback. You don't see Oklahoma prior to this past game where they lost. You don't see people thinking, oh, God, Oklahoma's going to take a step back because they have Spencer Rattler coming in. I think it's the same thing for Iowa. Spencer Petras is not a Spencer Rattler, but he is a very good quarterback.

A guy who I believe was rated four stars by some outlets towards the end of his career in high school. This is a guy who can take the reins, I believe, hold down the quarterback position and possibly be an NFL draft pick in just a couple years, maybe one, two, three years. It could be any of those, but I do believe he's going to put up some good numbers in the Iowa Hawkeye offense. But that is our football positional preview for the quarterback position. Coming up on segment number three, we're going to break down that Iowa vs. Purdue game and why that actually

is a very sneaky matchup that Iowa needs to be a little bit concerned about coming into the very first game of the season. Alright, we are back for our third and our final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes, and we're continuing

our preview of the season with that Iowa vs. Purdue game. And I don't know about you, but personally, Iowa vs. Purdue always scares me. I hate playing Purdue, especially in the Jeff Braum era. Since he has taken over, things have been crazy, especially because Iowa prides themselves on having a great defense and especially an even better secondary. Phil Parker is a secondary coach. He puts together

a fantastic defense and a defense that doesn't allow very many passing yards. However, Jeff Braum's Purdue team, doesn't matter who the hell's behind center, a quarterback just puts up some numbers against him. In 2019, 327 yards throwing two touchdowns. 2018, 333 yards throwing four touchdowns. 2017, 229 yards throwing three touchdowns. 2016, 458 yards throwing and five touchdowns. I believe Jeff Brom was not the program at that time, but

still the point still stands. And four out of three of the last four games, Purdue has put up over 300 yards passing and at least two touchdowns. Overall in those four games, they have had 14 touchdown passes. Last year, they did the 327 yards and two touchdowns without Rondell Moore. Let that sink in. Without Rondell Moore and their backup quarterback, Jack Plummer, they had Jack Plummer and David Bell just ripping apart that Iowa secondary. Well, Rondell Moore is returning, and that is very concerning to me. He is back. He officially announced that.

Good for him. I'm happy that he can come back. I think the more talented players we have in the Big Ten, the better the Big Ten is. Rondell Moore is an incredibly talented player, and that also makes me very concerned because his athleticism is something that Iowa's defense typically can't match up well against. We saw that with Penn State and KJ Hamler. We saw that with Saquon Barkley. We saw that with Christian McCaffrey. When you get those guys who are kind of freak athletes, Iowa just doesn't match up well against those guys. And then you factor in the fact that Purdue's offense just has a way of manipulating and

exploiting Iowa's defense. Having David Bell and Ronda Moore back is very concerning to me. Jack Plummer should be ready in year two as a starter. The one nice thing I will say is that Purdue, their offensive line isn't fantastic. Grant Hermans is a solid left tackle, but it will be a good test to see if a pretty new Iowa defensive line can take advantage of this situation. I think more than ever, we're going to see a lot of rotations along that Iowa defensive line. This will be a good test to see if they can get pressure on Jack Plummer. But again, I think what Jeff Brom does well is get the ball out quickly

and get the ball in space to these guys so they can make plays. On the defensive line for Purdue and overall their defense in general, last year they were ranked 87th in the league. They should get better, but not by much. They are returning four of their top seven leading tacklers heading into this year,

including their top two sack guys this year. And Lorenzo Neal is a beast and will be back this year, including their top two sack guys this year. And Lorenzo Neal is a beast and will be back this year. On the defensive line, he's a stud. But I do think the one nice thing going for us is that Iowa's offensive line is a strength in my opinion. Last year there was a little bit of concern in that interior, and I know we're concerned that Tristan Wirfs is gone, but I think replacing him with Coy Cronk is about as good as you can do from a replacement perspective. There's a reason why Iowa went on the transfer market and

got Coy Cronk to come to Iowa to play that tackle position after having three years of starting experience in the Big Ten for Indiana at the tackle position. So I think he's about as serviceable as a replacement as you can get for Tristan Wirfs, but overall across the line, I think that Iowa offensive line is going to be a strength this year, especially Tyler Linderbaum leading the way at the center, Kyler Schott and Mark Kallenberger playing the two guard spots most likely. As we saw last year, due to injuries and ineffectiveness, we saw a lot of moving around in that interior,

so a lot of guys have some experience back there. Justin Britt is another guy to watch out for as well. But I do believe that Iowa offensive line should be able to handle this Purdue defensive line, even though they are returning a few of their big-name guys along that defensive line. For me, though, what comes down to this game is, and I will keep up from a point perspective, I do predict this to be a high-scoring game in the 30s, and Iowa will need to get into the 30s to get that W.

You see Kirk Ferris talk a little bit about sometimes where he's going for two or where he tries to go for a touchdown on fourth and one instead of kick or he tries to get the first down so they can continue a drive when they're in the opponent's territory instead of going for a field goal just by having you know an all-American kicker in Keith Duncan. This is a game where they're going to want to do that. They're going to look at this game and think this is going to be a high scoring game where they're going to want to do that. They're going to look at this game and think, this is going to be a high-scoring game. We're going to need to put some points on the board and continue to do so to keep up with Purdue's offense.

That's going to happen. Until I see a Phil Parker defense stop a Jeff Prom-Alette offense, I'm not going to believe it can happen. Purdue has just done a fantastic job of exploiting Iowa every single year, even when they're in down years. So I do believe this is a high scoring game. Iowa on paper has more talent. They should get that W, but it is a sneaky game. And we've seen that in the past couple of years with Purdue squeaking out a few wins against Iowa, even in Iowa city. On the plus side, Kirk has only lost three home openers. So I know this is a different year, this is a different situation,

but Kirk has only lost three home openers before. Two of those were his first two home openers of his Iowa Hawkeye head coaching career, and the other one was against Northern Illinois. There have definitely been a few close calls, don't get me wrong. But with the one-month preparation, I believe they'll have a better chance to come in here more prepared. But I do believe this will be a high scoring game. So that'll do it for our Iowa versus Purdue breakdown. Coming up tomorrow, again, we're going to talk about the running back position. We're also going to be breaking down the NFL games from this past week and how Iowa Hawkeyes did.

For example, AJ Paneza got his first sack. Fantastic stuff for the former five-star recruit that joined the Iowa Hawkeyes as a legacy. And then we're going to talk about the Iowa versus Northwestern game and why this game is going to be a little bit more difficult for Iowa than it was last year. They have a new signal caller. They have a new offensive coordinator. And Isaiah Bowser is back and healthy. And he was a problem for Iowa in 2018.

So we're going to be covering those three topics on tomorrow's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Make sure to tune into our episode tomorrow and every episode we have going forward. We have daily episodes Monday through Friday. If you are not subscribed already, make sure you do so now so you can get these episodes downloaded

directly to your smart device and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, have a fantastic Monday and go Hawks.