Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - The Big Ten is still canceled. Here's what the future holds crossover episode with Locked On Nittany Lions

Episode Date: August 20, 2020

We are joined by Locked On Nittany Lions host Kevin McGuire as we review what has gone on with the Big Ten and what it means for the future. How does this impact recruiting? Why does high school football get to play and college football doesn't? How do we feel about a spring football plan?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built Bar“Today’s episode is brought to you by Built Bar. Go to http://builtbar.com and use promo code LOCKEDON and you’ll get $10 off your next order.” 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. What is going on, Hawkeye Nation?

And welcome back 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'm excited to bring you today's episode. It was a recording that I did with Kevin McGuire, the host of Locked On Nittany Lions. He is a fantastic host. If you haven't listened to his show, I highly recommend you doing that. Again, great guy. Does a great job with that podcast.

And we talked basically just about the state of the Big Ten. We did record this episode on Monday afternoon. So a few things have changed. but really nothing actually has changed. We've just seen Kevin Warren continue to provide pretty poor answers to questions that we're asking. But that being said, we talked a lot about what spring football will look like, how this impacts student athletes. So the conversation is great. Hope you're going to enjoy it. If you do like this episode and you like the episodes we've been putting out, we've had a lot

of great interviews the last couple of days. Make sure to like, review and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And also make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And before we jump into the conversation with Kevin McGuire of Locked On Nittany Lions, I want to quickly update you on a few things that happened yesterday in the Big Ten world. First and foremost, Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren broke his silence and basically did a lot of talking without saying anything of relevance. The Big Ten also released a letter explaining their decision, but they basically said, we did this because of medical concerns, but they didn't provide any real data about what those medical concerns were again providing an answer without actually answering any questions which i

thought was a little bit ridiculous considering it's taking them a week to do basically nothing also the ncaa division one council decided that fall sports student athletes can't compete in any amount of competitions this year and it will not count as a season of eligibility. It'll be approved most likely by the NCAA Board of Governors on Friday. That's something just to keep in mind, not that it really matters for Iowa Hawkeye athletes at this point, given the fact that the Big Ten basically said we are not going back on our decision,

although there's been quite a bit of speculation and rumors being brought out there by people who don't have great sources saying that the Big Ten is close to doing a season in the fall but we'll kind of keep you posted on everything that's happening with that and then finally on some transaction related news I missed out a couple things I didn't actually let you know about Jake Gervais did sign back with the Rams Nick Easley did get released by the Bills and so did Parker Hesse from the Titans. So just some transactions happening on that Iowa football front. And also Keith Duncan was recognized as a first team preseason All-American by USA Today Sports. Unfortunately,

we're not going to see Keith Duncan be kicking this fall most likely. So unfortunate news there, but congratulations to Keith to being named preseason All-American definitely well well deserved so that being said let's hop into our talk with Kevin McGuire as we talk about the state of the Big Ten what can happen this fall and what we expect to happen in the spring and why we agree or don't agree with some of the decisions currently being made all right so Kevin obviously we've talked before it's been an interesting time the last couple of months with everything that's going on with college football with everything that's going on with coronavirus and i think both of our programs have had some tumultuous things happen

in the last couple years as well just overall you and i have had a very interesting job so i wanted to first get your your thoughts on what is happening right now in the big tens first with them deciding to postpone fall sports to the spring. So how did you react to that? What were your thoughts on that? I saw it more as just kind of as the phrase has been thrown around a lot, you know, kicking the can down the road a little bit. And I think that that's – I don't necessarily think that that's a bad way

to go about this because things are evolving. Things are changing so quickly. And it's tough to keep up with everything that's been going on. And if you feel like you're not ready to cancel everything entirely, why not have an alternative backup plan to at least explore? And maybe you can plan to have that put together and hopefully it works out. I'm not so confident that it will, but I'm willing to allow that option to still be on the table. So I'm glad that there's at least some idea of what they want to do with the

big 10, but I wish there was more concrete information on how they're planning on doing it. Yeah, I completely agree. I think for me, what was frustrating was the fact that they didn't really give a lot of answers to why they decided to postpone. I felt like they medical reasons great I understand

that and 100% I want for I want the best for the players and what is right for the players but I also wish they would have maybe given a bit more information and we're seeing that kind of come back on Kevin Warren now because in his like in his press conference after they made the decision to as you say kind of kick the cannon on the road and wait till spring. He didn't really answer any questions. I mean, he basically left a lot of very open-ended answers of what was happening. And I feel like the other piece that really frustrated me was the fact that they released a schedule and then a week later they postponed. They had the last five months to try to figure out what could work.

And we've seen other sports leagues do this successfully so want to get your thoughts on that do you feel like I mean because college football is an interesting position right we have we have kids or you know young adults who have to go to school a bubble aspect doesn't really work for college sports per se but do you feel like there's anything that could have been done to make this safe and what are your thoughts on like the other conferences as well deciding to move forward with this with the season yeah i'm not so sure exactly how you're supposed to go about this with the whole idea of a bubble i get you can probably contain a football program you know pretty well especially before other students start coming back on campus and even

then when the the other student population does start coming on the campus i think there's probably ways you can go about it, although it's going to be more difficult. But at least it's a possibility. And we have seen some pretty good results for the most part around these different college football programs. The schools that have been reporting the numbers, at least, not every school is being 100% clean of this virus,

but it seems as though things were working for a lot of schools. So there was some sign of encouragement there. Platterbrookers. Yeah, there were exceptions. Some schools have handled it better than others. Some schools, you know, basically, you know, you look around the different regions. Every region's hit differently right now. Every region has been, you know, handling things a little bit differently.

And that does kind of go hand in hand with what we're seeing with some of the schools too. But, you know, at least from the schools that have been reporting the information, a lot of schools in the Big Ten, Iowa and Penn State certainly have been one of those schools that have been very forthcoming with the data. And I like seeing that. I think that's a good sign. You know, we haven't seen that from some other conferences, you know, especially if you look at the SEC, I don't think any of those schools have been reporting any of their numbers. That doesn't mean that they're not handling it well, but we don't know that for sure. There's not a lot of transparency.

No, the transparency has not been. It's more difficult to judge what their decision is if you don't know what's actually happening. Yeah, and of course, now we're recording this. The SEC has just released their schedule, their updated schedule for the 2020 season. Again, we'll see if that season actually happens, but you know, the SEC could very well be following the footsteps of the big 10 with every

passing day, you know, could get closer and closer to a similar decision. That doesn't necessarily mean that the big 10 was more right in how they handled the decision. You know, ultimately you have to do what's best for the interest of your player safety and everybody associated with the programs on those universities. But, you know, if the SEC comes to that decision, you know, we'll see. Same thing with the ACC and the Big 12. So I don't necessarily fault those three conferences for trying to move forward

and try to put together their seasons. I'm not holding anything against them for that. I think, you know, if they feel like it's something that their conference and their membership can handle, I say go for it. And I would have liked to have seen the Big Ten do that, but I'm also not necessarily outraged at what the Big Ten eventually decided to do. All right, I'm going to quickly pause the conversation with Kevin.

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Delicious protein bar that packs just as much taste as it does nutrition. So check out Built Bar right now. They have a fantastic special going on. If you go to BuiltBar.com, use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get $10 off your next order. Use promo code LOCKEDON for $10 off at BuiltBar.com. And right now, while supplies last, you get a free cooler with purchase. So again, check out BuiltBar.com and use promo code LockedOn. Yeah, I think for me, what I find interesting about the Big Ten is the big divide, I think,

between the programs and the fact that you have all these programs. And the Big Ten has prized themselves on being probably one of the best academic conferences, save for maybe the Pac-12. But really, you're kind of looking at the Stanfords and the USC's really in that arena. But the Big Ten prides itself on being one of the more academically advanced conferences. And for them to make this decision, I wonder if that has anything to do with it, especially when you look at the divide among the teams you know you have a school like Northwestern that you know they are it seems like they are clearly on the the one side of let's not

play football then you have Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan even has kind of jumped into the mix that want to play football this year you have Minnesota who't. Do you feel like there is a bigger divide in the Big Ten than there are the other conferences? It feels like the other conferences have a bit more unity when it comes to the decisions that they're kind of making going forward. Certainly with this particular instance, I think absolutely. And you've got to keep in mind, the Big Ten Conference spans from New Jersey to Nebraska.

So that goes back to what I was saying. Every region, obviously the big general issue spans from New Jersey to Nebraska. So that goes back to what I was saying. Like every region. So we're dealing with, you know, obviously the big general issue is the same, but there's different degrees of it, I think from state to state. And when you've got a conference that goes from the East coast down to the middle of the cornfields of Nebraska, that's, there's a lot of territory. Now, if you look at the ACC, the ACC stretched out along the coast,

but the SEC is basically in the same core region. Big 12, pretty much kind of the same category too. So I can understand why you're going to have so many different opinions. This certainly has been a dividing point, I think, for a lot of members within the Big Ten. Certainly we've seen players coming out and coaches speaking out. We've seen the parents coming together. So there's a lot of questions that I think need to be addressed.

And I think it's fair to have a lot of criticism in the bands for some of those answers. Yeah. Do you feel like it's shocking that Kevin Warren hasn't addressed anything that's happened to him? Because over this weekend, I mean, there has been quite a bunch of developments among Big Ten players and parents I mean we talked about the schools that want to play Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio State, Penn State and now Michigan parents have

gotten into the fold and they are demanding answers they are coming together they are pissed off and then you see Justin Fields puts out a petition and he just gets an insane amount of signings from that and obviously he wants to play and I think it's great to see that leadership from him not wanting to leave Ohio State and wanting to bring football to the Big Ten in the fall and whatnot but do you think is it shocking to you that Kevin Warren hasn't addressed these issues yet? A little bit yeah and I think his initial media opportunity when he went on Big Ten Network the day that this decision was made didn't leave a whole lot of confidence because he didn't have some of those answers that I think a lot of people were expecting. When you make a decision this drastic, you're going to need some more, yeah, I think it's time to get Kevin Warren back in front of the media and addressing people through a Zoom conference call,

whatever the case may be, and certainly addressing some of the concerns that the players have, the coaches have, and reaching out to the parents where needed. I think it would be a very wise move for Kevin Warren. And it's kind of the biggest test that Kevin Warren has had since taking over Jim Delaney. I don't know if Jim Delaney would be handling it quite the same way. Maybe the same decision, but I think he would be a little bit more confident in how it's been executed.

Yeah, 100% agree. So, do you live in Pennsylvania? I do, yep. Okay, so are they playing high school football this year? As of right now, the plan is still to have high school football. It's a little bit of a political back and forth right now between the governor's office and the high school athletic association in the state.

Just in the last week, the governor has put out a request or a recommendation not to have fall sports this year, but he hasn't officially slammed the door shut on it. So it's still kind of up in the air. As of right now, there will be high school football, but we'll see what tomorrow may bring. It feels like one of those situations where, please, I'm telling you,

please shut down fall football or fall sports. Otherwise, I'm going to have to and look like a jerk, but please just do it before I have to do that kind of thing. Yeah, we're still in the situation. Maybe you guys are as well in Iowa, but a lot of schools are still trying to figure out what they're going to do with remote learning, on-campus learning, or on-site learning. And school's going to start very soon here in Pennsylvania. So again, decisions have to be made one way or the other, and you got to figure out a way to back

it up, whatever that decision is going to be. Yeah, I mean, so Iowa is proceeding forward with football, and I think Iowa's in even a more interesting position with football because they have had a ridiculous amount of people transfer from across the country to play high school football in Iowa this year. They had multiple people from, like, multiple three, four-star recruits from Colorado transfer to a few big high schools in Iowa, which means they had to literally move their lives from Colorado to Iowa. One of their parents had to move with them.

I mean, that would be pretty crazy for Iowa to not go forward to football. But also, Iowa was the only state to have any sports in the summer. They had baseball and softball. And actually did it shockingly well. I wasn't expecting that kind of result. So I do think it's interesting that you know we're looking at high school football as possibly playing in a lot of these midwestern states and yet we don't have college football. What would your thoughts be if the if

Penn State decided to leave the Big Ten for a year or wanted to move over and kind of be an independent for a season? What are your thoughts on that? See I would have embraced that idea and I'm a little surprised you know when the Big Ten decided no conference football this year. I was a little disappointed that they didn't put out the statement that says that if you want to go schedule some games and you can schedule some games, you know, they're not going to hold you back. We've seen that a little bit at the FCS level. And I was kind of hoping that that would be the opportunity for some Big Ten teams to continue playing football. Again, if they felt like they could handle it comfortably. And I feel like, I think Penn State would have been one that would entertain that possibility

because they're probably going to have a pretty good team this year. And they could have found some games I think they could have scheduled. You know, there could have been some good scheduling opportunities. I got a chance to write a little bit about that recently. So I've had some fun with thinking about how Penn State would have put together the schedule. And you know what? They still could have played some Big Ten teams. You know, if Iowa was going to play football one way or the other, Nebraska was going to play, Ohio State, Michigan, I mean, those schools could all still play each other. So they can put together at least a portion of a schedule and then

find a couple potential other non-conference opportunities if they were out there. Yeah, I'm not trying to be rude. I'm on my phone writing that down as an idea because I think that would be a lot of fun for me just trying to spitball what Iowa's schedule could look like if they decided to, you know, play the independent schedule. So kind of wondering for you, you're looking at the, you know, Nebraska, for example, is one of the worst teams in the Big Ten that are still wanting to play this season. Penn State, one of the better teams. What are your thoughts? Do you feel like it'd be easier for Nebraska to fill out a schedule, a non-conference schedule, or Penn State?

Because you kind of run the risk of you play at Penn State and you have the chance of losing, whereas Nebraska you have a better chance of winning. So actually, who do you think would have an easier time scheduled? Because Iowa's kind of right in the middle of this. Right. So who do you think would have an easier time scheduled? Because I was kind of right in the middle of this. Right. Who do you think would have an easier time actually filling out a schedule with some of these SEC, Big 12, and ACC teams?

I think Penn State would have had some good opportunities. One of the schools I think would have been an automatic scheduling boost would have been Pitt because the ACC is allowing schools in their conference to play a non-conference game as long as that non-conference opponent is in the same state. So a Penn State-conference game as long as that non-conference opponent's in the same state. So a Penn State-Pitt game, that would have been fun. You know, Temple's going to have some games that they're going to have to make up, I'm sure.

So, you know, you've got two games right there. And, again, you could still play some of those Big Ten teams. Penn State could play Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio State for sure. You know, a Penn State-Ohio State game this year was already going to be one of the marquee matchups, so why not keep that game on the calendar? And, again, those games are already scheduled. So you could keep those same dates and you just work around it where you need it. So I think Penn State would have had some interesting scheduling opportunities.

Although, you know, I would be very curious to have seen a Nebraska schedule with a bunch of Big 12 opponents just for old time's sake. Yeah. I think it would be fun to see Nebraska go somewhere and either do really well in a different conference. That, I feel like, would spark a lot of controversy as to why – That would have been a lot of fun. Yeah, what they do in the Big Ten. It would also be very interesting if they go to another conference

and also are terrible there. I'd be very interested to hear what Nebraska fans have to say at that point. Iowa would actually – I don't think that their schedule wouldn't really change a ton. They could Iowa State they would get Nebraska the only teams that you would really kind of miss them not playing is Wisconsin and you know Minnesota technically but I honestly don't like playing Minnesota I don't their rivalry it's not a huge like Ohio State Michigan Penn State those are all teams that were going to be on Iowa's schedule this year anyway. So it wouldn't have made that much of a difference,

although I think their win-loss record could have been a little bit worse. Well, you know what? I just kind of throw the win-loss record out this year, you know, put an asterisk next to it, whatever. You know, whatever games you get a chance to play. And, again, who knows what's going to happen with the bowl season. So, I mean, that may ultimately not mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but you know, it's, it's disappointing.

Let me ask you this real quick though, because you know, this idea of playing in the spring, let me go back to that. Do you think we will actually see spring football, you know, certainly for the big 10, but in other conferences that aren't playing this fall? That's good. I mean, I think you almost have to, like Iowa just put out a statement that they're going to lose around $100 million this year and they'll be at a budget deficit of $65 to $80 million. If they have a way to get football

or a product on the field and potentially get fans in those stadiums, that's only going to be more helpful for those teams. Especially those smaller schools, they need to be able to play football. If we have big schools that could schedule with them, that could be huge for those teams, especially those smaller schools. They need to be able to play football. And if we have big schools that could schedule with them, that could be huge for those teams. The only thing I will say is it is concerning to me having two football seasons in one, also having the NFL draft backing up right to the spring football season. But I don't know if you got a chance to look at Jeff Brom's, his proposal.

I actually thought it was pretty good. I mean, if you look at it, it's only technically five games more in a calendar year than what a school that went to the NCAA or the, you know, a college bowl or college playoff national championship would have played 20 games, technically spring and fall five games more. So it really wasn't that bad, all things considered, to be able to play a spring season. Maybe things will be a little bit more calmed down.

Maybe, I guess, America will just give up on trying to care about coronavirus. Who knows what's going to happen, right? But I do think it's possible. I think you kind of have to, though, too. Penn State, you know, they have some really good first, you know, possible first-round prospects. I was in a weird position where they don't have a lot of elite prospects like they did last year they have a lot of guys who are potential day two they could rise day one if they have a great season but

they're not in that realm yet so they really need some more tape to be able to move that up so i think it's really beneficial to some of those guys and probably some of the the lower end nfl draft prospects on penn state's roster they for the sake of those kids, I hope they get an opportunity to play spring football because they need some more tape. Is there any talk about any Iowa players potentially transferring in the next couple of weeks just so they can play at a school that is hoping to play this fall? I haven't heard of any players rumored to transfer yet. I was actually listening to another podcast today,

and they mentioned the fact that a lot of rosters are pretty full, so it would be very difficult for them to transfer anyways, and they've probably already enrolled in the school paid tuition. It's becoming significantly more difficult to get the heck out of school and go somewhere else at this point. Yeah, I haven't heard anybody rumored to leave. What about Penn State? Yeah, the same situation. I just bring it up because I feel like that was one of the first

criticisms that people had of the Big Ten and the Pac-12 that all these players were going to leave and play somewhere else. I was like, I don't know if that's really a realistic scenario in play. And you know, maybe somebody transfers, but I don't think you're going to see a mass exodus, certainly from schools like the Big Ten and the Pac-12 have to offer. That's just not going to happen. Well, I feel like the Big Ten really hurt those players. My thing is, like, I care the most about what the players – like, the budget and all that stuff, great. I mean, it sucks for the schools.

They're going to be losing so much money. It really sucks for the smaller school programs who rely on those games against big school programs to really fund the rest of their athletic – like, the thing I care about the most is the players and what they're like I care about their health and I care about their abilities to but especially on the football side their possibility of getting to the NFL and so to me the way the Big Ten handled it really screwed those players pretty poorly if they there's a couple guys again on Iowa who could have benefited from playing another

season and having that opportunity to train for the draft as well. And they might not get a season and they might not have the opportunity to really train for the draft. And to make that decision a week ago, doesn't give them the chance to transfer. I mean, I would have, I don't know about you, but if a player decided to transfer for a senior season so we can get more tape, I would have wholeheartedly supported that. Whatever is best for the player. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah. I've always been of the mindset of do whatever is best for the player. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. I've always been of the mindset of do whatever's best for the student athlete, you know, whatever puts them in the best position that they feel comfortable in or can thrive in. I'm never going to hold any student away from that opportunity. So especially for a senior who is looking for a one last season to play, you're not going to get in the big 10, you know, spring or not, you know, go out and find that opportunity elsewhere.

I'm all for that. Yeah, absolutely, man. Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see, do you feel like at this point, given the backlash from the parents and the players, given that the big 12 actually put produce a schedule that starts in the end of September, do you think there's any hope at this point that the big 10 plays a single game of football in the fall?

No, I really don't. Again, I'm not going to say anything against voicing those complaints, because I definitely get that. I just don't think that if you're going to go out and voice those concerns, don't expect that the Big Ten is ultimately going to say, oh, you know what, you're right, let's play some football. I think that decision's been made. It's going to be spring now. We're bust. And I still think it's going to be bust. Personally, I think it's going to be next fall until we see Big Ten again. But I think any possibility that the Big Ten plays football this year, I think is behind us right now. I would leave the door open slightly for the Big Ten allowing the school to pursue playing football somehow. Although, again, we're getting very close to a point where that's not going to be possible because schedules are already going to be situated you know any vacancies that were out there are filling up so

I don't know if that's necessarily going to be a possibility unless a couple big 10 schools or you know four or five big 10 schools decide that they're going to play and just play each other maybe that's an option but I think I think it's going to be time going to play and just play each other. Maybe that's an option, but I think, I think it's going to be time to move on and just focus on potentially playing in the spring, very little, hopefully playing in the fall next year. I completely agree. What I feel like has been happening is this slow burn or the slow letdown where it's like our, our,

our idea of whether we're going to play keeps going down. Right. And then they're like, Oh, hey, we're actually – I mean, they release a shorter schedule. They put some timeframes in to kind of move things back. I'm like, all right, we're just slowly making the step towards canceling football in the fall. They cancel football in the fall. Everyone gets pissed off.

And they say – and the parents start doing this. Now we have a little bit of hope. But it's like let's just – the little bit of hope is kind of taking away some of the anger of what happened until that also gets squashed I feel like it's this very interesting um mental mind game we're being played with not intentionally but it definitely feels like that we're eventually we're just going to lose hope with the fact there's no fall football and we're going to realize that's just not happening this year look if it does great I'll be there for it I'm looking forward to it but you know I I'm going to have to find my football fix elsewhere.

So I may have to adopt an ACC team or something like that. Assuming that the ACC continues on. I don't know. I don't know. I might just be a casual fan this year and I'll be okay with that. You know, I'll get through it. You know, I'll still have something to watch hopefully maybe the NFL will be a little bit more interesting this year. Who knows what's going to happen, but happen but you know it's it's a depressing kind of time right now it's an unfortunate reality that we're all working through right now that and again i've always said there are no easy answers here there's no simple solution there's no no more right answer than uh the other right now

i think every situation or every scenario to kind drum up right now, it's going to suck bottom line. You know, I think we're just going to have to take our lumps and hopefully we all get through it. Yeah. So I want to get your thoughts too. What, how do you feel like this impacts recruiting? Do you feel like it impacts recruiting at all? A little bit. I mean, cause if, if the ACC and the big, you know, big 12 and SEC can play games, they probably can't have recruits on campus to watch those games

like you typically would. So that kind of takes away that aspect of the positivity for those conferences of having an advantage. How do you feel like it impacts recruiting to not have ball football if other conferences go forward? Yeah, well, I think Ohio State's dominance in the recruiting rankings is finally going to be correct, right? No, I think –

Never like the Pope. Yeah, I think some schools are going to fare better than others as far as recruiting is concerned, because Ohio State's always going to recruit. We'll see if Penn State can keep the momentum that they have established up. This is going to hurt some programs harder than others because some programs are going to not be on the same kind of level

that they will continue to be on when we get through this. But yeah, I think this certainly changes the recruiting aspect, you know, the recruiting calendar. I'm curious if that's going to change at all, not being able to have recruits come on campus for a game that hurts. You know, I don't know if it's going to be a, a long dry spell as far as recruiting is concerned. I think when football does return to the big 10, I think programs will be able to pick it up a little bit more. I'd be very curious return to the Big Ten, I think programs will

be able to pick it up a little bit more. I'd be very curious what's going to happen with the group of five, though. I'm wondering if this may, you know, conferences that are playing, I wonder if this will help them, you know, attract a couple of recruits that maybe they would have missed out on. Yeah, I wonder if recruiting will almost be more locally focused, where you typically see, you know, in-state recruits, they will more often than not go to the in-state school, not, not necessarily Texas and Florida and like the hotbeds, but Iowa players are usually going to be picking between Iowa and Iowa state. Is that similar in Pennsylvania as well,

where a majority of those guys are going to go to Penn state or Pitt? You would think so. Some years it's probably more like that than others, but Ohio State usually does pretty well in the state. Michigan's come in a little bit. Really since Penn State joined the Big Ten, Ohio State and Michigan have started to get a few more recruits. Notre Dame does well in the state too. So it's not always dominated by Penn State and Pitt, but you'll get a good number of those top 25 kids, top 10 kids. They're going to choose between Penn State and Pitt often enough. Again, some years are going to be better than others.

So I will be curious if this helps Pitt at all as getting some of those in-state recruits that maybe won't be able to check out Penn State while Pitt is potentially playing games. Yeah. And I mean, the other thing I think about too is the fact that if you have a player that's in the state of Iowa and they're getting recruited by a Texas or an Alabama or a Florida, in Iowa, it's a little bit more difficult to visit Texas, Alabama, and Florida now than it would be before. So maybe it does help the Midwest in recruiting. I know Iowa is putting together probably their best group of college prospects ever from a football standpoint,

so maybe that's helpful for them. But you're absolutely right. The Midwest, the Big Ten especially, some of the Blue Blood programs have a footprint across the Midwest regardless, and they can kind of get around there. And it's honestly not that hard to travel between states too if you want to go check out the campus for an unofficial visit and not necessarily meet the coaches and stuff. So yeah, it's something I was just thinking about. Yeah, well, I'm going to try to reach out to one of the guys that actually covers Penn State recruiting, and I'm going to ask him some very similar questions to that

because I know he's going to have some input, so I will be happy to relay whatever I find out from him when I've got some more info on that. I think that'd be awesome to honestly just include on the show anyways. I think Iowa fans would love to hear that as well. It's something I haven't really thought about, how this impacts all the schools in recruiting. And it probably, like, for example, Rutgers probably gets hurt.

I don't know, Rutgers could get hurt by it. Rutgers could actually be helped by it because not a lot of schools are going to be, you know, there's a big hotbed in New Jersey and New York and stuff like that with football as well. So maybe they can. Well, you know, it's interesting you say that because one of the stories this offseason was, you know, Greg Sciano's back at Rutgers. So there's a. Well, you know, it's interesting you say that because one of the stories this off season was, you know, Greg Shiano's back at Rutgers.

So there's a little bit of enthusiasm within the program, at least within the state of New Jersey. And while this all, while this stuff has been going on, Rutgers has been able to put together some decent recruits for the upcoming recruiting classes. And, you know, there's probably a mixture of Greg Shiano's back and people are thinking about Rutgers a little bit differently right now, as he's trying to re-energize that program, get to where he previously had it in the Big East.

And the fact that some of these recruits haven't been able to go and visit spring football games at Penn State, Ohio State, some other schools, you know, that has helped Rutgers a little bit. Now, is that going to be something that's permanent? I don't know. I think it's always going to be a small burst just because you've got a new head coach that people are excited about within the program. And I think once Penn State and Ohio State, they're getting back into the spring routines,

they'll certainly regain some of that momentum that they're typically accustomed to having. Definitely, man. I couldn't agree more. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out long term for these conferences. So you talked about Penn State having a good year. Where would you have predicted them kind of finishing within the Big Ten this year? I thought they were a 10-win team. I really feel like, you know, 10 wins was almost the minimum. I could see them winning 11 games. I don't think they would have won 11 games. I think the Ohio State game, even though it was going to be at

Penn State, that's been a problem. And I think Ohio State was going to be really good this year. So I had that one marked down as a loss. And then I look at the Penn State road schedule that they had. They were going to have to make road games to Michigan and Nebraska later in the season. I thought it would actually be a tricky game for them, just based on where it was on the schedule. And a road game to Indiana,

I think they could have lost any one of those three games, and that's why I feel like Penn State was going to be really good. They'd probably lose at Michigan because Michigan and Ann Arbor has been house of horrors for Penn State over the years. But, you know, I feel like they would have been capable of winning 10 games. Of course, that would have included a win over Iowa. But I really did feel like they were putting together something really good this year. Could have very easily – not very easily,

but it could have very well been in the conversation to give Ohio State a run for the Big Ten East. And if you can get that game against Ohio State, I would think that would have put Penn State in the Big Ten title game. Yeah. I mean, Iowa I feel like had a pretty tough schedule. You alluded to the Penn State game. They had to go to Ohio state. They had a pretty rough stretch back to back to back with a couple of games.

I mean, it was, it was not, I had a brutal schedule. It was not pretty for them breaking in a brand new quarterback. I mean, it just wasn't. And you're not the big 10 West would have been pretty tough too. You know, Wisconsin was always going to be Wisconsin. Minnesota has been on the upswing, you know, and I feel like there are some programs in that division that took some steps forward last year.

Illinois. And certainly were due for a little bit of a bounce back this year, like Purdue and Northwestern. I think they would have been better this season. Yeah, Purdue. And Illinois took some steps forward last year too. Yeah, Purdue's a scary team. I actually hate playing Purdue because they're never great,

but they're always just there. They're always hanging around. They're always dangerous. Yeah, and they have dangerous – Especially if you have to go there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I'm kind of – in retrospect, that schedule was pretty rough. When the Big Ten came out with a new schedule,

I was actually a lot happier with how that schedule played out for the sake of Iowa. But it sounds like we're both in the same boat though, man. Not a lot we can do at this point other than trying to keep our you know our listeners up to date on what is happening in the college sports world personally I hope you know if there's any way to have football that'd be awesome to fall but I honestly would hope that all conferences come together move this spring work with the NFL figure out a action plan that works for everyone and that way we can possibly get college football in the spring and have a real college football season. But we will see,

everything seems to be changing hourly at this point. So. Yeah. You know, we're going to get through it. And I think just coming together and having some conversations with you and everybody else on our little network here, I think that'll help us kill some time, maybe calm some nerves a little bit. And eventually at some point in time, we'll have some football that we can all look forward to seeing again.

Definitely. Well, Kevin, it's always a pleasure talking to you, man. We'll definitely be having more conversations going forward, probably including some of the other big 10 hosts as well. All right. And that will do it for our show today. I hope you all enjoyed my conversation with Kevin. If you haven't followed Kevin yet, I highly suggest you do. Not only does it cover the Nittany Lions, the Penn State Nittany Lions on the Lockdown Sports Network, he also just covers college sports in general. He's a great

follow who has a very wide scope of knowledge regarding college sports. So I highly suggest you check out Kevin McGuire's Twitter and check out the Lockdown Nittany Lions podcast. Again, thank you all for tuning into today's episode. I am going to actually be on vacation tomorrow, but I will be posting my interview with Mike Dom. So check that out as well. Just as a heads up, it will be prerecorded. So anything new that happens between Wednesday at 9 p.m. and Friday morning, it will not be covered on that Friday morning show.

But I hope you can forgive me as I take a little bit of a break and relax a little bit. But we'll be back on Friday, tomorrow, and then also back on Monday with a brand new episode covering all the latest that happened around the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Big Ten. Thank you all for tuning in, though. Have a fantastic Thursday. Let's go Hawks. We'll see you next time.