Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - The Draft Network's Benjamin Solak joins the show to discuss AJ Epenesa's recent drop | Men's wrestling dominates the Big Ten Tournament | Men's basketball drops the season finale vs Illinois

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

We are joined by The Draft Network's Benjamin Solak to discuss AJ Epenesa and his draft stock dropping after his combine workouts. We also break down the loss to Illinois and complete our Monday Hawkeye sports round up including coverage of the men's wrestling team's Big Ten Tournament win. 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 even one you haven't. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeyes podcast,

your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and we have a lot to talk about on this Monday morning episode. Lots of stuff happening in Hawkeye Nation. We had the men's wrestling team in the Big Ten tournament. We had the baseball team and the softball team both in action this weekend as well, and we also had the men's basketball team wrapping up their regular season. So we're going to cover all that on today's show of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

In addition to that, we do have a special guest, Benjamin Solak, one of the co-hosts of the Locked on NFL Draft podcast, also a draft analyst over at the Draft Network. He is joining the show to talk to us a little bit more about AJ Epineza. I know there have been a lot of concerns about Epineza and dropping in the first round and people not understanding why and not understanding why the combine measurements really matter. And so I thought it'd be really important to get someone like Ben on the show because he is a huge AJ Epineza fan, but also has a pretty realistic idea and view of kind of where AJ Epineza falls.

So he's also joining the show to talk a bit about AJ Epineza and give his impression of Tristan Wirfs at the combine. That'll be coming up in segment number three. We're going to jump into basically all the Hawkeye Roundup stuff and then take care of the basketball game on segment number two. So before we do that, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, whether that was Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or the brand new Himalaya Podcast app.

And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But let's get into the good stuff. Obviously, the men's wrestling team had a great performance at the Big Ten tournament this weekend. They had nine guys on the podium. We had three guys take first, one guy take second. Only one guy did not place, and that was Caleb Young, who was the second seed and went 0-2 to bow out of the

tournament there's a pretty good chance he does get an at-large bid he's the only one though of the Iowa Hawkeye wrestling team that did not get an automatic qualification based on his standings at the Big Ten tournament that'll be you know that's something we're going to find out though on Wednesday March 11th that's also when we're going to get the seeds as well to know kind of what's going to be going on with the men's wrestling team also in news day we're going to go into kind of the weights and who did what but Spencer Lee named Big Ten Wrestler of the Year zero surprise there Tom Brands named Big Ten Wrestling Coach of the Year that's kind of what happens when your team is ranked number one throughout the season and dominates everyone

you go against and the 157.5 points that the wrestling team put up in the Big Ten tournament was the third most points since 1998. Nebraska finished in second, Ohio State finished in third, and Penn State finished in fourth. So let's go through the weights and I have a few concerns I want to touch on then we'll jump into baseball and softball. At 125, Spencer Lee made quick work of literally everyone in the competition. He took home the Big Ten title, his first Big Ten title, by defeating Purdue's Devin Schroeder 16-2. On the weekend, he literally scored 47 points and only allowed five. Just a truly dominant performance from Spencer Lee, the Big Ten Wrestler of the Year. At 133, Austin DeSanto took fourth place after falling to

Wisconsin's Seth Gross 5-3. I thought DeSanto did a good job of battling back towards the end, but it was really kind of a situation of too little too late. Max Mirren battled back after losing in the second round, did a good job, and ended up getting fifth place.

Pat Lugo at 149 took down Sammy Sasso 2-1. I thought Sasso did a pretty good job with Lugo at 149 took down Sammy Sasso, two to one. I thought Sasso did a pretty good job with Lugo at the end, put him in a really tough position. Fortunately, the clock ran out and Lugo was able to get that win, two to one. That was the Big Ten clinching win as well. That was kind of the win that made sure that Iowa was going to win the tournament overall. At 157, like I said, Caleb Young went 0-2. At 165, Alex Marinelli took down Vincenzo Joseph 3-2. Had a takedown in the final seconds to seal the deal, so a really exciting match there. Right after him, Michael Kramer fell 8-5 to Penn State's Mark Hall for second place. That is going

to be a fantastic rematch that we're likely going to see in Minneapolis. Kramer took down Hall before. Hall took him down now. That's going to be a lot of fun in two weekends. At 184, Avisod took fourth place after falling to Nebraska's Taylor Venn, 6-4. At 197, Jacob Warner took down Penn State's Shakir Rashid. And at

285, Tony Cassiope beat Wisconsin's Trent Hilger to take third place. So that's kind of a little bit of a recap of what happened on the weekend for the men's wrestling team. Like I said, they did go 3-1 in their four championship matches. Out of the entire weekend, though, the two biggest concerns I really have is the fact that Caleb Young, a guy who came in with high expectations,

came in as the number two seed to fall 0-2 and have to rely on being an at-large bid. You would like to see a better performance from him. Just didn't look very energetic in his matches. And then Austin DeSanto, clearly a very talented wrestler, but he struggles against Penn State's Roman Bravo. Just not something you would like to see. He really doesn't handle that very well. And I'm kind of concerned going into the NCAA tournament simply because he's a guy that we need to score points.

He is a very talented wrestler, but he hasn't been able to step up in some of the big situations this year and particularly has struggled with Penn State's Roman Bravo Young. So something to keep on the lookout for. On other news, the men's baseball team had a pretty solid weekend. Going 2-1 on the weekend to move to 8-5. They got a win over Western Michigan 10-0 after seven innings. Jack Dreyer got the win after pitching seven shutout innings and allowing just three hits.

They also took down Georgetown 22-2. Put up a ridiculous amount of runs in the ninth inning. Just a little bit of an assurance. Trenton Wallace got the win there, and Isaiah Fuller had a fantastic day at the plate. He went four for six with four runs and five RBIs. And then finally, on the final day of their three-game weekend, they lost to Army 4-6. They did do a pretty good job. They outhit Army 11-9, but really couldn't capitalize when it mattered. Duncan DeVitt took the loss after being pulled in the fifth inning. On the softball side of things, similar success. They went 3-1 on the weekend, beating Loyola, beating Central Michigan and Ohio University. They only fell to South Dakota State 2-8. The women's softball team moves to 17-5 on the season.

So that being said, I want to make sure we touch on the men's basketball team. So, coming up after a few messages from our sponsors, I want to talk about what was frustrating about the Iowa loss to Illinois, what I thought went well, and what I think they need to do to have a chance at winning the Big Ten tournament. That will all be coming up in segment number two. two. We are back with segment number two of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast.

This is a segment I was not looking forward to recording simply because I'm pretty frustrated by the game that took place this evening. I am recording this at night prior to obviously the Monday morning episode airing. So I'm a little frustrated. Iowa fell to Illinois and it was a game that honestly Iowa didn't even deserve to be in. As we saw against Purdue, Iowa came out kind of lifeless. They did not do a very good job of crashing the glass, getting the offensive rebounds. They were not doing a great job of boxing out at Purdue. That crap carried over to Illinois, and Illinois took it to Iowa. At one point, I believe they went on a 19-4 run to build a pretty large margin over Iowa.

There was a span of six to seven minutes, I believe, in the middle of the second quarter where Iowa literally did not make a single freaking shot. So that, to me, was just really frustrating. The rebound thing, and we talked about this when Iowa lost to Purdue. The rebound thing is what really frustrates me because there is a lot of effort and hustle that goes into getting rebounds. And you have to want it. And I didn't feel like Iowa wanted it for most of the game,

allowing Illinois to get multiple second-chance opportunities. And really, that's what made the difference in this game. Because if you look at it on the surface, Iowa played pretty well. They shot 50% from the floor. They shot 47.4% from behind the arc, hitting nine three-pointers. They made all 15 of their free throws. Illinois made 49.2% of their shots, 29.2% of their threes. They're not a good three-point shooting team.

We knew that. And they had a 64.7% conversion rate on their free throws, going 11 of 17. The difference is the amount of shots they had. They had 61 shots. They had 12 offensive rebounds compared to Iowa's seven. A great example of what Illinois was doing that Iowa was not. Illinois star player, Io DeSumo, went on the ground to get a rebound while Iowa just sat there. There was a turnover.

Excuse me, it wasn't a rebound, but they went for the loose ball. Luka Garza, the ball got inbound passed to him or passed into the paint to him. Kobe Kofurn went ahead and stole the ball a little bit, kind of knocked it loose, and DeSumo went on the ground to get the ball, and there was not a single Iowa person around him. To me, it's just effort, and that really frustrates me. I also thought the officiating was pretty bad in the first half, allowing things to get pretty chippy.

I don't know how the hell you don't get kicked out of a game for faking an elbow towards hitting Connor McCaffery. I thought the double technical was kind of garbage too, especially on Frederick, considering the fact that he was literally getting held anytime he tried to cut to the lane. That's one of his big areas of expertise is the ability to cut. He's a great cutter, backdoor cutter and whatnot. And Fran McCaffrey also made a few comments about this as well. The fact that his players weren't able to make any cuts and Illinois was grabbing and holding them as much as they possibly could. It wasn't until the second

half when the refs really started to call pretty much everything. And I thought that got a lot better in the second half. I did think Cokeburn hit Garza's hand at the very end of the game. That could have been a foul, but neither here nor there. But yeah, I think the biggest thing, offensive rebounds, also turnovers. I thought Iowa played sloppy with the ball again. Just some really dumb passes. They had 11 turnovers compared to Illinois' 5. Just not what you would expect from Iowa, just being a little bit sloppy.

And then again, Joe Wieskamp, 2 of 9 from the field. What the hell has happened to Joe Wieskamp? I'm getting pissed off about this. He is supposed to be our number two player, our number one player, and he is just, he doesn't look confident at all with the ball in his hands. Cannot make open shots. The fact that Connor McCaffrey and Joe Toussaint were our two best shooters last night is not okay. I think Joe Toussaint is a fantastic player. I think Connor McCaffrey is a fantastic player. Are they our best shooters? No. I would say collectively those two are probably our seventh, no, maybe eighth, seventh and eighth best shooters, actually. I would say Garza,

Frederick, Wieskamp, Kreener, and Evelyn are probably our better shooters over them. Pemzel and Till are behind them. Okay, so you do not want to have to rely on those two to be the ones making shots. And they did a fantastic job. I thought Joe Toussaint played a pretty good game. Had a crappy pass later in the second half, but overall played really confident. Was doing a really good job of shooting the ball 4-7 on the night, 2-4 from deep. Also contributed two assists and a rebound as well. Connor McCaffrey, I thought,

played a pretty good game. He was the one who was stepping up, willing to make shots. He had two three-pointers when Iowa really needed them to try to close the gap with the lead that Illinois had built up, including five rebounds and eight assists. I thought he had a pretty solid performance. Again, Joe Wieskamp, 2-9, seven points and two turnovers. CJ Frederick, one of four from the field for three points. You need to get more production from your shooting guard who is shooting three-pointers at a better clip than anyone in the Big Ten. You need a lot more from him. Luka Garza played all 40 minutes, got 28 points on 12 of 21 shooting, added eight rebounds. I thought Kofi Kochburn did a fantastic job of guarding him though. I was really all on him throughout the game. And I thought Garza didn't do a great job of

defending the paint either. Kochburn did a pretty good job in 26 minutes, had 12 points, got eight rebounds. Del Sumo, I thought had a fantastic game playing all 40 minutes, had 12 points, got 8 rebounds. Del Sumo, I thought, had a fantastic game playing all 40 minutes, had 17 rebounds and 8 assists. To me, though, the big thing that really set out was the fact that Iowa couldn't get those offensive rebounds, and they were being sloppy at the ball. And what pisses me off the most is that this is the second game in a row. Iowa had an opportunity, had a fantastic opportunity. Everything went right for Iowa to get a double bye at the Big Ten tournament.

All they had to do was beat Illinois. That's all they had to do, and they couldn't do it. And to be honest, I know this is sounding kind of depressing, my frustration about this game, but to me, I don't trust this team anymore. I don't know what it is. The effort doesn't seem to be there they definitely have a chip on their shoulder I would say they're resilient

the fact that they came back being down 16 points at one point in the second half came back to have an opportunity to win it on the final shot you've got to appreciate that about this team but you can only have so many moral victories before it gets a little bit tiring great, you came back against Tennessee last year. You still lost. Great, you came back after being down 16 to Illinois. You still lost. You shouldn't be down 16 points to Illinois if

you would make a shot and stop playing sloppy basketball. Part of that run was not just Illinois doing a great job. It was Iowa allowing Illinois to do a great job. There were crappy entrance passes into the post. There was sloppy play. There was Cordell Pemzel stepping over the line when he's trying to inbound the ball. I can't remember if that was during that run or not, but either way, it's stuff like that. You get sloppy, you get lazy, and you lose. And that pisses me the hell off. I don't trust this team going into the Big Ten tournament. I could see them going all the way to the championship game. They actually have a pretty good path to it. I could also see them losing in their opening game against either Minnesota or Northwestern,

which is the draw they're going to get. Whoever wins out of that Minnesota-Northwestern game is who Iowa gets. And if and when Iowa wins, they then get Illinois and then finally a likely matchup with Wisconsin for an opportunity to go to the Big Ten Championship game. So they have a very doable path, but do you trust this team to do it? The only way I can honestly get on board is if Joe Wieskamp starts playing with a little bit more confidence and hitting some shots because this team cannot rely on solely just Luka Garza doing work down low and they need to be able to put up better offensive production to be able to handle their

somewhat porous defense as we saw they could not control the paint in this game Illinois is a terrible three-point shooting team they did a pretty good job of locking them down making sure they didn't get hot either yet Illinois won and you need more offensive production if you want to win, especially when a team like Iowa relies on their offense to win games. So I don't know. I'm honestly just, I'm upset at this point. It's frustrating to watch this happen. It's frustrating to see them choke away multiple opportunities. It's frustrating to see a team like Wisconsin, who I think Iowa is clearly better than, share the Big Ten title.

If Iowa doesn't lose to Purdue in Illinois, they are sharing the Big Ten title. Think about that. Purdue, at home, they lose two. On the road to Illinois, they let Illinois get out to a huge lead. They can't control the glass, and they lose that game too. Two games, and Iowa could have won or shared the Big Ten title, but let Illinois get out to a huge lead. They can't control the glass, and they lose that game too.

Two games, and Iowa could have won or shared the Big Ten title, but they blew their last two games. Everything went right for them to share the Big Ten title, and they couldn't do it. And that to me is incredibly frustrating. I hope I'm wrong when Iowa gets into the Big Ten tournament. I hope they turn it on. But I was really looking forward to seeing them come out

with a little bit more energy in this game, and they did. They got off to a hot start before letting Illinois claw back in, then let Illinois build a huge lead before they started to claw back in and eventually lose that game. Last thing, too, I know some people are pissed off about the inbounds play. I thought it was a pretty fantastic inbounds play. I really thought Iowa needed to go for the win at that time. It looked like they were trying to get C.J. Frederick open. He couldn't, so they went to Luka Garza. I thought Luka Garza got fouled, which is neither here nor there. Credit to Illinois, though, for outworking Iowa in that game. That'll do it, though, for my rant on the Iowa Hawkeyes.

We're going to do a Big Ten tournament preview on tomorrow's episode of the show, so stay tuned for that. Coming up, though, we do have a great interview with Benjamin Solak from the Locked on NFL Draft podcast. So you do not want to miss that. Stay tuned for that. And that'll be coming up in just a few short seconds. I am joined here by Benjamin Solak, one of the senior draft analysts for the Draft Network.

If you are not following Ben or the Draft Network, you absolutely should be. That is where you can get the latest and best coverage on the NFL Draft Network. If you are not following Ben or the Draft Network, you absolutely should be. That is where you can get the latest and best coverage on the NFL Draft every single year, all year around. Ben, how are you doing today, man? I'm well, Andrew. Thanks for having me on, dude. Absolutely, man. You're part of the Locked On NFL Draft Podcast, so I've always wanted to get you on. I think this is a really good time to have you on because we're going to be talking about AJ Epineza, the edge, more defense edge is probably the wrong classification defensive end for the Iowa Hawkeyes who is

in the NFL draft this year coming off of a, I would say poor combine performance, all things considered. And I wanted to talk to you because you're a pretty big age up and as a fan, or at least you have been throughout the draft process and want to talk to you about the evaluation on him now post combine, because I've been paying attention to a lot of the analysts are putting out NFL drafts, mock NFL drafts, combine big boards, that kind of thing. And he's certainly falling down big boards.

He even fell down on your big board. I believe, you know, talked a little bit about the combine measurements, just not being what they needed to be so i want to talk to you about that first things first though aj epineza what was your initial eval on him when you watched him earlier in the season so right so epineza is a heavy-handed powerful outside rusher with the ability to rush inside sub package wise because he's wins with power and he doesn't lose ground in the running game against guards who tend to be you know maulers in the running game so you got a guy

6'6 275 280 the hand placement is tremendous ability to play with leverage is tremendous like you know we were watching this dude dunk in high school he's always had like the explosiveness for his size that allows him to get off the ball and immediately engage with offensive lineman so he doesn't lose hands off the snap he doesn't lose positioning off the snap he maintains leverage he holds his ground uh ability to work inside and outside rush moves uh so the the hand usage to the club swim the hand usage uh to an inside spin all of those are available at his disposal so he softens uh the high side rush softens the inside rush be able to close to the quarterback not a particularly quick player not a particularly fast player bend is enough at the top of the arc to flatten and get to the quarterback but there are times where you can tell that he's unable to reduce his service

area he can't play low to the ground because he's such a big dude he's so tightly wound he's not the most flexible guy there are times where his bend fails him but generally he's able to flatten and get to the quarterback so you see a player who has not elite, but good pass rush ability in the NFL level. He's probably a low ceiling player who's just, he's going to walk into the NFL as the product that he is. He's not going to take time. And he's a three down player with sub package versatility,

which is really exciting because it means on base downs, like a playman five technique. And then like, I'm an Eagles fan. The Eagles love to do this with Brandon Graham. It was like 15 pounds, 20 pounds pounds even more epinesis inferior but they'll kick him to the three technique on pass rushing downs and let him go one-on-one with the guard because graham loves to rush that speed to power he loves to use that club the same way that epinesis uses some of those tools on that wins really nicely on that inside track against the guard so he's going to be an immediate uh impact in year one he's not really the guard. So he's going to be an immediate impact in year one.

He's not really going to have a high developmental ceiling to be a much better player in year three. And he's a base five technique. So base defense and the ability to rush inside from the three tech. Yeah, man, I couldn't agree more. I think that's, that's what people need to realize with him is based off of this, you know, there's not a lot of growth there, right? He's already kind of maxed out a lot of what he can do.

He's going to be, I think a really great player at the next level, being obviously a very biased Iowa Hawkeye fan. Did you have an opportunity to watch the Minnesota game by chance? Did you see him late in that game as he rushed from that inside position against the guards? He was absolutely destroying them. Minnesota's got the sort of offensive line that is really beneficial to Ebenezer putting out some good tape because they're fricking huge. And Epinesa is going to be able to handle their size, handle their length, handle their power. He's not just like a finesse rusher who gets swallowed up by that,

even if he wins. He'll be able to beat them with technique, but not lose, not have the biggest advantage of length of power. That game and the Nebraska game were two games where you really had the sense that they were like, all right, AJ, like go make us a play, like go get off the ball, pass rush and win. and he was able to do so. It looks a lot more reminiscent of the 2018 tape, which is when he came in to be a third down pass rushing guy. That's exclusively what they asked him to do. They didn't ask him to play base downs. They didn't ask

him to initially defend the run. They said, listen, it's going to be a pass. You're our best pass rusher. Go line up and go beat a guy one-on-one. He did that really well, and then you saw flashes of that in 2019, so it's very interesting to think about what would have happened if FNA said could have came out after the 2018 season obviously it was ineligible but you weren't out you didn't have a full year starter but the productivity and the potential that he showed then was really delightful I don't think we should have had much higher expectations for his 2019 season than we did because that level of productivity, that efficiency was always going to regress down with a ton more snaps.

Obviously, you get a ton more attention as well with Anthony Nelson going to the league and things just naturally step down. So, like, his 2019 was fine. It's just like the 2018 hype was really transcendent. And it kind of put him at a disadvantage because a lot of the narrative in the first half of the 2019 season was he was disappointing even though he was playing like you know one of the best edges in the big 10 yeah and i think it definitely didn't help his case that chase young was having such a phenomenal first half as well and prior to the season they had often been linked in a sense those two were kind of talked about as the top two defensive

ends and chase young is putting up multiple sack games consistently. And A.J. Epinesa is getting, you know, double teamed and triple teamed or chip blocked every single down and not really having the opportunity to get, you know, those sacks or those highlight plays like Chase Young was having. Right. And, like, you know, it's a bit sexier when it's Chase Young out of the Ohio State, the Predator, you know, versus Epinesa,

who's just a little bit more of a yeoman sort of approach. But Epinesa, like, so now when you understand the way he played in Iowa and what he was able to do at the Combine is going to be more so a situational fit. There are going to be teams that value him in the first round and then teams that don't. And the teams that value him in the first round, well, first round edges, like, you know, that's an important position to put a lot of capital into and epinesa if you're asking him to be in an even front play the five technique be a a heavy strong side defensive end the way that the seahawks used to have in the early 2010s and then in base downs be an either interior pass pressure or an outside pass pressure depending on your personnel epinesa is really valuable there's not a lot of guys who can fill that role,

and there are teams that want dudes in that role. There are teams that want Michael Bennett like he was for the Seahawks. They want Trey Flowers, who got paid $80 million to go be that for Detroit. So there are going to be teams who value him there. Given the Kirk Ferentz-Bill Belichick connection, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the Patriots. 23, obviously, being a little bit later than we thought for Epinesa, but now after the way he tested, that's going to be his role in the NFL.

It's tough to draw out a higher ceiling for him than that. Yeah. So I think that was actually one of the things I want to touch on my, when I look at it, the three best fits I can see for Ebenezer at this point is probably new England. They, I think they do a fantastic job of using versatility to their advantage and understanding how to find mismatches. Baltimore, I think he could make some sense.

And Seattle, do you agree with that? Or do you have any other teams that you think would make a lot of sense for an AJ Epinesa? And so Seattle is interesting if they lose Clowney, right? Because I think Clowney gives them a lot of that move piece that they already like. Now, Clowney is a free-gozoid athlete, and Epinesa clearly isn't. So if they're just looking for athleticism, it won't be him.

They'll probably lean towards your Yetta Gross Matos. The Penn State kid is also super long, has inside-out versatility, and he's more so the athletic dude. Baltimore, I guess, makes sense. They like those big, heavy-handed rushers, right? But they like him from two-point stances, typically. And Epinesa never lined up at a two-point. So, I don't know if they want him to make that translation.

With that said, Baltimore may get to the board at 27 i think they're picking 28 i believe 28 yeah yeah 28 and they may they may just be the best player there and if so they've done a really good job developing those big rushers on the outside so i wouldn't hate to see it at all then yeah i think also buffalo is the one that stands out as sean mcdermott's had a ton of success in his career with big ends. You're talking about Mario Addison when he was in Carolina. And then Shaq Lawson has been developing into quite a nice big five technique for Buffalo. Whether or not they retain Shaq Lawson kind of defines the need for them.

But if Shaq Lawson walks on the pre-agency, Epinesa can step into his role next year probably without a significant drop-off. So Buffalo, they're at 22. That makes a lot of sense to me as well. Yeah, really just kind of in that, that back half of the first round. So then the one other thing I really wanted to touch on is obviously the combine performance wasn't ideal. We've talked about that a little bit. And coming out of the combine performance, there was seemingly a kind of an overreaction to drop, you know, up and as a pretty significantly. So I've seen mock drafts from well-respected analysts

that had him in the second round, had John Ledger, another guy who used to host the lockdown NFL draft, he said he wouldn't touch AJ Epineza in the first two rounds. So wanted to get your thoughts about the overreaction, or do you consider it an overreaction to drop Epineza that far? And for some of the fans out there, obviously if you haven't had a chance to look at Iowa Hawkeye Twitter, they're pretty passionate in a vocal group,

and they were pretty upset when they were seeing, you know, people were getting upset with me about just posting the mock drafts about where Epineza is and saying he's projected to go in the second round. He's projected to go mid-second. So they were getting upset just looking at that. So I wanted to get your thoughts on that. Do you think it was a bit of an overreaction to drop him significantly far just based off his combine performance?

So it's tricky, right, because, like, I sit here and I tell you, I think they're going to be teams who value Ebenezer as a first-round player. And we listed off a couple teams who it could be. We won't really know. And they could end up valuing him as a first-round player and have him be the second-best option on their board, but they really wanted some other dude at some other position. And that's what they go after. And they get Natalie definitely said a fall.

The reality is that for teams who qualify their edges with athletic thresholds, FNAs is probably going to fall off their board in the first round. So now we're limited in the number of teams that can go after him in the first round, even to begin with. And then as always, you know, we say, Oh, you know, Cody four is a lot to go in the first round. And then he goes in the second round to the with and then as always you know we say oh you know Cody Ford's a lot to go in the first round and then he goes in the second round to the Bills and everybody's like yeah I mean we liked him it's just there was one two other dudes we liked more right and so that's

how kind of these guys fall out of the first round so I don't think Eponese has a lot to go in the first round and I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that at the top of the second round teams will be like scrambling to trade up to go get him. You know what I mean? He's going to be a situational fit. And for those teams, they will value him. I'd be shocked if he's on the board after 40, 43, 45, that area. So if he lasted the first round, I would expect him to go at the top of the second. But it's the fact that he's not going to be a fit for all 32 teams that limits his ability to be a first round block. Whereas other guys like, obviously Chase Young's a bad example, because he's so talented, but a player of Chase Young's mold,

it fits for every team. And so once you think he has the athletic threshold, he has the talent threshold to be a first rounder, he's on the table for everybody versus Epinesa, who's just not on the table for some teams. I think that's a, you know, I think that's a really great explanation, especially for the fans of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, getting a little bit of a sense of that. I tried talking about that, but I think hearing it from an expert like you

makes a ton of sense in explaining it in that way. I just have one last question, and I just have to ask this question. What did you think of Tristan Wirfs, man? He was a good ball player. Oh, man, I mean, like, Wirfs is a ton of fun. And people, okay, you know, the league says maybe he's a good tackle, maybe he'll be a great guard, so we might move him to guard we're gonna fail the dude to tackle first because of the measurables and because of the film so he's got an opportunity to play a tackle he might

get moved into guards he gets drafted by a team authority has two tackles and they they give him a camp opportunity to fight for a starting job and they think all right our best five is tristan works at guard but his film attack was tremendous his run blocking is obviously a huge delight it's it's his crown jewel on his film his pass blocking just like you know everything about this technically sound the power the explosiveness is all evidently there does he have a little bit of an issue with speed rushers getting his outside shoulder yeah doing most college tackles yeah you know what I mean like you got to be able to calibrate expectations he's a first rounder through and through was was before the combine, is now.

Absolutely. Were you blown away by the combine performance, though, given how gargantuan he is? Was that a surprise to you? I feel like it was a surprise to a lot of people who aren't maybe tied as closely to the Iowa program. Right. So it's always interesting, right, because we have these freak lists

and we have all these, you know, reports of this athletic testing and then, you know, whatever. When it comes to offensive linemen, you know, it's very difficult to muster up hype for a guy's athletic ability. And the only way to do it is to talk about compound lifts, right? Because for an offensive lineman, I want to see your ability to lock and unlock your hips and create explosive power through your posterior chain which is a result of compound lifts tristan wirf set hang clean records set power clean records at iowa if a dude was going to be

a freak athlete it was going to be him we saw like the videos we heard the reports of just what he was doing in the weight room did i think he was going to break records on the jumps no you never do you know i mean you never see like this guy is gonna break a record but tristan wirfs was breaking records at iowa so it's not too shocking that he's out breaking records in indianapolis as well definitely man yeah i'm a huge fan of tristan wirfs as you can expect being an iowa hawkeye fan but ben i really appreciate your time today appreciate you coming on the show to talk about uh tristan wirfs and aj pinesa primarily where can fans of the show find you i think they absolutely need to know your name and know where to find your content at yeah so i'm on twitter at benjamin solak so like his solak and all of our

stuff at the draft network is at the draft network or the draft network.com um where you find all of our scouting reports and all these iowa dudes all the other dudes mock drafts the mock draft machine simulator all that good stuff my co-host tre Iowa dudes, all the other dudes, mock drafts, the mock draft machine simulator, all that good stuff. My co-host Trevor, who works at the Draft Network, and I also host the Locked On NFL Draft Podcast. Anywhere you can find Locked On Hawkeyes, you can find Locked On NFL Draft. Five days a week, we talk about the NFL draft. It's a good time.

Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much and have a great day, Ben. Yeah, you take care, Andrew. Be well, dude. You too. Talk to you later. Bye-bye. Bye.

All right, and that will do it for our Monday morning episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Again, a big shout-out to Ben for Benjamin for taking the time to jump on the show and talk to us about A.J. Epineza and Tristan Wirfs. I know he has a lot of stuff on his plate with the NFL Draft quickly approaching. He works for the Draft Network and the Locked on NFL Draft podcast, so you can find him there. So make sure to tune in to him.

He is an analyst that I really respect a lot, and I really appreciate his opinion, and I really respect the fact that he's willing to come on and talk a bit about it on the show today. So again, a special shout out to him. If you did like that part or any of the stuff that we talked about on today's show, and this is your first time listening, make sure to give us a five-star review and subscribe to us wherever you downloaded this podcast at, and make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And if the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast is not enough for you on your daily commute or anything, you know, you have other things you need to do.

If you go for a walk and want to listen to a podcast and you love the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast and you just can't get enough and we don't have, you know, enough content coming out for you, make sure to follow our Locked on Big Ten show. We are just starting up the Locked On Big Ten podcast show and it is a fantastic show. I actually guest appeared on it earlier last week. You're going to love it. Covering not just the Hawkeyes but all of the Big Ten. So if you are a

Big Ten fan like I am, you will love listening to that show. Make sure to follow that show Locked On Big Ten. Again, that'll do it. I appreciate you all tuning in and listening to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day Hawkekeye Nation, and let's go Hawks.