Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Three keys to beating Illinois | Analyzing possible bowl opportunities for Iowa | What we liked and didn't like in MBB win over Western Illinois

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

We have Iowa vs Illinois tomorrow so we are breaking down they for the Hawkeyes to win that game and also talking about what Iowa has to play for this season. At this point, they almost control their own destiny for second place in the Big Ten which would be quite the turnaround of a season. We wrap up the show with a recap of Iowa's win over Western Illinois including what we liked and didn't like as we prepare for a big game against North Carolina.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.BuiltGoVisit BuiltGO.com and use promo code “LOCKED,” and you’ll get 20% off your next 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 a Friday morning 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. Excited to be back for another episode of the show today. And we have a lot to cover. We have, obviously, the recap of Iowa's win over Western Illinois. We're going to get to that in segment number three of the show today.

We also have the Iowa versus Illinois football game coming up tomorrow. So we're going to break that down as well, talk about the betting lines, and then get into the keys to winning that game. So lots of stuff to cover on the show today. And just a reminder that we do have Matt Vandenberg joining us to do a breakdown, a recap of hopefully what is going to be a win over Illinois on Sunday. So make sure to tune into that. Before we get into any of that, though, it is important to announce or at least note that the women's basketball team looks fantastic. Now, again, it took them a little bit to beat Drake.

Drake is not a bad program by any means, though. Don't look at typical Drake men's basketball or Drake football by any means. The women's basketball team is typically a top 25 type of program. Iowa took them down 103-97 on Wednesday evening. Obviously didn't get a chance to talk about that on yesterday's show. They also take on Wisconsin tomorrow, which is going to be a great game, the first Big Ten game. And what we've seen from this team is obviously that Lisa Bluter can do it again. They are still a superb team. We're going to see how that translates into Big Ten play, where the Big

Ten is going to be very solid. But one thing that's very promising is the fact that true freshman five-star recruit Kaitlyn Clark is phenomenal. All right. I mean, just absolutely phenomenal. And the win over Drake, mind you, she had 30 points and 13 assists. That's absurd. She's a true freshman. So it's gonna be a lot of fun watching her in the black and gold over the next couple

of years. And I'm really excited to do that. So make sure you get a chance to check out that game if you can. Iowa versus Wisconsin tomorrow. Maybe have two TVs up. Watch Iowa versus Wisconsin. And the Iowa versus Illinois game. Since that's taking place basically at the exact same time.

Let's hop into the conversation. Talking a little bit about Iowa versus Illinois. We'll kick it off. The betting lines. Kind of the weather. That sort of stuff. And then hop into the keys of the game. The game is going to take place though tomorrow at 2.30 p.m. Central Time Memorial Stadium in Champaign.

The line is currently set at minus 13.5 in favor of Iowa. The total is at 50.5. ESPN is predicting 83.3% chance Iowa wins this game. And honestly, I don't see how Iowa loses this game. Now, I know Illinois beat the crap out of Nebraska. I know Nebraska kept it close to Iowa. It's not transitive property here. Just because one team does well against another team doesn't mean that team's going to do well against another team because each of these teams are doing well against each other, right? There's a lot that goes into it.

First, how do you match up with these teams? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How do those counteract, right? If your strength is running the ball, but the strength of the other team is stopping the run, well, that's going to be a bigger, that's going to be a different kind of game than if the strength of your team is running the ball and the weakness of that team is stopping the run, right? So there's a lot of things that go into that. That being said, I don't think this is, I mean, this is going to be a close game. The fact that it's 13 and a half, I'm probably picking the under on this one simply because Illinois is kind of a slower paced team. They don't turn the ball over a ton, at least not with Brandon Peters, I should say. They have been pretty bad at turning the ball over prior to

Brandon Peters. I mean, they're 70th in the nation, just a little bit worse than Iowa, 1.4 turnovers per game. But Brandon Peters is a solid quarterback all around. He's back after being out with COVID for a bit. So they're not a team that's going to turn the ball over a lot. They love running the ball. So that's going to drain the clock. It's going to keep the score close. Iowa loves running the ball. Naturally, getting that 14 point spread is going to be tough unless you see something that happened a couple of years ago where Iowa has just a ridiculous amount of scores from different avenues of the game of football, not just, you know, offense. So I think it's going to be a relatively close game. A couple things to note about this.

Again, low scoring, but in the last 14 games, so basically all the games under Kirk Ferens, Iowa's 11 and 3 versus Illinois. They haven't lost since 2008, and they've won six straight games. Again, I don't think that's going to happen this week. I think they're going to definitely win their seventh straight game. But this game is actually really big for bowl projections. So Iowa's currently sitting at 4-2. There's a lot of movement kind of happening, fluidity in the Big Ten.

Barry Alvarez said basically anything's on the table as far as evaluating who plays who on that final weekend, the kind of Big Ten crossover weekend, especially with the fact that Ohio State is in jeopardy of not playing six games, maybe loosening those requirements. Lots of things can happen, but this game is really important for Iowa because they need to win out. If they win out, if they beat Illinois and they beat Wisconsin, I do believe they can beat Wisconsin this year. I know Wisconsin had a great game against Illinois early in the season.

Again, don't put too much clout in that. Wisconsin, I really don't think Wisconsin is as strong as a team as they have been in the past. I think they're a good team. Don't get me wrong, but they're not as strong of a team as they have been in the past. Iowa can basically control their own destiny to at least third place in the Big Ten. My guess is they also, there's still a really good chance they can finish second. Now, Northwestern has one loss. They are going to lose to Ohio State if they play Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game.

That is going to happen. I do believe there's a chance that they actually play out the next two games of the season. I don't think they're going to play this game, which is unfortunate. I do believe there's a chance they lose the following week. That is a possibility. So I believe Northwestern is going to have two losses. I believe the committee is going to look at Iowa and Northwestern and say, Iowa was kind of figuring their stuff out.

Spencer Petras had a bad game, but Simpson and Iowa has really come on. And that's what the beauty is of the college football playoff rankings. If Northwestern has a terrible loss to Ohio State, there's a chance that Iowa could jump them. What that means is Iowa would also probably get Indiana in the Big Ten crossover weekend and Indiana without Michael Penix Jr. So even better an opportunity. You have an opportunity to beat a top 15 team,

potentially depending on how Indiana shakes out versus Wisconsin this week. Which, by the way, you want Indiana to beat Wisconsin this week. Because Iowa's going to play Wisconsin. You want Iowa to play Indiana, a ranked Indiana. And then if they win all these games, there is a chance they're in the top 10. I mean, they're at number 19 right now. They're not that far off. Just a couple more losses, and they is a chance they're in the top 10. I mean, they're at number 19 right now. They're not that far off. Just a couple more losses, and they went out.

They're in the top 10. They are going to the Orange Bowl or the Citrus Bowl. That is a huge deal, especially considering where we came from early in the season. This team is not as, you know, they shouldn't have lost either of those games. They should be undefeated at this point. We should be talking about a top 10 ranked team already, but we're not. It's unfortunate, but we're not. But that's why this game is important.

I accidentally went on quite a tangent there, but that's kind of what I do sometimes. Again, back to the betting lines of the weather. Weather is going to be not bad all around. I mean, we've seen worse weather in Iowa football game days. Right now projected at 41 degrees, 6% precipitation, 7 mile an hour winds, nothing too crazy there. We've seen the wind kind of do some funky things in special teams, when punting the ball it's helped tory taylor out quite a bit again i believe that it's going to be under that 13 and a half and i believe the total is going to be under that 50.5 that's just my thoughts uh coming up though on segment number two we're going to hop into why i think that and also the keys of the game uh there's three main

keys and i think they're going to surprise you a little bit the first one has to do with brandon peters the second one has to do with a quote that Spencer Petra said and how it impacts other people. And then talking a little bit about general Iowa football, which is that field position game. That's all coming up on segment number two of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Before we get into any of that fun stuff, though, I do have a message for you. Because if you're anything like me, you're constantly on the go.

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before we hop into segment number two of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, we do have our Monday morning recap with Matt likely dropping on Sunday morning. I feel like once we record it, we might as well let it go. If you have time to listen to it on Sunday, fantastic. Especially, there's nothing better than listening to a recap episode like that after a big win. So that'll be coming on Sunday morning, late morning, early afternoon. So stay tuned for that.

Let's hop back into our show, though, right now. And the big thing here, a couple keys. So I do believe Iowa's going to win this game, but specifically to win this game and probably to win dominantly, there's three really keys to beating Illinois. The first one, and this is going to be an interesting one. The first one is stopping Brandon Peters from running. Brandon Peters is their quarterback, member four-star transfer from Michigan, and he's not known for his legs per se, but he has a lot of athletic ability. He is able to run, and against Iowa last year, he had his best rushing

game. 10 rushes, 76 yards. We've seen Iowa struggle with running quarterbacks in the past. We've seen them do a couple interesting things the last couple weeks to stop some of those running quarterbacks. We've seen Jack Kerner kind of play a spy role. Dane Belton kind of be back there as well. Even Nick Neiman to an extent. We've seen Iowa play a little bit more spy on these quarterbacks. But even Adrian Martinez, Luke McCaffrey, they were still able to get some yards against Iowa. Will Levis, Sean Clifford, they were able to get yards against Iowa running the ball.

Again, that is very important. And the reason why it's so important, only 76 yards last year. You know, 76 yards on the ground is not going to burn you. Why it burns you is because those 76 yards, they come on in key, key downs. It will be third and eight. And the coverage is phenomenal. The defensive line is getting pressured just like you want, and then all it takes is a Brandon Peters to escape the pocket and get eight yards, and that's a demoralizing down. That's a demoralizing play because you had

him stopped. Everything went perfect except for you couldn't account for the quarterback running the ball, and that's why it's so important to stop Brandon Peters in this game. You cannot let him make plays with his feet. Iowa's cornerbacks, their defensive backs, they can match up with Illinois receivers. They are going to blanket those guys very closely. I do not think the passing game is going to be that successful. Look at it last year, 125 yards, 51.6% completion percentage for Brandon Peters. That game was 19-10. Okay, 19-10. We only beat them by 9 points, but the key of that is Brandon Peters kept these plays alive. He was able to keep them in the game, at least extend drives, keep Iowa off the field

and extend drives with his legs. That's why you need to stop Brandon Peters running. I'll be interested to see how Phil Parker does it in tomorrow's game. That is key number one to winning this game versus Illinois and making it bigger than that 19-10 spread that we saw last year. Number two, make the makeable plays. Now, Spencer Petras said he needs to do that, and I agree. Spencer Petras needs to make the makeable plays.

But I'm actually referencing the wide receivers here. And yes, that is somewhat of a callout. They have been, you know, overall, they're one of the best wide receiver groups in the nation and especially in the Big Ten. There's so much talent in that wide receiver room. They need to help out their young quarterback. I know Spencer Petras is not delivering the ball as accurately as he should. I understand there's been a few throws that no one could catch. Yao Ming couldn't catch some of those balls that Spencer Petras is throwing. That being said, we cannot have another game where we have five drops. That is absolutely unacceptable. Without a doubt, unacceptable. And you know what else is unacceptable? The fact that

I just realized I was recording through my computer and not my mic. So you're going to notice the sound does sound differently. I just stopped real quick and recorded. I apologize. I would go back and record it. But if you ever recorded a podcast, it's tough to bring the same energy twice. And I have a ton of energy for the game. I'm really excited about it.

But when you start trying to redo it, you'll lose a lot of the stuff you're bringing. So I apologize. I'll do a better job going forward of making sure this audio is better in check. I got a new computer and for some reason it wants to default to my computer mic, which I don't understand because clearly the mic is not as good as the one I actually use for podcasting. But back to my point, we need to make the makeable plays. We need to stop having the drops. Nico Regani needs to stop dropping the ball. Brandon Smith should have caught some of those. And I'm not, I'm not, Nico has been fantastic. We should make some awesome plays. Brandon Smith, a phenomenal pass catcher. Amir Smith-Marset, such an electrifying wide

receiver. Tyrone Tracy is so great with the ball in his hands. The yak ability is there. But these guys are so talented, you expect more out of them. And they need to be able to make some of those tough catches. I know the balls were not placed in the best spots. Brandon Smith, the two balls were thrown at his kneecaps. The guy is 6'3", and the ball is thrown at his kneecaps. But still, you want him to come down those, and they are counted as drops because he should have caught those. I guarantee you they're talking about that during the film sessions as well.

They need to catch the ball. They need to go up and make some plays and help their young quarterback out. I know it can be frustrating. Spencer Peters hasn't been on, especially later in the game, has not been as accurate as you would like to see, but you need to do better by him. You need to help him out, just like Sean Byer did with that ridiculous catch. That was a terrible throw.

He overthrew him by a lot. Sean Byer went up and caught that ball. You need to see them make some plays. You expect your wide receiver group to make plays for your quarterback. And finally, the third key to the game is do not force the issue. Play the field position game. And there's a couple ways to take that. One, Spencer Petras should not have thrown that freaking interception to Nebraska.

He should have just chucked the ball out of bounds. Or on the other side of the sideline. He was in the pocket for, hell, like seven, eight seconds. He scrambles out and he just chucks it dude throw it away we don't need to throw an interception we don't need to get a first down every single time it would be great if we did but live to see another day do not put your team in a jeopardizing field position and especially against a team like illinois you cannot do that they are they pride themselves on taking advantage of stupid mistakes. That is why they're sixth in the nation in takeaways.

We cannot afford to make stupid plays. We cannot afford to force the issue. And that also falls into the field position game with special teams. We need to rely on our very solid and, I would say, fantastic special teams play. Let Torrey Taylor boot it down and pin them at their one or two, and then when we stop them on defense, we get the ball at our 50. That's the field position game. That is the game that Kirk Ferenc loves to play. That's what you typically see in Big Ten football with Kirk, and I expect

to see it tomorrow versus Illinois, especially because they are going to run the ball and be very slow and methodical. I think Iowa is going to want to, again, play that field position game. They're going to stop Illinois. I have no doubt about that. I'd be very shocked if they don't do a solid job of stopping Illinois. And because of that, they're going to rely on their defense to make these big-time stops when they're backed up in their red zone, or

towards the opponent's goal line, and force them to punt out of their own end zone. That is something Kirk Ferentz is going to want to do. When you're backed up like that, you're going to make mistakes. You're trying to boot the ball out quickly. It gives Charlie Jones a little bit more opportunity to run the ball back, just like we saw versus Michigan State. I do expect them to play the field position game. And again, do not force the issue. Allow the game to come to you, Spencer Petras. And I think from a special teams perspective,

we will see that as well. Those are my three keys to the game. I do believe Iowa wins. I believe it's going to be under 13.5 points. I believe the over is going to hit the under as well. Those are my three keys to the game. I do believe Iowa wins. I believe it's going to be under 13.5 points. I believe the over is going to hit the under as well. Under 50.5 and Iowa wins. Let me know what your thoughts are. And again, apologies on the audio. I'm getting really sick of how it keeps switching back and forth, but I think the delivery is going to be better

if I keep the original, so apologies there. Coming up on segment number three, though, we're going to break down Iowa's win over Western Illinois, what we liked, what we didn't like, and what we expect to see in the future. That'll be coming up in just a few short seconds. But before we get into any of that, I have another very important message for you. As we talked about before we got to segment number two, sometimes you're always on the go.

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But let's get into segment number three of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, breaking down Iowa's win over Western Illinois. And let's just start by saying Luka Garza is an absolute stud. We knew that coming into the season, but it is impressive to see him continue to bring that passion and energy every single game so far. Three games against low-level teams, and he is absolutely dominating them. And what's impressing me the most about Luka Garza is not necessarily his shooting ability. Obviously, he struggled a little bit, and I say struggled, and he still probably shot better than most NCAA players, but the ability to draw fouls will be huge, especially as you get into Big Ten conference

play. Last year was a great example against Michigan State. Xavier Tillman did a pretty good job of guarding Luka Garza, but he got Xavier Tillman in foul trouble, and then he worked on that second string center. We're going to see that be a big factor against Illinois, who just lost and they struggled with fouls. Kofi Kofern had a big issue with fouls early on in that game. He's going to struggle with that against Luka Garza as well. Now on the flip side, obviously Luka Garza needs to continue his development

on the defensive end and also Luka Garza needs to continue his development on the defensive end and also not get in foul trouble, but he has been phenomenal at drawing those fouls so far early in the season, especially last night against Western Illinois. That was really impressive to me. The other really impressive thing in this 99-58 win was Jack Nunji. What he had to deal with over the last week and then coming back and playing the way he did, I'm going to get to the basketball part and then we're going to go to the personal part. 8 of 11, 18 points. His array of moves gets me very excited for Jack Nungy's potential.

And I know we've talked a lot about his potential over the last couple years. He's a fourth-year player in the system. Redshirted as a sophomore. Medical redshirt last year for injuring himself. He's gone through a lot of adversity. Coming into this season, he was expected to be a key contributor. His dad passes, and he's gone for a week. That is tough to come back from.

And I can't even imagine doing anything after that. So soon after that, but what he did was so courageous and showed so much strength. And now that being said, I want to hop in and bring to you his press conference recording. Cause honestly it was, it was a very heartfelt, it was a very heartfelt speech he gave her, you know, some, some verbiage. I don't know how to say this. And I'll just let you listen to it because I thought it was really incredible. Yeah, it's just kind of an insane situation.

You know, I talked to my dad on Friday night and then I got the call that nobody wants to get the next morning. And I knew I had to go home and be with my family, be with my mom, and be strong for them because it's something that, you know, nobody wants to deal with. And it's been really difficult. I got to be honest. But my mom's strong.

My family's strong. My siblings are all strong. And, you know, we're going to get through this. And that's just something that we've all talked about. And I think being able to play a game, you know, it gave him a distraction for a night and that's a, that was really good for my family. You know, every day it's, it's tough,

but being here with my teammates, just talking to my family every day, and we're getting through this, I feel like each day it's a little bit easier, but you know, there's still going to be days when you think about him, and you've got to get through it, and we've got to get through it together. And that's something that we keep doing. We keep talking to each other, just being there for each other.

That's something that we've got to be strong. Yeah, basketball, you know, it's something that my dad, you know, I still remember shooting on the drive-by with him, and I knew it was something that he would be proud of. He loved watching basketball. He loved watching the Hawks. And so being able to come back and play for the Hawks, I think it's something that he's really looking forward to.

He's watching from up above. So he doesn't have to worry about work. He can just focus on the game and watch me play. And that's something that I feel good about. Motion like, yeah. Yeah, I just, just knew he was watching. It didn't matter if he was here or not. I just knew he was watching the game.

I hope you enjoyed listening to that, the strength that he showed, just talking to the media about what has happened. I thought that was really courageous and impressive from Jack Nungy. So let's get into some of the other items from the game. One of the things we noticed, Jack Nunji returns. He played very well. We know he's going to play an important role in this team. I thought the fact that Keegan Murray still had 15 minutes was a blowout.

But I think Keegan Murray is going to be a key rotational player, playing around 6 to 7 minutes a game. Luka Garza didn't play a full game. Jack Nunji didn't play a full game. A lot of these guys were kind of sitting towards the end, but I do believe that Keegan Murray is going to be the true freshman that's going to be playing quite a bit. We might see a little bit Aaron Ullis depending on what happens with injuries and whatnot, but I do think Keegan Murray is going to be the main player off the bench from a freshman

perspective. Some other things I thought were a little bit interesting. I felt like Iowa did a great job of getting the ball into Luka Garza, but when defenders crashed, there was a couple times where he did a great job of kicking it back out. When defenders crashed, though, he just went up for it. And most times he's going to make those shots. But I do believe when we get in against stiffer competition we're going to need to see more of that inside out game

and I'll be very curious to see how that develops over the course of the season I know these guys have played together quite a bit but I would like to have seen it you know a little bit more in action this up this game right I mean a lot of our a lot of the guys that we're going to need game in and game out didn't really shoot the ball a lot or well and I'm not saying that's an issue I'm just saying that's something to watch out for because they're no we're no longer playing Western Illinois we get University of North Carolina we get the Tar Heels coming up so this is a very big game this is a huge game coming up for Iowa to begin that run of showing that they can do this. When you look at the starting lineup, Garza, McCaffrey, Wieskamp, Frederick, Bohannon.

Garza had 35 points. The rest of the lineup had 29 points. Connor McCaffrey, 2 points on 1 of 3 shooting. Joe Wieskamp, 11 points on 2 of 6 shooting. CJ Frederick, two points on 1-3 shooting. Joey's camp, 11 points on 2-6 shooting. CJ Frederick, six points on 1-2 shooting. Jordan Mohannon, six points on 0-3 shooting. Now, it's great that we're getting a lot of contributions

from our bench, and that was going to happen considering it was kind of a blowout. And I say kind of intentionally there. But, we need to get those main guys involved. We need to see Jordan Mohannon making a few more shots. And not saying it's not going to get those main guys involved. We need to see Jordan Bohannon making a few more shots. And not saying it's not going to happen. These guys have shown they can do it,

but I would like to have seen it happen a little bit more. And maybe they're just kind of holding back for a bit. They're saying, let's just get the ball to Luka Garza, and then we know when we play UNC that they're going to do a couple more things. They're going to have guys who can actually guard Luka Garza to an extent. You can't completely guard Luka Garza, but you can guard him to an extent. And we know that the goal is then to kick it back out and you got to hit those threes. Maybe that's the plan, but I would have liked to see that develop a little bit more in this game. I also thought the fact that Iowa allowed Western

Illinois to come out to a 15 to four run in the second half was a bit concerning. We've seen them struggle early on in the second half in two games now. And against Southern, Fran got super pissed about it, and I didn't see him necessarily blow up against this, but he benched a couple guys. He put Jack Nunji, Joe Toussaint, Patrick McCaffrey back in. Iowa went on a 17-2 run and cruised from there. But Western Illinois is not, no offense to Western Illinois. They are a rebuilding program. They are not good. They

should not be able to go on a 15-4 run. That's sloppy. I don't care who you are. That is sloppy. I know Iowa's defense isn't going to be top 20 in the nation, but that is absolutely sloppy and should not happen. I know we held them to 58 points. Again, we cannot allow momentary lapses of defense to happen like that or just momentary lapses of play. We're going to be getting faced with very stiff competition and the best of each team. We're number three in the nation for a reason, and we're going to get every single team's best game in and game out.

You cannot afford to have momentary lapses like that. That is unacceptable in my personal opinion. So lots of good obviously to take from this. But again, I'm very interested to see how Iowa handles a better program. It is going to be a tougher game. We need to see the other guys get into the game and contribute. We need to see them play defense for a full 40 minutes. Another thing I did like was Keegan Murray again we talked about how he's getting some minutes his hustle in general reminded me a lot Nicholas Bayer and I don't say that lightly Nicholas was what Nicholas did you could technically count on the back box score but he brought an energy to the team when he was there and that looks to me

like what Keegan Murray can do and that that's really huge to have a player like that on your team who's willing to do the dirty stuff and and go for the loose balls and get the time out when you need to that kind of stuff that that was really impressive to see that wherewithal from our freshmen overall though again Iowa won they're going to take on UNC on Tuesday we're going to be doing a crossover episode with Candace Cooper of Locked on Tar Heels and we're going to be dropping UNC on Tuesday. We're going to be doing a crossover episode with Candace Cooper of Locked On Tar Heels. And we're going to be dropping that either Monday or Tuesday, giving you a breakdown and a preview of that game, what to expect from it.

But again, some good, some bad takeaway. Regardless, the point is Iowa is 3-0 at this point, and that is very exciting. We will be back on Sunday covering the Iowa, hopefully, win over Illinois with Matt Vandenberg. So make sure to tune into that. We'll be back every single day next week as well. Thank you all for tuning in. I hope you have a fantastic Friday and even better weekend. And as always, folks, let's go Hawks.