Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Watching a Hawks game on a horse, long snappers are people too, and remembering "The Catch" with Riley Smith

Episode Date: September 3, 2020

We conclude our three-part series with actor Riley Smith on today's episode as we relive "The Catch" and discuss Riley's favorite Hawkeyes. He also tells a story about watching an Iowa Hawkeyes game while filming a scene on a horse, and how he impersonated his favorite Iowa basketball player in the movie Radio.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.ManscapedGo to Manscaped.com and use code LOCKED to get 20% Off and Free Shipping. Manscaped is #1 in men’s below the belt grooming and offers precision-engineered tools for your family jewels.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get $10 off your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Hawkeye Nation, to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network.

As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and today's episode is brought to you by rockauto.com. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. And on today's show, we are continuing our little series with Riley Smith, the actor who you've probably seen on numerous different TV shows and movies. He is continuing his discussion with us about the Iowa Hawkeyes. On today's show, we're specifically covering some of his favorite players, how he got Rose Bowl tickets, watching an Iowa game on a horse. I'm not kidding.

And long snappers are people too. We talk a lot about the importance of Iowa players and the Iowa community and how basically, if you're an Iowa player, you're kind of a legend. You're very important to the community and how awesome that is to see that happen and how much pride Iowa Hawkeye fans take in the players that played for the team.

So that is all on today's show. Before we jump into that, if you've liked this little mini-series, this three-episode series with Riley, please make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. Give us that five-step review and follow us on facebook twitter and instagram but that being said let's not waste any more time let's hop into the final part of this three-part series with riley smith it's funny but nowadays in the past like five ten years i i get a lot of uh invites to go up to the booth and and or up to the box seats at kennick um and i or or field passes and i always usually pass on those because

first of all i'm gonna have tailgated and uh second of all i want to i want to go crazy i want to be down in it i want to be talking i'm gonna be jumping and you can't do that from up above um but there's been a couple times you, you know, I became good friends with Gary Dolphin through that golf tournament. And so Dolph and, and Padula Potilak, and I love Ed Potilak. He's amazing. Still good friends with him too, but he, they invited me up to watch him do the, their, their broadcast and then talk on the radio. And I always used to be into radio. I thought if I wasn't going to be an actor,

I was going to be a sports radio or TV broadcaster. That's what I wanted to do. So that was interesting to me. So that was one game I went up and I sat in the booth with them. And then one other game, was it two years ago? I forget which one it was. It was towards the end of the year. Obviously, it was freezing cold.

I mean, bone chilling. So I'm like, yeah, I'll sit up in the yeah where it's warm but other than that I usually always pass on the better opportunity because I just want to be down in it I mean Kinnick's amazing I don't think people realize just how incredible the experience is in Kinnick it is like nothing else we were we haven't back to a game in like two years and that was the plan was to go back this year and obviously that's that's not gonna happen but if you where's your kind of go-to tailgate spot like ours is right by the library right along the river there's like a couple spots right there that we usually go to where's yours yeah yeah my my buddy has a uh

one of those buses with a stripper pole and a kegerator in it and uh it's called the white lightning and he parks it shout out to my boy tommy by the way if he if he watches this uh tommy parks the white lightning right across from uh the stadium on melrose it's like uh 505 melrose or something like that um and so that makes it real easy but you know we always bounce around because again i go back usually for one game a year you've got so many people you want to see so many different family members tailgating all over, but that's my favorite part about it. And so it's like,

it's almost impossible not to get a buzz on if you're bouncing from tailgate to tailgate and every one of them's handing you a beer or, or especially in the cold, the cold months, they're doing the shots of apple pie and things like that. Those things are so delicious. So dangerous. Oh yeah. That's what I'm saying. And then somebody's always handing you something. Yeah. And I, especially I don't see everybody very often. So when I come back,

everybody's like, yeah. So by, by kickoff it's usually pretty, pretty fuzzy. So I, that's another reason I just stay down in the stands, but yeah, we, I mean, there, there's nothing like the tailgating. And then after the game, you know, we try to go downtown and grab a bite and maybe a few more beers, but I'm realizing that I'm way too old for that scene nowadays. A couple of years ago, we went down, we went out after the game and I was like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm too old for this. This is like a liability now. I mean, even like we went down and I was 20 yeah I'm I'm too old for this this is like a liability now I mean even like we went down I was 20 I'm 30 now I was 28 and I was like I feel old and I mean like and I'm only seven

years old but I feel old right now being where I'm at I think you know what I probably should go home I'm pretty drunk already I don't need to be out anymore yeah man I mean speaking of already. I don't need to be out anymore. Yeah, man. I mean, speaking of old, I, I, I don't feel old. I'm 42 now and I've always played young on TV and I feel youthful, but like this year on Nancy Drew, they, I'm playing the Nancy Drew's biological dad and, and she's like a, you know, 21, 22 year old girl looks you know looks 25 to me and i'm like when did i become old enough to be a college girl or she's graduated from college age like dad i'm like that's crazy to me so now i'm definitely even though i i only have a one-year-old daughter

it's like i am old enough to be their dads you know so i'm i'm old yeah that's rough man so um as far as like plans going forward, are you planning on trying to make it next, you know, next season that they have a game, you're trying to make it to a couple of games in? For sure. I mean, again, it's a lot further from Canada and it makes it a little tougher with my work schedule and stuff.

I was doing a show a couple of years ago in Chicago called Proving Innocent for Fox. And that was awesome because I could get over to Iowa City. I had a couple of games that year, but, but when I'm up here in Vancouver and we work during the fall that's it's, it's tough to get back for just a quick weekend, but then I, I will always try to make like the bowl game, you know, over the holidays. But I definitely, I, i'm saying it now if iowa makes the

final four and fans are allowed to go i will 100 be there i'll spend all the money on a ticket that i should have you know i could have spent for all those other games yeah you only get those moments once in a especially literally once in a lifetime so far yeah just like with the rose bowl i uh i was doing nashville on abc at the time yeah and uh the game was on abc so i immediately called all my resources and they got us 50 yard line like uh 10th row seats and uh and that was worth i mean if you know even though we got killed that game yeah that's if we only make these things once in my lifetime i'm doing anything i can to get the best seat i can because uh that may be the last time we get to do it you know 100 but hopefully not like we were saying with the basketball they're back i think that we've got a lot of potential to be good for a long time so uh yeah i will be i'll be at those big games for

sure i love it well also first of all my wife and i were huge fans in Nashville, so she'll, she'll love the fact that I was, I was talking to you. Yeah, I will. All right. I'm going to take a quick break from the conversation with Riley. Cause I do have a message to give you from one of our sponsors, rockauto.com with the ever increasing numbers of makes and models. It is now impossible to stock all the parts that you need a traditional chain storefront. Plus, if you're like me, I personally hate going into the store because they're probably not going to have the part I need is probably marked up. And typically I feel just like an idiot because I'm not that smart with cars. So the nice thing is the rockauto.com. You can actually do all the shopping for your car part needs from the comfort of your chair at your home. Rockauto.com is a family business serving

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right locked on in their how-did-you-hear-about-us box so they know we sent you. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need, rockauto.com. So as far as your wife though, does she actually, or your,

you say your wife, right? Fiance. Yeah. We've been together eight years. Um, and, and we are, we were going to try to get married this year. And then of course that, uh, that, that didn't happen. So, um, now we're, we're, as she says, um, it's gonna be hard because everyone that was supposed to get married this year is going to be backing up the locations and things like that for the next year or so so yeah we we're at that place like we've been together so long that you're basically married yeah we are we in fact when we crossed the border they we we got our visa as a common law wife so yeah fiance anyway your question is she um does she actually like iowa or does she has she gotten into the fandom or is she just kind of like what are you doing and why does this matter so

much you know when we first met I I told her and this is what I have always said uh to girls I dated is um you don't have to like football or Iowa sports but you have to let me like it and and so she's uh but she's she's from she grew – she grew up in Milwaukee for half her life and then Atlanta. So she's from areas where, you know, sports and that camaraderie is a big deal. So she understands it. She's cool with it. She loves to come back to Iowa to go to a game.

And she usually sits and watches all the games with me. So she's really supportive, And that helps a lot. And I've got her decked out in all the Iowa gear. So yeah, she supports it. She understands it. Like we talk about how crazy we must look to certain people. Like a lot of the people I work with in the entertainment business, they might not be, a lot of entertainers aren't huge sports fans,

especially not Iowa sports fans. So a lot of entertainers aren't huge sports fans especially not iowa sports fans so uh a lot of them look at me like i'm crazy yeah they don't understand you know i mean there was a time i was shooting i was shooting a movie in texas uh this was 2008 maybe or something like that and i was on a horse it was a horse i was on a horse in the scene but it was i told the director like i won't work on sat Saturdays. And for whatever reason, we could only get the ranch this one Saturday. So I had to work and it ended up being a huge game for us. It was, I can't remember, but this year we had DJ K and we were really good.

I think it was the year that, that Stan's, he went down at Northwestern and hurt his leg. And so I didn't want to be working that day. I told him I didn't want to work. And then it turns out that game was a huge game. And so I had it on my phone. I'm watching it on my phone while I'm on the horse. And in between action and cut, I mean, that was the only time I put my phone away.

They call action. I put my phone away. I ride up through the scene, cut. I'm like, I'll stay on the horse. I grew up on horses. So I'm like, I'm going to stay on the horse and i put my phone right up through the scene cut i'm like i'll stay on the horse i grew up on i grew up on horses so i'm gonna stay on the horse and just watch my phone and the director kept giving me crap about it and i'm like bro you've got me professionally anytime you want me but i'm not gonna not be watching this you know i'll do my job between action and cut but other than that i sat on this horse and just watched the game on my phone

that's hilarious dedication literally you had you for the entire week except for a three-hour period and he wanted you to be working during that time i get that i gave him what he needed but but no more than that because then i was going to watch i mean dude when people schedule weddings on iowa game days i'm like what are you doing like yeah i know i know busy now that's probably where my my fiancee Ashley will draw the line if she finds the right spot and there's an Iowa game I probably will lose that fight but as she would say it's just one game so you know but yeah it's uh and I love like a lot of my buddies they've had their their weddings around a game so like yeah we'll be like I remember I was uh in one of my my best

friends weddings and we were like getting ready for the wedding drinking watching the game in the morning and then the game was over and then we went did the wedding you know there's a lot of me to do it i would do that but that's like people don't understand like what it means to people in in our in our area i try to explain it we don't have a pro team and we treat iowa athletics like like they're pros and i think that that's one of the things that that kids like to come and play for iowa for that reason you know like you're not just a number like you're you're a name you're you mean a lot more to to that fan base than you probably would if you played at a bigger school or you know a fan you know a sexier city yeah so yeah it's if you look like the washed up

walk-ons i mean so i listen to them i think their podcast is great but like you have a long snapper a backup linebacker and a fullback who scored one touchdown and people love them like i mean like i like him too i mean i think they're they do a pretty good job for the most part like there's obviously things i don't always agree with but i think on the whole i mean they are treated like celebrities and i know it's a freaking long snapper like the guy like you don't you don't get that and also just the fact that like iowa people in general love special teams i had michael sleep dalton on the show yeah um probably in like march or so and it was one of my best shows yeah one of the most like listened to shows he's a punter have you had have you had pat anger on your show i have not had pat but i've had so i've had ricky

stansy on and those kind of the big guys i have not had pat on pat's a character too i i ran into him the weekend of that big 10 uh championship game uh in indianapolis Yeah. And we had both been drinking. It was after the game. And so obviously we're kind of in bad spirits. But I see him looking at me. He's a big, intimidating looking guy. And then he recognized me. I didn't expect him to recognize me, I guess.

And he was like, I know you. I know you. I'm like, oh, fuck, is he going to fight me? And he ended up being super cool. And so I started following him. And he's funny. He's a really funny guy. Speaking of long snappers, know long snappers people they get a they get a hard time but uh one of my best friends is a long now retired long snapper named john dornbos who

played for philadelphia eagles um you might also know him from he came in runner up on america's got talent for his magic he's known as the magic man that's awesome and uh you got to look him up his story is unbelievable I mean he's been on Brian Gumbel has done a story and uh they just sold his uh his life rights to a movie um I actually had a hand in it because I years ago did a movie called Radio um with Cuba Gooding it was oh yeah wait I was like that's the same movie yeah sorry I know yeah and and so Mike Mike Tolan who is the director producer and he does a lot of great he does a lot of the the um 30 for 30s and he did like

Summer Catch and Varsity Blues and so he knows about sports movies and and he coincidentally is from Philadelphia huge Eagles fan so uh John, John, longest tenured player for the Eagles. He played there for, I don't even know how many years. I was with him when he got the call to get picked up by the Eagles. He had been dropped by Buffalo or Tennessee. He's back in LA. We are hanging out. We met because we had the same business manager.

We were like hanging out. We're young and I'll never forget. We're driving in my car one day and he gets a call and he's like oh shit philly just called i gotta be there i gotta be there in two days he's like i haven't stopped the football in a while and anyway that was the start of it and that was like back in like oh one or something he was there forever but you gotta look up his story his story is unbelievable yeah but you know he was the first time that I had ever thought about a long snapper. But when you think about it, like, they don't – they never hear their name called,

and they don't get a lot of praise. You only hear about them when they make a mistake. Yeah. But they have to be so precise, you know. And it really is important. I mean, times you come up to a last-minute field goal, last-second field goal, and everyone thinks – not only do you think, don't shank it. You're like, please have a good snap you know um so yeah like i have a lot of respect after getting to know john and following his career for long snap yeah i mean so uh are you familiar with casey creeter

he played for iowa for yeah yeah i know the name i mean i don't know he came out he like went as a scholarship player and then ended up being a long snapper he ended up being he went to the same high school as one of my good friends out here and uh he played on the Denver Broncos for a couple years I'm also a big Broncos fan I mean you can see like the Broncos jersey in the back um anyways we were at a bar and he shows up and he's with you know my buddy and stuff and he's like hey this is Casey and I was like oh my god you're Casey Creeder he's like what how do you know my name do I owe you money yeah so he's like I was like you play for the Denver Broncos like well yeah he's like but why would you know who I am I was like you played for the Hawks too you're a long snapper like no one knows who the hell the long snapper

is um so they thought that was just like bizarre that I knew who the long snapper was but again I won special teams and all that stuff but um i actually interviewed him for a article i did on the website and he was talking about the precision of his snaps and that it was like he thought he was doing great but like they apparently charted at iowa and he was only accurate on 10 of his like you know 100 snaps that he did he's like i thought they were perfect but they you know i was so inaccurate technically like, if you were I to watch it, it would seem like a beautiful snap, but apparently it's, you know, the rotation of the ball, where they catch the ball at, how fast it gets there, the exact height. It has to be so precise,

which I thought was just incredible. He actually did a baby announcement or a, a gender reveal by snapping the ball and hitting a balloon like 30 feet away, which I thought was pretty cool yeah i gotta look that up yeah it's pretty cool my brother didn't think of that john when we you know uh we'd be out like on the weekends uh on the off season and we'd have a few drinks and we'd always love going outside it'd be like dark out and he'd be down an alley just lion balls and you'd be like put your hand he'd be down an alley just line balls and you'd put your

hand anywhere you want put it over here put it over here that's so cool same man and it's coming like i don't know how fast but it hurts it stings the hands yeah if people don't yeah i mean i think it's funny like they put them on madden they're ranked like they're 38 overall but like what they do is so important to the game yeah you. What's Denver's kicker's name? Brandon McManus. McManus, yeah. He played at Zach Johnson's tournament a couple years ago. Wait, really?

Yeah, way bigger than I thought for a kicker. He's a pretty big guy. He's a big dude. Yeah, I didn't know that. But, yeah, I didn't really know who he was at the time. But then after I met him and started to follow Denver more because of Noah Fant. Yeah. They're starting to get a little Iowa coalition there. i mean they had kirk's on there for a bit they saw josie jewel they just uh they drafted michael ojemudia did they yeah that's right that's right yeah is their quarterback who's their quarterback

gonna be drew lock is it okay drew lock drew is like, in my personal opinion, is like a six-foot-three version of Drew Tate. Is he? I mean, yeah, like gunslinger, just a cocky son of a gun who just like likes to go out and play football and just loves the game and is having an absolute blast at all times. Like you got to watch him. He's a great guy to watch. I saw him and he played in Washington, right, Washington?

Mizzou. Mizzou. Oh, who's the quarterback at Washington that was was like that um never mind it doesn't matter somebody out watching your show right now it's like blah blah that's yeah uh anyway yeah uh no I don't know much about you Locke but I do remember you guys for a minute had the Northwestern quarterback yeah Trevor Simeon yeah he was getting some shots and I was was like, how is this guy getting this – like, have this much playing time at Denver?

Like, I mean, I rooted for him because he was kind of scrappy, undersized guy. But I'm like, I felt like we've had much better quarterbacks that didn't get the shot at the league. I mean, Ricky Stanzi was ten times better than Trevor Simeon as a – Trevor Simeon had more interceptions than touchdowns, I believe, his senior year. But apparently the Broncos scouts saw him throw a ball really hard in wind and rain.

And they're like, this guy's got a good arm. We'll draft him the seventh round. And then, you know, John Elway just sucked at picking quarterbacks to the point where Trevor Simeon was the option. But, yeah, shocking to me that, you know, Ricky Sanzy didn't get a ton of time. I mean, he got a couple years in the NFL. Drew Tate had a, you know, a cup of tea with the Rams on a practice squad. I mean, it's great. But he was great in the Canadian League.

Drew had a nice career in the Canadian League. Turned into a rusher. I mean, turned into more of a rushing quarterback. I was talking to him about that. And basically, Iowa's offense just didn't really allow it. No. But you knew he had the wheels and and he was always gutsy you know but i remember when when he was a freshman and i knew of him because the baytown

connection with my family and they're like this kid's gonna be really good and they told me about him and i'd watch highlight stuff and um and i'll never forget when he got in you could see it right away like he had an energy that he wasn't brad banks but he had a leadership and an energy that uh yeah i he was one of my favorite quarterbacks at iowa i just loved drew i love the way he played and obviously the pass uh that all of us remember like that probably goes down as i almost had a heart attack and we were like, we were at a bar. We had went out to, uh, for whatever reason that year we'd went to a Cedar falls for new year's Eve that year. I don't know why, but we were at a bar in New York, uh,

in Cedar falls watching with all our buddies. And we had this hot dog pile when it was over, I was on the bottom of it. And on top of being so excited, I was like getting smushed. It was, that was, I'll never forget that game. That was insane. I was just going to ask you, I was like getting smushed. It was, that was, I'll never forget that game. That was insane. I was just going to ask you, I was like, do you remember where you work? I feel like that's one of those moments where everyone in Hawkeye Nation remembers exactly. I know I was at my buddy Tanner's place in their like living room watching the game.

He was in his bedroom for whatever reason watching the same game. And we both started like screaming and yelling and like jumping up and hugging each other. Yeah, it's one of those things you know exactly where you were. Yeah, that's what's cool about Iowa. That's what's cool about Iowa sports, man. I mean, like I do for all those big monumental moments, I know exactly where I was and it's a thing, you know? Yeah. It's crazy. Well, Riley, I've had you on for a while and I really appreciate your time.

One last question. Who is your favorite Hawkeye of all time? Oh man, that is, that's so tough. Man, I don't know. Football, Drew's got to be right up there. Love the Drew Tate, love Drew Tate. Basketball. I was always a big fan of Jeff Moe. You know, Jeff Moe is great. I actually looked up Jeff Moe. You know, Jeff Moe, he was great. I actually looked up Jeff Moe randomly one night. I was bored and I was trying to find him on the internet anywhere I could. And I finally found, I found a Facebook site for him. And I think it was his wife, but I just like

hit him up and was like telling the whole story of how we had met all these years ago. I didn't expect him to remember me. But if you'll rememberff moe always did this fist pump when he scored you're probably too young to even remember i didn't really watch a lot like i've watched a couple like the old game just like to see him but i don't really remember jeff moe yeah yeah he well and he wasn't i mean he was like overshadowed by bj and roy marvel uh we had a lot of great players that year and i don't know why i liked him he's just a little gutsy you know scrappy talk smack and and played erratically and was not afraid to just shoot it from anywhere looking back like i still watch back a lot of these like highlight like classic games and i'm like i don't know why i liked him so much he's actually like he's always lazy and chip like

chippy hanging like he'd like do some he always would like press on defense but then he'd never quite fully commit to the other end of the court he'd wait for the rebound or steal and then he'd be you know chippy hanging an easy layup he was like that kind of guy but he was gutsy and uh so yeah i i hit up his uh like wife on facebook told her all about me and then i told her when i did the movie radio i um i got to play a basketball player and a football player in it, but in the basketball scenes, every time I make a shot, I did the fist pump. Oh, that's awesome. I'll go back and watch that. So I just had to let, uh, I had to let, let him know that that had happened since then. I'd seen

he's, um, he's gotten into some different altercations in Indianapolis where he's living now, but, uh, that's another story. I don't know. No judgment. I don't know, but I always loved Jeff Moe, but man, there's so many, so many great, great players that have come through and all the different sports and I love them all. Yeah, man. I love it. Well, I'll be honest when I, when I reached out, I knew you were a big Hawkeye fan, but I didn't realize how your story had actually begun and being the ball boy

and whatnot. And so I've, I've really enjoyed the conversation with you, Riley. Any last words for Haw enjoyed the conversation with you, Riley. Any last words for Hawkeye Nation? Yeah, dude, thank you so much for coming. Yeah, man. Well, I'll be watching you guys and good luck with the podcast and go Hawks. Heck yeah, man. Well, thank you so much.

And anytime you're in Denver, let me know. I'll buy you a beer, Sports Call. 100%, man, 100%. We'll go to the Iowa Alumni Bar. I love it, man. Sounds good. Well, have a good day, Riley. All right, you too, bro.

See ya. All right, and that wraps up our three-part series with Riley. I hope you all enjoyed the conversation as much as I clearly did. I had a blast talking to him, taking the time out of his day, doing it in between his daughter's nap, and obviously a little bit before beginning filming again for the CW's Nancy Drew. But again, big shout-out to Riley. Appreciate him being on the show.

Appreciate his hospitality you know, hospitality and being willing to talk shop and talk Iowa football and basketball and all sorts of things for an hour and a half and allowing us to, you know, give you that content as well and let you listen to that conversation. If you did like the show,

please make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded the podcast at. Give us that five-star review and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And we'll be back tomorrow with another show for the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast on Friday morning. So again, stay tuned for our next episode. As always, Hawkeye Nation, I always appreciate

you tuning in and listening to our daily show on the Locked On Podcast Network. And have a great day, and go Hawks.