Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Who has been Iowa's top defender through 4 games | Analytically breaking down Spencer Petras | Recapping Hawkeye performances across the NFL

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

Another week is in the books for the NFL and we discuss each Iowa Hawkeyes performance across the league before doing a deep dive into the analytics at the midway point for this Iowa Hawkeyes squad. Who has been the best defender? Where has Petras struggled? And just how dominant punter Tory Taylor has been.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 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. Excited to be back for another episode today. Didn't know if it was going to happen because I've been dealing with a little bit of food poisoning, but I wanted to get this show out to you.

On today's show, though, there's a lot of news and notes we're going to be covering. We're also going to be breaking down the NFL this past week and how the Iowa Hawkeyes did across the league. We're not going to be covering the Vikings-Bears game, mostly because, again, I have been sick. I want to get to bed. I'm not going to stay up and watch the entire game. I sorry I apologize we also had a depth chart released not a lot changed there and we're going to get into some of the metrics that matter one of the things going

forward you're going to see is we're going to be pumping out a lot more metrics to you helping to paint an even better picture of what you know I'm watching all these games I'm watching film but being able to provide the metrics as well to back some of these things, I think gives you a little bit more of a narrative to kind of go into the next week's games or even understand the previous week's games. So we're going to be breaking all of that down on the show today. So let's get into some of the news though. Some of the news that happened over the weekend. Iowa, again, they did win.

If you haven't had an opportunity to check out our Monday morning recap with Matt that actually dropped on Saturday and our Monday, out our Monday morning recap with Matt that actually dropped on Saturday and an actual Monday morning recap we did with the host of Locked on Gophers, check both of those episodes out. Both covering different topics. The one with Matt obviously getting more into the nuances of the game, breaking down each individual component of the game. The show with the Locked on Gophers host, Nathan Dickinson, that was more focused on what does this mean for the programs going forward? How does this impact the programs going forward?

So make sure to check both of those out. But after that game, Iowa did actually get two votes for top 25 rankings, and that makes sense because we see Northwestern, they're undefeated after beating Purdue. That was a little bit of an ugly game, but they did beat Purdue. And Purdue is 2-1. So, you know, we lost to two solid quality teams. Purdue is getting some love across the board from, you know, analytics folks.

They're not ranked, but again, a decent team. Nonetheless, Northwestern ranked 19th at 4-0. Iowa getting two votes. So again, solid stuff. If they beat Penn State, we could see them continue to move up in those rankings. Obviously, a lot of teams have a pretty big head start over them since they played six, seven, eight games. Fantastic to see that, though. On Iowa's schedule coming up, though, we do have Wisconsin, which is the number 10

rated team in the nation. Otherwise, that is the only ranked team currently that Iowa has to play the rest of the season in the regular season. So that'll be interesting. And that's one of the things I think from an Iowa perspective, we're sitting pretty good, right? You beat Penn State this upcoming weekend, you get Nebraska, you get Illinois, you get Wisconsin. Those are all winnable games. So we could be talking about a six and two Iowa team. Or if we do drop a game here and there, it's five and three. That is what I projected for the season anyways. Again, my point of this is all is not lost in Iowa Hawkeye country, especially after seeing the defense really take off the last couple weeks. I've been really impressed with what I've seen from the defensive effort. Now, speaking of defense, Zach Van

Valkenburg, one of our guys that got a game ball every single Sunday, we're going to be dropping the game balls for the week. This week we had two offensive game balls going to Makai Sargent and Tyler Goodson for what they did on the ground. In special teams, we had Terry Roberts because of how fantastic he's been as a gunner and really helping Torrey Taylor out. And even though Torrey Taylor's booming those balls, a lot of that has to do with Terry Roberts as well.

He was our special teams game ball that we gave away. And on defense, we gave it to Zach Van Valkenburg, who finished with three sacks against Minnesota. He also received the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week Award. So fantastic stuff for the former transfer, D2 transfer I should add. I mean, again, talk about that. Iowa doesn't typically go for transfers. transfer, D2 transfer I should add.

I mean, again, talk about that. Iowa doesn't typically go for transfers, and he has been a stellar add to this defense. Very, very big stuff seeing from him. And one of the things we're going to talk about a little bit as we talk about the metrics is who are some of these guys that performed pretty darn well? And one of those guys is Zach McBuck. Again, Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week.

We'll get into some of these metrics later on. And then finally, to wrap up the defensive side of the ball, on the recruiting front, Iowa extended a preferred walk-on offer to Jackson Rexroth. I probably butchered that, but he has an offer to UNI. He is at Cedar Rapids Xavier. He is a 6'2", 200-pound athlete who projects at safety or linebacker. So big stuff there. Again, we want to cover all of recruiting because Iowa has such a renowned history of bringing in recruits and bringing in walk-ons that show up and play pretty darn well for the Iowa Hawkeyes. We're going to get into that as well.

When you look at the top five defensive players from a PFF standpoint across the Iowa Hawkeyes defense, two of them are transfers, two of them are walk-ons. So this is not an underrated, this is not something to kind of scoff at. This is a huge thing that we got Jackson Rethrock, the guy who is in Iowa's backyard. He has decided to walk on to Iowa, so big stuff there. He had a UNI offer, so great to be able to steal him from a UNI team,

especially considering some of these UNI fans out there, for some reason, get a little pissy about some stuff with the Iowa Hawkeyes, especially on the basketball front. I also realize depth charts were released as well, and not a lot really changed. If we're being completely honest, I don't think I noticed a single change on the depth chart where the past couple weeks, there's been movement all around. The one thing I do want to make note of is that Seth Benson is still listed as the starter over Jack Campbell.

That doesn't really mean a ton. By the time we get to game time, we're probably going to see them continue to rotate as Jack Campbell gets up to speed. Otherwise, no real major changes. Coy Cronk is listed on the two deeps as the third tackle there. Mark Kallenberger has been playing pretty well, though, and Coy Cronk was struggling. So it'll be interesting to see if Coy Cronk is able to regain his starting spot.

We're going to get into, again, some of those statistics. And I've been pretty impressed with Mark Kallenberger and what he's been able to do, especially the last couple weeks. We also see Mason Richmond, a true freshman, still on there. Tyler Ellsbury, a true freshman at right guard. So fantastic to see those guys out there. But that will wrap it up for segment number one. Coming up on segment number two, we're going to be breaking down the Iowa Hawkeyes across the NFL.

So stay tuned for that. After a few messages from our sponsors. And this first one is near and dear to my heart. Because if you're anything like me, you're always on the NFL. So stay tuned for that after a few messages from our sponsors. And this first one is near and dear to my heart because if you're anything like me, you're always on the go. I'm constantly moving around. I'm working. I'm working out. I'm doing the podcast. I'm hanging out with my family. There's so many things going on in my life. Sometimes I just need to take a second and relax and just chill. I also love hiking 14ers. I'm out in Colorado. That's a big thing to do. Hike 14,000 foot mountains.

You climb two, 3,000 feet elevation. You get to the top, you grab yourself a sandwich and you just chill. But the other thing you grab with that sandwich is an ice cooled Coors Light. Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered and cold package. It's literally made to chill. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies, which makes it perfect. The perfect beverage of choice when climbing up a 14er and just wanting to take a second and relax. Coors Light is the one I

choose when I need to unwind, so when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door at get.coorslight.com. That's right, delivered straight to your door at get.coorslight.com. And as always, remember to celebrate responsibly. This message is brought to you by Coors Light, a part

of the Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. We are back for segment number two of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. I know last week we didn't get a chance to cover the NFL and what happened across the board. We're going to be doing that today. One quick note before I forget to tell you about this. I know there were player interviews today. I know the players spoke to the media. I'm waiting to get some of the transcripts on that to break down some of the

information that was there. Sorry and apologies. I'm not able to do that on today's show. But going into the NFL, we'll start with the Broncos Raiders because the Broncos are my favorite NFL team. And it was an embarrassing performance across the board for the Denver Broncos, except for by Josie Jewell, who has been playing outstanding this season. He had 10 tackles, and he has been really instinctive in his playmaking. He's been doing a fantastic job of putting himself in the right position at the right time. His coverage is never going to be perfect, but he's doing a great job of making an impact there, which is huge for a Denver Broncos team that has lost a lot of linebackers coming into this season.

team that has lost a lot of linebackers coming into this season. Noah Fant, seven targets, three catches, 18 yards. He also had a key holding penalty that I think was kind of garbage, but it negated a first half touchdown run by Drew Locke. Drew Locke eventually threw an interception. That was a key turning point in that game. And Michael Ojemudia, this one's a little bit interesting. I might have to get Cody Rourke from the Lockdown Broncos on the show, but Michael Ojemudia did not play a single defensive snap.

Now, that's a little bit weird to me. Michael Ojemudia, in my opinion, has been playing pretty darn well. Not a single stat, not a single defensive snap. We're going to try to get some more information on that and break it down for you later on over this week. Browns versus Texans. What a boring game that was. Adrian Claiborne, no stats.

Played in 23 snaps on the defensive side of the ball. Ravens vs. Patriots. The Ravens have activated Geno Stone to the active roster. Christian Welch is still on the active roster. 20 snaps on special teams for Geno Stone. 15 snaps on special teams for Christian Welch. No stats for either of them. James Ferentz was also active for the Ravens vs. Patriots.

Four snaps on special teams. Did not start at offensive line. And Carl Davis, two tackles, 16 snaps on special teams. And one fantastic meme going around with his COVID mask on underneath his helmet, which is pretty fantastic to see. And also, if you have an opportunity, make sure to check out his tweet on Twitter. ESPN just has clearly the wrong picture for Carl Davis. He wants to get that changed.

I do not blame him. Colts vs. Titans on Thursday Night Football. Colts won that game. Imani Hooker had one tackle, 18 snaps on defense, 20 snaps on special teams. Desmond King, the newly arrived corner, 48 snaps on defense, 5 tackles. One of the concerns coming into this was whether or not Imani Hooker was going to lose some snaps after King's arrival now the Titans have had some injuries so maybe that's a part of it but so far the snaps don't seem to be going down he's right

in that 20 to 30 percent of defensive snaps range despite the fact that Desmond King is there and King is playing a lot of snaps for the Titans so great to see him make an instant impact on that team. Packers versus Jags. Christian Kirksey was also activated. Great week across the board for Iowa Hawkeyes because a lot of players came back from injury. Christian Kirksey came back seven tackles in the win over the Jags. I believe he was the team's leading tackler. Josh Jackson played 60 snaps, which is 94% of the snaps. Again, the Packers have some injury issues, which is forcing Josh Jackson into extended playing time. He finished with three tackles, and he's still hovering around that 50 PFF grade,

which is not ideal. And again, I haven't had a chance to watch every Packers game, but I haven't been overly impressed with what I've seen from Josh Jackson and the PFF grade of 50, which is exactly average, which is not a good thing. Backs that up. The Bengals versus the Steelers, easy win for Pittsburgh. Mike Daniels had 42 snaps on D6 snaps on special teams.

I don't believe he recorded a single stat. I would have marked that down on my rundown, but I don't think he recorded a single stat. 49ers versus Saints, George Kittle still out. She did Bethardard had one throw incomplete he should get more playing time though this is absolutely ridiculous I don't know what the hell Kyle Shanahan is doing is he trying to lose games to get a better pick maybe get a quarterback of the future I don't know but I would expect you to play CJ Beathard because he has out clearly

outperformed Nick Mullins in his limited playing time this year in my opinion Nick Mullins atrocious also lost me some money not a huge fan of him Bills versus Cardinals what an amazing ending to that game Micah Hyde seven tackles one tackle for loss one pass defended AJ Epineza one tackle and eight snaps on d3 on special teams Ike Bucker played every single snap on offense no sacks allowed and currently he's grading out at 70 on PFF, so solid production from Ike Bucker there. And again, if you didn't get a chance to watch that, what an incredible Hail Mary pass.

Kind of a funny story, completely off topic, but I've been doing a lot of betting, had a really good weekend here, and I bet on the Bills versus Cardinals. I bet Moneyline for Bills. That looked really great when Stephon Diggs caught that pass in the end zone. I thought, heck yeah, I'm going to win this. In the meantime, FanDuel is telling me to cash out. They're saying you can cash out and get basically all of your money right here. I was like, no, I'll wait, you know, an extra 30 seconds for the Cardinals to lose this game and collect the extra three bucks.

Well, Kyler Murray throws a Hail Mary as he throws it. And you know, DeAndre Hopkins catches it. I look at my app and I still have the ability to cash out. So I do. And for some reason, Vanduul must have been glitching, but they actually gave him my money, even though the Cardinals took the lead. So that was pretty cool for me. Moving on though, now that I'm off topic, Seahawks versus Rams. Austin Blythe, a 67.8 PFF grade one sack allowed this season. He's continuing to perform very well for the Los Angeles Rams. Chargers with Dolphins. Brian Belaga was back, played every single snap, and looked pretty darn good in his debut, debut, or re-debut, I should say, back with the Chargers as their offensive line has been depleted all season.

Great to get Belaga back to help out Justin Herbert. The Bucs versus the Panthers. Anthony Nelson continues to play. Minimal snaps on D, just 11 snaps, 8 snaps on special teams. No stats for him. Tristan Worfs, another solid day as well at the office. Again, continuing that campaign. I've even seen people talk about him as Offensive Rookie of the Year, which would be absolutely incredible for a tackle to win that. And then finally, Washington versus Detroit. Brandon Scherer played 100% of the snaps. Again, he seems to be healthy and performing pretty darn well. TJ Hawkinson, only 66% of the snaps. If you've listened to this segment before, you know that

I've been questioning why is he not getting the ball more? Why is he not a more important part of that Detroit Lions offense? Only four targets, two catches, 13 yards. And then Matt Nelson, four snaps on offense, six snaps on special teams. That does it, though, for segment number two. Coming up on segment number three, we're going to be breaking down the metrics that matter. So stay tuned for that after a few messages from our sponsors. Most notably, though, the one from Built Go. Because Built Go is made by the same people who made Built Bar. If you've tried a Built Bar, you know it's absolutely delicious.

Well, Built Go has that same exact amazing flavor, but it's built for a different purpose. It's built to get you through that mental or physical wall any single time of the day. They come in one and a half ounce packages. You can put it in your briefcase, your golf bag, or even your pocket throughout the day. BiltGo is the best workout gel on the market. It's a five-hour energy without the same crash feeling. Plus, it's natural, so it's better for the body. It's like drinking a monster drink with a third of the caffeine and better results.

And it comes in three delicious flavors, peanut butter, honey, chocolate, coconut, and my favorite, which is chocolate mint. It's what I use in the mornings. If I'm doing an early workout, again, talk about the Coors Light, busy day, right? So I get up in the morning. I need a little bit of energy.

I need some protein. I need something to get me through my workout at four or 5 a.m. I pop open a chocolate mint bilko and it helps me get through that workout better than ever. And again, delivers a ton of nutrients that is perfect for getting you through the day or even through that workout. So right now, get your BiltGo delivered to your door by going to BiltGo.com and use promo code LOCKED. L-O-C-K-E-D. You'll get 20% off your next order.

Use promo code LOCKED for 20% off at BiltGo.com. Let's go. We are back for our third and our final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And again, getting into those metrics that matter. We are halfway through this season. We are four weeks in. Iowa is 2-2. They have four more games left.

On tomorrow's show, we're going to be covering some of these metrics that matter for the Iowa-Penn State game. But on today's show, I want to do a little bit of deep diving into some of the analytics. And we're going to focus on a few hot topics. And we're going to continue this over into next show on tomorrow morning's show, I should say. But let's start with a couple things I think is pretty interesting. When you look at Iowa and playing true freshmen, it's not often true freshmen get in the game a lot. But here are the leaders for true freshmen from a snaps perspective.

On defense, Reggie Bracey, 26 snaps. Jay Higgins, 15 snaps. Yaha Black, 15 snaps. On offense, Mason Richman. Again, he made the two deeps. Tyler Ellsbury, he's also in the two deeps. And Gavin Williams, he is the number four running back. That's awesome to see them. And Jay Higgins is leading the charge for the freshman on the special teams unit with 24 snaps played. Let's get into some of the, dispelling

the narrative though, because there's a couple of things I want to point out. And the first one is coverage wise. So I've seen Iowa Twitter be a little bit upset about Riley Moss at times. I have always been a pretty big proponent of Riley Moss. Yes, he struggled a lot in his first year playing college football. Now, let's give him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. He was a gray shirt. He was a walk-on. You know, he wasn't expected to play significant, you know, significant snaps and make significant plays, but he still came out and played pretty well. This year, he's actually the highest graded defensive player on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Let that sink in. The highest graded defensive player, according to PFF, on the Iowa Hawkeyes. He's been targeted 21 times and it only allowed 13 catches.

Now that's not ideal by any means, right? I'm not saying that's fantastic, great job, oh my gosh, you're fantastic, but that's pretty solid. Now, let's look at Matt Hankins, 59.1%. On 22 targets, he's allowed 13 catches as well. The leader of this coverage group is Julius Brentstow. He's allowing a 23.1% completion percentage on 13 targets. The worst one, though, has been Nick Neiman. on 13 targets. The worst one, though, has been Nick Neiman. 17 targets, 12 receptions is basically a guaranteed reception if you're targeting Nick Neiman. I think a lot of that has to do with the

scheme and putting him out. Again, we saw it against Minnesota, putting him out in this slot trying to cover wide receivers because of the defense Iowa is playing. Not exactly ideal for Nick Neiman to be able to handle that, despite the fact that he probably is our best coverage linebacker now that Colbert has left. The other thing I thought was really interesting is that tackling has been an issue. When you look at this team, a couple guys, a couple big-name players have really struggled

from a tackling perspective. Jack Kerner leads the team with six missed tackles. Chauncey Golsan is tied with him at six missed tackles as well. Kerner has a 55.7 PFF grade in tackling. Kerner has a 55.7 PFF grade in tackling. Golsan has a 42.7 PFF grade in tackling. And we're going to talk about that. Chauncey Golsan is actually having a pretty outstanding season if you take away the tackling, but that needs to be better.

And then we also talked about the fact that defensive backs for Phil Parker need to be able to tackle. Well, Matt Hankins is missed 5, Kayvon Merriweather is missed 4, and both of them are posting a PFF grade below 55. Now, that's not all bad, right? Let's look at the good ones. Let's look at the guys who played over 105 snaps to look at who has had the best tackling percentage. Let's go to Nick Neiman. Nick Neiman leads the team in a tackling PFF grade.

Only one missed tackle. Right behind him is Seth Benson. Riley Moss behind him. Zach Van Valkenburg and Davian Nixon round up the top five for the Iowa Hawkeyes in terms of tackling. And as I talked about Chauncey Golsan, the tackling is an issue and a lot of that happened early in the season. We saw that with the run game. Even now we're seeing a couple guys kind of miss break contain. They're not able to get their arms around their guys. That's okay. It's going to happen. We need to clean that up and we expect that to be cleaned up. That's something that Iowa

is fundamentally typically pretty good at. Chauncey Golsan though, if we're able to make those six tackles, imagine what kind of season he'd be having. Because right now, from a sacks perspective, he has two sacks. And that's not bad. It's about on par with what he's had the past couple years. That's third on the team. But he has 14 total hurries, which is four more than Davian Nixon, who has been getting a lot of love and deservedly so. But 14 total hurries over four weeks. That's over three. That's three and a half every single game.

That's impressive. Now, if he can just get his arms on those quarterbacks, take them down, that would be even better. But that's awesome stuff. Now, let's move over into the running game. So there's always, across the, you know, across the last couple of weeks, there's always the age old question of should Tyler Goodson be getting more snaps or should, why is Makai Sargent coming in? And I've talked about

this before on last year's show. Makai Sargent is just a better pass blocker. So there is a necessity to have him in. I also think he's a different type of runner than Tyler Goodson. But when you look at this, pass blocking, it makes sense. In 22 snaps, Tyler Goodson's pass blocking rating is 27.5. That is really bad. Makai Sargent in less snaps, granted, seven snaps, 78.4. So it makes sense why Tyler Goodson is going to get better at pass blocking. He's going to be better at that.

And he's not used in pass blocking a ton. But that is one of the reasons why you want Makai Sargent in the game in those situations. Now, the reason why, and this is one of the reasons why I love Tyler Goodson and why you want him to get more snaps and more carries, is because he is fantastic at making defenders miss. He has forced 15 missed tackles compared to Sargent's five. So, keep that in the back of your mind when you're seeing a Makai Sargent in on passing downs. It makes sense, because if they're going to keep him in to block, he's able to block a little bit better for Spencer Petras. And one of the things you're going to see when I get into the next stat is that it's very important that Spencer Petras isn't pressured.

He has really, really struggled under pressure this year. His PFF grade is 40.9 when he's under pressure and his completion percentage drops to 38.7 from the middling 55s-ish. Now, I've been kind of hard on Spencer Peters, as we all have. But when you look at the stats, the numbers don't lie. I mean, he is a victim of drops. 11 drops this year, which is quite a bit, especially when you look at the fact that three of those have come from Amir Smith-Marset, which makes him tied for 14th in the nation with receivers who have been targeted over 10 times and drops. Not exactly ideal, but from a purely passing perspective, Spencer Petras is rated 198 out of 298 quarterbacks.

Now, granted, some of those quarterbacks haven't taken a lot of snaps, but I don't care who you are. Bottom third? That ain't good. And then when you look at his interceptions and you look at some of the thought process on him, Brady Quinn was quick to Brady Quinn's just a dick in general. Excuse me for the language there. I know sometimes we have children listening to this. I apologize

for that, but Brady Quinn was kind of an idiot on the show commentating on the Iowa-Minnesota game. He did on the show, you know, commentating on the Iowa Minnesota game. He did say he was, you know, one of the knocks on Spencer Petras was this inability to throw to the left side. Now I looked into that and actually where he has been most effective at is between that 15 and 20 yard mark on the left side of the field. All of his interceptions had come over the middle. Think about that and why that might actually be a lot of those are shorter you know short to intermediate routes right the 5 to 15 yards and Spencer Petras has had an issue with you know some of those have been bad reads but some of it has been the fact that he is rocketing

those balls in the really tight spaces and they're going into you know they're going to get deflected they're going to you know get caught by a defensive back if it hits off of a receiver's hands. And one of his main targets over the middle is actually Sam Laporta. Two of his four interceptions have actually come from targeting Sam Laporta. And when he targets Sam Laporta, he has a 53.8% completion percentage. And Laporta has three drops. So I'm really high on Sam Laporta. I think he's going to be a fantastic tight end for the Iowa Hawkeyes. But that's not exactly ideal when you want a tight end for Iowa.

You need a more consistent pass catcher there. And he's going to improve as he gets older. But I thought that was really interesting looking into some of those details about Spencer Petras and kind of how that has looked. And the last thing I want to wrap up with, tomorrow we'll cover a little bit more offensive line, a little bit more receiving type of stuff. But Torrey Taylor, this guy is an absolute animal. We talk about it with Matt Vandenberg every single week.

This dude's a stud. It's great to see a punter be so effective. And from Iowa's perspective, we love seeing great punting. So let's break it down a little bit. Torrey Taylor has the ninth best PFF grade in the country for punters who've punted over 10 times. 13 of his 18 punts have landed inside the 20. His hang time is 3.92, which is not actually that great.

Not a very good hang time. But when you look at why that is, when he's punting, he's actually waiting for his coverage unit to get down there before he's punting the ball. And then he's kicking it pretty quickly there. But what's most important is that his coverage unit can get there. That's the most important part. So if the hang time is not affecting that, that's okay. Now, if his hang time was 3.92 and returners were getting a lot of yards off of him, now that's something to be concerned about. But when you look at that,

the most important stat to look at, I think in my opinion, is the net yards per punt attempt. And that is your punting yards minus whatever is the typical return yardage for the punt returner. Troy Taylor is first in the nation with 45.9, and he's first in the nation in overall return yards at minus one. He's tied with three others. That is absolutely fantastic to see, and that is one of the reasons why Iowa's defense has also been playing well. They're getting teams pinned back in between their 20 yards, in between

20 yards in the end zone. That's a fantastic position to be in from a defensive perspective. It puts pressure on the offense. You can't make as many mistakes because you're that close to the end zone. It allows Iowa to kind of put some pressure on that quarterback. So I thought that was really interesting to look at. Torrey Taylor should be, in my opinion, a front runner for the Ray Guy Award. I hope you did enjoy some of the metrics we broke down. We're going to continue some of that tomorrow. We're also going to be breaking down the press conference that Kirk Behrens is going to be giving out.

He does that every single Tuesday, so we'll be talking about that as well. In addition to breaking down some of the halfway point metrics for Iowa, we're also going to be talking about the Penn State unit and what to expect from Penn State. And really, there's three key things that I think are really holding Penn State back that can kind of switch on a dime. So it'll be interesting to see how that works coming into this Saturday's game. We're going to cover all of that on tomorrow's episode,

so make sure to check that out as well. If you enjoyed the content of today's show, please make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In addition to talking about all these things here, I try to put out some of this content on Twitter as well. So if you don't have, you know,

if you want additional content, that's really going to be some supplementary stuff that I'm putting out on Twitter in addition to what I'm recording here on the show. So thank you all for tuning in though. Hope you have a fantastic Tuesday. And as always, let's go Hawks.