Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Why Brian Ferentz as quarterback coach make sense for the Iowa football team | Iowa Hawkeyes podcast

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

Iowa football offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz is taking a lot of heat from the announcement that he will take over as quarterback coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes. We explain why Kirk Ferentz was right to do so and why we shouldn't be concerned about breaking down the Iowa women's basketball team officially losing two players to the transfer portal yesterday.What does that mean for Lisa Bluder's squad? We dive into that here before discussing Tyler Linderbaum's draft stock, why it is taking a dip, and why that is actually a good thing for him.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 “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order. BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. StatHeroStatHero is reshaping the way the way you play fantasy sports. Dozens of house based games to play daily. No sharks, no funky props, just your skill vs the lineups you choose. Sign-up today at StatHero.com/LockedOn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and we have another exciting episode for you today. As we've been hearing a lot about, Brian Ferencz is taking over as the quarterbacks coach for the Iowa Hawkeyes. People are up in arms and very upset about this. I'm here to tell you it's actually a good

idea. And I'll explain with some context about all the other position coaches on the Iowa Hawkeyes why it isn't such a big deal for him to not have been quarterback to then take over the quarterback coaching spot. We also have two transfers from the women's Iowa basketball team. We'll talk about that as well and why that is also not going to impact them as much next year as you would think, considering some of them play some heavy minutes. And then finally, Tyler Linderbaum has been getting just brutally knocked down with his draft stock due to short arms. I'll tell you why that's happening and why it's actually good for him

from a draft stock perspective. That's all coming up on today's show. But first, I want to thank you all for making the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Lock Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get podcasts at and also on YouTube by searching Lockdown Hawkeyes. So again, let's get into it. This is, if you haven't heard me say yet, I've been kind of teasing this on a few couple

episodes. I am ending my time as the host of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast next Thursday with my last episode. So that'll be my final episode of the show. I have thoroughly enjoyed joining you all every Monday through Friday, hosting this amazing show. The community, the support, the YouTube comments, all that stuff has been really amazing. And to see the growth of the show has been phenomenal.

So I just want to first off say thank you. It has been a great ride. I have so many things going on right now. It's not that I want to leave the show. I just have so many things going on personally. As most of you know, I have a two week old now. I have a very busy full time job. I'm also in grad school. And I want to just spend time with my wife and my family. So that is why I'm stepping away. We do have a transition plan. Once I'm allowed to officially announce that I will, but there is a transition plan in place. So be on the lookout for that as well. Let's get into it though. A lot of topics of conversation on today's show. The biggest thing, Brian Ferentz was named the quarterbacks coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes. Prior to him being named the quarterbacks coach,

it was Ken O'Keefe. Brian Ferentcz was serving as the tight ends coach and the offensive coordinator. Ken O'Keefe was serving as the quarterback's coach. Now, Kirk Ferencz spoke to the media and I felt like maybe didn't give as much as an endorsement as people were hoping for. And Brian Ferencz went on to a podcast and maybe didn't give as much of an endorsement of himself as people were hoping for. He basically said he doesn't know much about coaching quarterbacks. And Kirk said, yeah, he doesn't really know much, but it makes sense for him to coach the quarterbacks. I'm here to explain why both those comments are not as concerning as people are making it out to be. Yes, I want to fully admit that when the quarterback coach position opened up, Brian Ferentz was not on my mind at all.

In fact, I was hoping for a quarterbacks coach slash pass game coordinator to join the team. I was hoping for someone who understood from a quarterback background, has an experience in coaching quarterbacks to be joining the team as a quarterback's coach. However, I'm here today explaining the other side and why it makes sense for Brian Ferencz to be the quarterback's coach. I'm going to give you a little bit of history for this Iowa Hawkeye coaching staff. The first thing before we even get into that though is you need to realize more often than not the position that a coach is coaching is not the position they grew up playing furthermore most quarterbacks these days the collegiate level have a specific quarterback coach to work on fundamentals quarterback fundamentals that's why alex Padilla is working with Tim Jenkins. That's why Spencer Petras is working with Tony Raciopi.

Those guys help with the fundamentals. They help with the processing. They help with how do those guys perform their physical aspects of their job and to a degree the mental side as well. They have those guys already. Now there's only so much time in a week that these coaches are allowed with their players. And previously those players were with Ken O'Keefe in that quarterback coach room. Now the importance of that is when you look at how this quarterback room has done the last couple of years, it has been poor at best. Nate Stanley

is going to go down as one of the best quarterbacks in Iowa Hawkeye history. However, Nate Stanley, by all intents and purposes, I don't think lived up to the expectations. Again, I don't mean that in a mean way, but he didn't. Spencer Petras was supposed to be the guy. but he didn't. Spencer Petras was supposed to be the guy. Spencer Petras has been the guy holding back the Iowa Hawkeyes. Alex Padilla had some bright spots, but also struggled at times as well.

Some of that was due to illness towards the end, but nevertheless, the point stands. So it's already been bad. Now, a lot of people are upset about Brian Ferentz being the quarterback coach because you're associating brian ferentz the quarterback coach with brian ferentz the offensive coordinator now i've talked ad nauseum about the fact that i think kirk ferentz has more influence on this offense than people realize and i think that's holding brian ferentz back as an offensive coordinator but what you're not realizing is that Brian Ferencz, the position coach, has been fantastic. Brian Ferencz played offensive line for the Iowa Hawkeyes. When he began coaching a specific position in the NFL, he began coaching the tight ends

for the New England Patriots, the same Patriots that had Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. That is a pretty impressive group of guys that Brian Ferencz coached up. Then he came to Iowa. He coached tight ends. He's coached running backs, and he has coached tight ends again. And during his time, these tight ends have performed great at Iowa and even better in the NFL. Brian Ferencz never played tight end.

Now you might be thinking, it's luck, Andrew. It's one guy. Let me list out the guys on this coaching staff. Kirk Ferenc played linebacker. Is known for coaching offensive linemen. Kelton Copeland played quarterback. Got his career start coaching linebackers and wide receivers. Moved over to coaching defensive backs and is now coaching wide receivers.

Kelvin Bell did play defensive line, began coaching offensive line, and has since transitioned to defensive line. Abdul Hodge, the hire that everyone is actually pretty excited about, was a linebacker, started coaching linebackers, and is now coaching tight ends. Was a linebacker, started coaching linebackers, and is now coaching tight ends. Seth Wallace was a wide receiver, then began coaching defensive backs, then defensive linemen, then linebackers. That's a pretty big jump.

No one's complaining about Jack Campbell or Seth Benson's success. And LeVar Woods, the guy a lot of people think would be a good candidate to replace Kirk Ferentz at some point, was a linebacker, began coaching linebackers, moved to tight ends where he had no clue of, and then moved over to special teams where he has absolutely zero clue of what was going on when he first started. The only guys on this staff, George Burnett, I don't actually cannot find his background for some reason, but Liddell Betts and Phil Parker are the only guys on this staff coaching the position they played and have not moved at all at any other time in the collegiate ranks. So when you look at the fact and you say,

why would Brian Ferenc be a good quarterback coach? Think less about the position and more about the position coach itself. No one wants Kelton Copeland fired. No one wants Kelvin Bell gone. No one wants Abdul Hodge taken away. No one's complaining about Seth Wallace's success. And certainly everyone's pretty darn happy about LeVar Woods. And I would argue people are pretty happy about Kirk Ferentz as well. They're pretty happy about the offensive line success Iowa has had under Kirk Ferentz. So I know people are not fond of Brian Ferentz. I understand why there is some frustration here. But I very strongly believe we need to give Brian Ferentz a chance because when he has coached specific positions, those positions have succeeded.

And furthermore, the position coach of quarterback coach is the most aligned with the offensive coordinator. And clearly there has been a misalignment the last couple of years. Give him a chance to figure it out with Spencer, Alex, and Joey as an offensive coordinator and see what happens. This is a make it or break it year for Brian. I have no disagreement with that at all. If the quarterbacks struggle, if they regress,

if this offense stays stagnant, you better believe I cannot imagine a scenario where Brian Ferenc returns as the offensive coordinator. But it can't be worse, and it wasn't him coaching those quarterbacks who were not improving. It was Ken O'Keefe. So give him a chance.

Relax a little bit. Trust in our fearless leader, Kirk Ferentz, and what he's deciding to do, even if sometimes it can seem confusing or frustrating. And let's see what happens for this Iowa football team. Coming up, we're going to talk a little bit about the women's basketball team. They lost two transfers, two transfers who did have decent roles on this team in the past. We're going to tell you why it does not matter as much going into next season. But first, I want to remind you that I know it's tough with New Year's resolutions. You're almost three months through.

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All right, y'all. Thank you again for making the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. I appreciate each and every one of you tuning in every single day to the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast and you can find us for free wherever you get podcasts at. So Iowa, it was announced that they have two transfers or two players entering the transfer portal, Tommy Tywild and Logan Cook. Now, both those players have played decent roles in this Iowa Hawkeye team at certain points in their career. Tommy has really been that first or second person off the bench playing the guard role and has done a good job of hitting threes.

She's a 40% shooter from three. But to be honest, neither of these players are going to be astronomically missed. Neither of these players moved the needle for Iowa being a round of 32 team or a sweet 16 team or a lead a team up a notch and in fact I think it's kind of smart for both these players to take a look and see if they can get playing time elsewhere because Iowa has a lot of very good players coming in they have players turning from injury and we're going to see what they can do but I'm not overly concerned from an Iowa Hawkeye perspective for this women's basketball team Logan Cook was out most of the season with an injury.

She's the daughter of Marv Cook, also the brother of, oh my gosh, what was his name? I think it's Drew Cook, played for the Iowa Hawkeyes for his football career, came in as a quarterback, moved to tight end. Now, when you look at what the loss of these two players means statistically, I'm going to break it down for you. And I want to give credit to Kyle Huseman, who posted these stats. So I took them from Kyle. Appreciate you. He's been on the show a couple times, but it does help prove the point. With both of these players missing, Iowa still returns 94.2% of its scoring, 78.8 points per game they are returning.

They are returning 34.2 rebounds per game, which is 92.6% of the rebounds. They are returning 18.5 assists per game, which is 94.4% of their assists. They are returning 88.6% of their three-point makes, and overall they are returning 89.8% of their three-point makes, and overall they are returning 89.8% of their minutes. And most importantly, Iowa returns the starting five again for a third consecutive year. If Iowa can stay healthy and find a few people to fill in those minutes, they should be in a pretty good spot. Now, there's two concerns here. When I look at this women's basketball team, there's two concerns here when I look at this women's basketball team. There's not a lot of depth.

So when you think about losing two depth players, that does take a hit. But they were not moving the needle from that depth perspective. Because when Kaitlyn Clark goes off the floor, Iowa struggles mightily. Furthermore, if there's any injury suffered to their frontcourt players, Iowa cannot rebound to save their life. In fact, they still can't rebound all that well, but they struggle even more. So after Kaitlin, Gabby, and Kate, they need better guard play. I expect that to be Kylie Firebach, who played solid minutes this year as a transfer from Iowa State, and also Sydney Alphater,

who I thought played really good minutes as a young player. It's important to note Iowa's also bringing in Taylor McCabe, the career three-point leader for Nebraska High School. That is definitely going to help as well, a top 100 player. I expect her to get minutes too. In the frontcourt, Iowa brings in two top 100 forwards and Shatia Watering is returning back from injury. So Iowa was going to get some help in that front court perspective as well. As I mentioned, Iowa doesn't have a lot of depth. They basically played an eight woman rotation during the season. And I would argue it really

wasn't much of that either. You saw a lot of minutes. Again, we've talked about this on previous shows. I've had people ask me, why is Kaitlin Clark playing the final four or five minutes of a blowout? It's because they have no one else to ignite this offense. So I'm hoping that Kylie Sidney and Taylor can step up, take some of those minutes off of our starters. I'm hoping our two star top 100 forwards that are coming in can also provide some assistance as well to Iowa. And specifically McKenna Warnock and obviously Monica Sinano. We saw two top 100 forwards last year getting some playing time, but seeing they can work with Jan Jensen for another summer, see if they can come back and be even more impressive in this rotation. So it's not concerning me to lose Tomi or Logan because I don't think,

I don't feel like we're losing a ton from the team i don't think it moves the needle for this team but we do need to see other people step up in order for this team to make that jump i don't think it was tommy or logan i appreciate everything they did for the iowa hawkeyes i appreciate them being in a uniform for the iowa hawkeyes and their valuable minutes and being stewards of the program but they were not moving the needle for this team going from a round of 32 to a sweet 16 or a sweet 16 to an elite eight. And I believe there are people on this roster who can move the needle for the Iowa women's basketball team. Coming up, we're going to talk about Tyler Linderbaum and how he has moved the needle in the wrong way based off of some of his measurements.

Now, a lot of people are very upset about his measurements, dropping him down draft boards. I'm going to tell you about why it's happening, why it's important that they are looking at those things, and also why it's actually not that bad for Tyler Linderbaum. That's all coming up here in a few short moments. Our next partner I want to tell you about, though, has a product that I use literally every day. I started taking Athletic Greens because I was really struggling between my diet and my fitness goals. I just couldn't figure it out. I had a lot of gut issues.

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tournament season is upon us. We saw the round of 64, the round of 32 last week. We have the Sweet 16 beginning yesterday. It's now going on today as well. And you can get all of your betting action at betonline.net. From all the latest odds, contests, and player props, betonline.net is the number one source for all of your sports betting needs and info. And betonline remains the best spot for all of your sports scores, podcasts, and news this season.

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tyler linderbaum before draft season it was as a mid-round pick, a mid-first-round pick between 10 and 20. Now we're seeing Tyler Linderbaum consistently mocked in the late 20s. And people are very upset about it. A lot of it comes down to his size and his measurements. He has one of the shortest arm lengths we've ever seen for an offensive lineman. He's under 300 pounds. Those type of things do not mesh with the measurement expectations of the NFL. And any Iowa fan that has watched Tyler Linderbaum knows that that has not impacted him at all. He does a great job of engaging, getting off of blocks, and going to the next level,

and clearing a path for his running backs. And he has the ability to do that against elite level defenders. But it is a big deal to have those limited measurables because it is not every day that people succeed with those measurables. It's just like hand-sizing a quarterback. I know it seems ridiculous, but there is a certain threshold. There's a certain standard deviation that says we are not likely to succeed in this standard deviation. And that is arm length and size for Tyler Linderbaum.

Now, I'm not saying Tyler Linderbaum is not going to be successful. In fact, I'm saying the opposite. I think Tyler Linderbaum can be successful in spite of his shortcomings by NFL standards. But that's why it is a big deal. There is a ton of data over the last 60 years with the NFL that does not support offensive linemen with smaller arms being successful at that level. So when you see that, it's important to go back and reevaluate. And what teams are going to see when they reevaluate the tape for Tyler Linderbaum is a fantastic run

blocker, a great pass blocker, a mauler who plays with intensity that is not matched by anyone on the field at any given time, extreme athleticism for that position, and a guy who has not had issues at this point with his arm length or with his general size. I do want to talk about his draft stock though, because his draft stock is tanking. And I told you at the beginning of the segment that that is actually a good thing for Tyler Linderbaum. Now, yes, it would be awesome from a money perspective, from a monetary perspective for Tyler Linderbaum to go higher. The higher you go, the more money you get. But sometimes there is value in going to a better team. Sometimes there is value in going to a team that has established people around you that can assist you through your growing pains. Even elite level offensive linemen like Tyler Linderbaum do not

succeed every single day in the NFL. Tristan Wirfs was one of the best to do it as a rookie, and he still had his moments as well. So when you see Tyler Linderbaum's stock dropping a little bit, you actually kind of like where you see him Linderbaum's stock dropping a little bit, you actually kind of like where you see him landing at. For example, playing with Tampa Bay. That has been a very popular mock draft spot for Tyler Linderbaum. The opportunity to play on an offensive line with a buddy in Tristan Wirfs, with a brother in Tristan Wirfs, with a strong offensive line, with a Hall of Fame quarterback who is going to demand so much out of you.

That is a learning experience that Tyler Linderbaum could not get anywhere else in the NFL. Furthermore, he is not just dropping because of his arm size and his measurables. He's dropping because the center position is arguably the least valued position on the offense outside of running back. It's just a fact of the matter. Centers are not valued as high as a quarterback, as a wide receiver, as a tackle, even as a guard or a tight end. The only positions that centers are valued at more than is running backs and fullbacks.

So you are going to see Tyler Linderbaum drop a little bit, but it's okay. He's going to possibly land in an even better situation. It's also worth noting, we don't know what these NFL teams are actually thinking. We could see Tyler Linderbaum go at pick 12 or 13. We could see him go at pick 24, 25, 26. Media members do not get these things right that often. The most successful mock draft people get 40%, 50% of their picks right. All these NFL teams are playing games on top of games on top of games with what and who they evaluate and what

they appreciate in this draft class. So yes, it is unfortunate that we keep hearing concerns come out about our offensive linemen. It's unfortunate that people are putting so much emphasis on the arm length when I don't think it's going to be a concern for Tyler when he enters the next level at the NFL, but there is a bright light, a positive to the situation when you strip away some of the other things. It possibly lands Tyler Litterbaum in a better opportunity on a better team. Coming up on next week's episode of the show, we're going to be doing a bigger in-depth breakdown of the NFL draft with Nick Kendall. We have a fantastic couple episodes with him. He's a draft analyst who loves the Iowa Hawkeyes as well. So be on the lookout for that.

We also have some news about the men's basketball team. Fran McCaffrey spoke to the media, had some really interesting things to say about the team. So we'll be talking about that as well. And also thank you all for making the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, your first listen every single day. Now it is time to make your second list in the Lockdown NFL draft podcast hosted by Ryan Tracy and former NFL cornerback Eric Crocker.

They bring the NFL Draft to life every single day with insight and analysis on college football prospects and NFL front offices. And it's free and available wherever you get your podcast at. That will do it for this Friday episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day and even better weekend. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, let's go Hawks.