Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Will Nate Stanley be at the Senior Bowl? | What to expect from the Men's basketball team in B1G play | The 2010s "What ifs?"

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

We start off the show by diving into the men's basketball team and what their hot start means for the rest of the season before focusing on football. Will Nate Stanley be at the Senior Bowl? That's still unknown, but we discuss the reasoning for why we don't know and what the hold up is before playing our version of "What if?" for the last decade of Iowa football. 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 Hawkeyes podcast. I am your host, Andrew Wade.

It is New Year's Eve and we are bringing you an episode and hopefully bringing you an episode on Thursday and Friday as well. Again, apologies for the last two weeks of being out. Hope you enjoyed yesterday's recap and analysis of the bowl win over USC in the Holiday Bowl and kind of discussing some of the NFL draft prospects coming out of Iowa, some of the underclassmen who might be declaring, that kind of thing. On today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, we're going to be talking about the men's basketball team.

Got a big win. When I say big, I mean not like momentum-wise or notoriety-wise, but they got a very large margin of victory over Kennesaw State. Going to talk a little bit about the men's basketball team. We're also going to be talking about some of the senior bowl type of games. Senior bowl, I believe there's the NFL Players Association Bowl and the East-West Shrine game.

Can I talk about that and kind of what it means for some of the Iowa Hawkeyes and whether or not Nate Stanley is going to be at the Senior Bowl? And then finally, to kind of wrap up this year, going to do something a little bit different, a little bit interesting. We're going to play a game of What If? And I've heard this on a few of other podcasts I listen to. Most notably, I believe it was Stick to Football's podcast, the college football and NFL draft podcast hosted on Bleacher Report by Matt Miller and Connor Rogers and Matt's brother Mello. Big fan of that podcast.

If you do like the NFL draft, I would recommend checking that out as well. But they played a game of what if, and I thought it'd be kind of fun to do for Iowa, specifically Iowa football over the last 10 years, this past decade, as we close out this decade on the final day of this decade, we're going to be talking about some what if. So fun episode coming at you today on the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. I hope you all enjoy it. If you are tuning in for the first time and you do like what you hear today,

make sure to like review and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at whether that is apple podcast google podcast spotify or the brand new him a blade podcast app and also make sure to follow us on twitter facebook and instagram i'm obviously trying to post as much great content as we can on there when i'm available and when i'm able to tweet and watch games, I'll be tweeting all my thoughts and reactions during any live Iowa sporting event that I can be participating and watching and all that kind of stuff. And hopefully, as we will cover later in this episode, if Nate Stanley does make the Senior Bowl, I'll be bringing you some live coverage from the Senior Bowl this year. And I'll be posting all that on my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts for the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast.

Let's jump into it though. As I already alluded to, Iowa had a big victory over Kennesaw State. Expected considering Kennesaw State had just one win this season. They won 93 to 51. Obviously started off a little slow, but pulled it together. And again,

Iowa dominated the game really from, from start to finish. As, as expected, Luka Garza had a little slow, but pulled it together. And again, Iowa dominated the game really from start to finish. As expected, Luka Garza had a great game. 9 of 11 from the field for 23 points. Had 8 rebounds, 2 steals, and a block. Putting together, again, another National Player of the Year type of campaign in this game. Joe Wieskamp had a great game as well. 18 points on 8 of 12 shooting. Only 1 of 4 from 3, but

very effective inside the arc. And then Ryan Creener, the senior, had a great game off the bench. 9 of 9. Perfect from the field. 20 points and 5 boards. And then Joe Toussaint, I thought, had a really good kind of welcome back party game. Against Cincinnati, he got pulled pretty quickly.

One of the things about Joe is he's a great player, very talented, obviously very talented, very fast, very quick, something that we haven't really seen from an Iowa point guard. But sometimes he can play a little bit reckless, and it can get Iowa in trouble a little bit. Nice to see him calm down a little bit in this game. 2 of 5 for 6 points, 7 assists, and 5 steals. So what a great game for the freshman.

And we're going to really need to see him come on and play consistent basketball. I think there was a stat that was shown by someone I saw on Twitter that Iowa is one of the least turnover-prone teams in the nation. And that was with Jordan Bohannon. Obviously, being able to protect the ball is huge. And it's obviously going to spike a little bit with Joe. That's just the nature of his game, right? It's going to go up a little bit because he is going to be that dynamic player,

but you've got to take the good and the bad, and nice to see Fran McCaffrey keep him in the starting lineup and give him some more opportunities as Iowa gets ready for Big Ten play. I do like Bakari Evelyn off the bench. I think he provides a spark as we saw against Cincinnati had a fantastic game there. So he could be a guy you could put in the starting lineup as point guard but

that second string unit does need some scorers, does need some guys who can shoot the ball especially with the current setup. Ryan Kreener, Cordell Pemzel, Bakari Evelyn. Evelyn's really that shooter there and depending on who else is on the floor we're going to need someone who can put the ball in the basket from behind the arc. So I do like the fact they're kind of keeping that Joe lineup in there,

kind of a small ball lineup, something we haven't seen from Iowa very much over the past couple years. As more often than not, Iowa is the bigger team on the floor. So fun stuff nonetheless. One of the other things I saw that Carver was rocking and packed. And one of the big things there, obviously, people had the opportunity to go to the game, which is huge. If people are able to go, you can see that people want to go. But also I think people are starting to believe in this team, this Iowa basketball team,

that didn't have a lot of expectations coming into this season. And they're starting to show that this is a team that we need to believe in, regardless of what has happened, regardless of losing Tyler Cook, regardless of losing Jordan Bohannon, regardless of losing Nicholas Bayer and Isaiah Moss and Macy Daly. This is a solid team. And when you have players like Luka Garza and Joe Wieskamp, you can go pretty far. But then you have the supporting role players who are really putting in some key minutes.

You've got C.J. Frederick, who's shooting the ball really well this season so far. Connor McCaffrey is putting together a very underrated and impressive season at that kind of small point position. And then obviously Joe was a guy who we expected big things from, not necessarily this soon, but doing a good job.

And obviously that veteran second string unit does a great job of keeping Iowa in games. So far, I mean, believe the hype, guys. This team is real. The one thing that's going to hurt them is this Big Ten conference is freaking brutal. If you haven't been paying attention, basically, if you're the away team, you're screwed. We've seen a lot of upsets, and that's not to say the top is bad. It's more the bottom is really good. You see teams like Penn State, who hasn't traditionally had a good basketball team.

They are a good basketball team now, and that makes some of those games for Iowa not as easy as you would expect. About the only guaranteed wins in the conference anymore is Nebraska and Northwestern. Fortunately, Iowa gets Nebraska twice. And they get Northwestern once. So they really get kind of the good end of the stick. Some teams only get those two teams each once, which is unfortunate for them. But those are really the only two kind of guaranteed wins in the conference. As of right now, Ken Palm does have Iowa ranked 18th in the nation

from an efficiency perspective. They are third in the nation offensively, 91st in defense, which doesn't seem great and it's not great, but it's way better than it has been in the past. I think it just goes to show that for those of you who don't like Fran, and you've listened to this podcast, you know that I do like Fran a lot.

I'm a big supporter of Fran. I've had some of his players in the podcast, Nicholas Bayer and Jordan Mohan to be specific, and they've talked glowingly about Fran. And to me, he's a player's coach. He's a guy who's going to have their backs no matter what. And one of the big knocks on him is the lack of defense. And we've seen Iowa have some pretty good defensive teams under Fran. It really depends on the personnel. And I think what he's doing

right now is he's grinding and this team is grinding and to be able to be a top 100 defensive team after the last couple of years, given, you know, kind of the same type of players, that's really impressive for Iowa. You can tell the emergence of Luka Garza as a defensive force has been huge having Joe Toussaint on the floor is also a big thing they have athletes though CJ Frederick is a very traditional 3 and D type of guy a guy who can lock down his player which is something we haven't seen as much you know at the the wings position from Iowa in the last two or three seasons which is obviously huge but again one of the things I love about this team, and maybe this is something that, you know,

the reason why we're seeing so much fan support is the fact that this team is gritty. They do not give up against Michigan. For example, you know, they were down a decent amount in the first half, and they kept the score even in the second half. They grinded, though. Even though they were losing, they kept grinding. And that's why I'm really excited about this college basketball season, watching Iowa as they jump into Big Ten play

starting January 4th against Penn State. That's enough basketball talk, though. We're going to cover more basketball talk over the next couple days leading up to that Penn State game. Coming up on segment number two of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, we're going to be talking about some of the postseason bowl games and which Iowa Hawkeyes will be there. All right, we are back.

And I want to cover one of the big things I think people don't have a lot of clarity on is the postseason bowl games, the draft bowl games, that kind of stuff. And this is really huge for specifically seniors. The people who are underclassmen who are going to be declaring typically have a pretty good idea of where they're going. Scouts have a pretty good idea of what kind of player they are. But these postseason bowl games can really elevate people's draft stocks. I'm a big, big draft follower.

Love the NFL draft. So I try to follow these things pretty closely. And obviously I love Iowa. So they kind of work well together, especially when Iowa has a few guys who could be going in the NFL draft, which they do every year. But from a senior perspective, not as typical for Iowa to send as many seniors through the actual draft. Usually it's kind of the undrafted free agent type of pool, as we saw you know, Ross Reynolds, Keegan Render, Nick Easley, et cetera. But a couple of guys this year,

two have already accepted some bowl game invites. Nate Weeding is going to be going to the NFL Players Association Bowl, and Michael Ojemudia is going to be going to the East-West Shrine game. To be honest, I'm a little shocked Weeding got an invite. I think it's more of that Iowa tight end legacy type of thing. He's a very good blocker. I don't think he's as dominant in the pass catching game as we saw Sam Laporta taking over his role there. But I think Whedon does have a spot in the NFL as a blocker and maybe even kind of an H-back type of spot

where he can go out for a pass every once in a while, but primarily going to be a blocking tight end. That'll be interesting to see kind of where he lands. Definitely a college undrafted free agent who will have to sign and kind of work his way onto the team. Ota Mudia going to the East-West Shrine game. I really thought there was going to be an opportunity for him to go to the Senior Bowl, but this cornerback class is pretty loaded. He ends up accepting an invite to the East-West Shrine game, which is arguably the second best college postseason bowl game for NFL draft eligible players.

So it'll be fun to see him in that. The big story I want to cover, though, is Nate Stanley. I've had some people talking about whether or not he's going to get a senior bowl invite. I've been trying to figure this out. I've been following it pretty closely because I'm already going down to the senior bowl. I've already set up a trip. I'm going with a bunch of buddies. We're going down to the senior bowl.

I'm planning on covering Iowa while I'm there. Hopefully, though, Iowa is actually there. I thought it was a foregone conclusion that Nate Stanley would, without a doubt, be there. Obviously, the quarterback class is getting shaken up a little bit and I think that's causing some of the confusion here is kind of people are wondering you know why isn't he going and I think you need to understand that from a senior bowl perspective they want to get the best players there and that's not to say that Nate Stanley is not a great player or a good quarterback, but there are some quarterbacks who probably get jumped ahead of Nate Stanley based on their talent level, based on their production,

that Jim Nagy and the Senior Bowl are kind of waiting on. And so far, they already have, I believe it is Stephen Montez, the guy from Washington State, I can't remember his name for the life of me, Shea Patterson, who I think is absolute garbage as a quarterback and should not have been ahead of Nate Stanley, and Jordan Love. So those are the four guys currently there. They can take eight quarterbacks to the Senior Bowl.

I mean, they can take as many. I mean, they kind of make the rules up themselves. But for the most part, the expectation is that they will have eight quarterbacks at the Senior Bowl. So where does Nate Stanley fit into this? To me, he's right on the cusp. And the reason why we haven't heard Nate Stanley accept an invite either way, to me that means because we've seen Nate Weeding and we've seen Ojemudia accept invites,

Stanley has not received an invite from the Senior Bowl yet. I'm assuming he's received invites from the other bowl games. They would love to get a guy of Nate Stanley's stature, a three-year starting quarterback for the University of Iowa, a pro-style quarterback with a big arm. They would love to get him. But I think he's probably waiting out, and he should be, for the Senior Bowl to see if he can get an opportunity to go there.

But the Senior Bowl is waiting on a few other guys. And most notably, I'm going to run down this list. We got Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Jacob Eason, and Justin Herbert. Those are kind of the four guys that I'm probably keeping my eye on the most to see what they do. I do think what ends up happening, I think Jalen Hurts is going to go. He has to. He has to show his leadership. He has a lot to gain from going to the Senior Bowl. I think Jacob Eason, if he's able to graduate, that's a huge thing too. He's not technically a senior, but if you have graduated, then you can go to the senior bowl.

You are eligible for the senior bowl. If he has graduated, I think he is definitely going to be at the senior bowl. He needs to be there as well. A guy who has intriguing tools, but not necessarily the best tape all the time. A former five-star recruit transferred from Georgia after playing his freshman year, lost his job to Jake Fromm. It'll be interesting to see if he does decide to go to the Senior Bowl. I think that would make a lot of sense for him. And then finally, Justin Herbert, what does he think his draft stock is, right? I think he has a lot to gain as well. We saw Baker Mayfield become basically the consensus number one overall draft pick by the Browns organization

after being at the Senior Bowl and really dominating those practices throughout the week. So you can see a lot of benefit for quarterbacks. Joe Burrow, I don't think, has a lot to gain. He is basically going number one. I'd be shocked if he didn't at this point. So that gives at least one open spot, maybe two, depending on Herbert's decision. And I think Nate Stanley fills in that spot. So I do think we will ultimately end up think Nate Stanley fills in that spot.

So I do think we will ultimately end up seeing Nate Stanley at the Senior Bowl, but it is going to be a waiting game. We need to wait and see kind of what happens with these couple guys. Hurts just lost the semifinal game. Eason just declared. Herbert has the Rose Bowl against Wisconsin on January 1st. I think at those times, they'll be able to make those decisions and decide whether or not they're going. And that'll give a little bit more clarity to Jim Nagy and his staff

about what to do for that remaining spot, which I hope goes to Nate Stanley. But that's just a little bit of a breakdown about how that stuff works for some of you. I know I've seen some tweets and posts and whatnot. I wanted to make sure I cleared that up on the Senior Bowl. Again, hopefully Nate Stanley is down there because I will be there and I'll be covering Iowa on the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, but not a lot to cover if there's no Iowa guys down there. So Jim Nagy,

I know you're not listening to this, but please give an invite to, to good old Nate. You're not going to regret it. A guy who is going to work his butt off down there and, and really show you what kind of prospect he is in the NFL draft. That'll do it, though. Coming up on segment number three, we're going to play our what-if game.

And I'll explain the rules a little bit when we jump back on the show after a few messages from our sponsors. All right. We are back with our final segment of 2019 of this decade for the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. And we're going to be playing the game of What If. And I heard this on Stick to Football's podcast. Again, that college football and NFL draft podcast hosted by Bleacher Reports, Matt Miller and Connor Rogers and Mello Miller. I wanted to play the game of what if for Iowa football. Just kind of a fun little segment, kind of what if something happened, what could we expect from Iowa. They played a top five.

I have a few others that I just want to walk through. But really going through some of the big time what ifs in Iowa football since the start of 2010 and kind of how things could have maybe played out a little bit differently. And I think that the obvious one here, the big, big, big one here is what if LJ Scott doesn't get a touchdown on a second effort in the Big Ten championship game? You know, we've had some of the guys on. We had Jordan Candaria on Matt Vandenberg, a devastating game to lose, but an incredible experience for them. That Iowa team may not have been the best Iowa team that we've had in the last 10 years.

I honestly think this year's team might have been one of the most talented teams we've had, but they played well. They won the close games. They won the games when it mattered, and they lost that game by an inch. And imagine if they get that. We see Iowa go to the college world playoffs.

We don't see Iowa have the take on White Lightning Christian McCaffrey, the star running back for Stanford who destroyed them. So it could be a lot different. It would be an opportunity for Iowa to go to the college world playoffs, especially now with some of the dynasties that have been forming. It's a little bit more difficult to get in nowadays. You basically have to win the Big Ten, and that was Iowa's best chance at that time. Ohio State looks like they're going to be good for a couple years with some of the talent they have as well,

and the whole Big Ten is really improving. So just a lot more difficult now, but would have been a really cool opportunity to see. Also, what if those guys from last year return? What if TJ Hawkinson, Noah Fant, Anthony Nelson, and Imani Hooker return? I think we're looking at a Big Ten West championship team right now. We're looking at the Rose Bowl at least this season. Would have been huge to see. Not something we typically see with that many guys going, but would have been pretty awesome to see this year.

What if we don't fumble twice to Wisconsin last year? That was a huge loss. Iowa was really controlling that game throughout the game. Alex Hornibrook was able to drive Wisconsin down and score a touchdown with minutes remaining in that ball game. But what if Iowa doesn't fumble and give Wisconsin some momentum back? I think we could be looking at an entirely different season last year. You know, whereas Iowa dropped a couple games, I think they beat Wisconsin. They have a chance to beat Penn State as well. They close out some of those big games, and we're actually looking at a Big Ten West title last year as opposed to not at all. I'm kind of on that Wisconsin theme because there's a lot of them, believe me. What if Nate Stanley scores against Wisco this year? What if

he gets that two-point conversion? What Wisco this year? What if he gets that two-point conversion? What happens at that point? What a fluke play where the referee was in the way, kind of caused Makai Sargent to not be able to, I think it was Makai Sargent, to not be able to block the way he wanted to. Stanley still almost got in with a big-time effort, but if we win that game, you know, we're Big Ten West championship, Big Ten West champions. We're going to the Rose Bowl this year as well. What if Kirk is fired after 2012? So I know it's hard to imagine now. I love Kirk.

I always have. A lot of people love Kirk. People give him a lot of crap, though. They talk about the averageness of the program winning just eight to nine games every year. People don't realize that that is not an easy thing to do. I believe the number came out that Iowa is the 11th winningest program in the last five years. Guys, that's not easy to do. That's not easy at all.

So what if Kirk is fired in 2012 after that 4-8 season, after that disaster? Honestly, we could be looking at a Nebraska type of thing here where you're just stuck in mediocrity for a while. That team wasn't super talented. Iowa had to basically go back to the drawing board. Scott Dockterman has talked a lot about this on The Athletic, but after that season, Iowa really took a step back and said, what the hell do we need to do to be a better football program?

They also built some great training areas at the University of Iowa for recruiting and for just building up their players. So along with that, they were able to redefine how they wanted to go into the next era of Iowa football. And we've seen that over the last five years, getting the 11th most wins in college football. That was really a big turning point for the Iowa football program, and thankfully we did not fire Kirk. Gary Barta I don't think will ever fire anyone really unless they do something illegal or wrong. Not the kind of guy to fire someone. Last couple, what if Iowa doesn't get rid of Greg Davis?

Again, Kirk is a very loyal guy. He's not a guy who's going to let people go very often. And Greg Davis really seemed kind of like a mutual get the hell out of here type of thing. His offenses were atrocious, just not good. And I know Brian Ferencz has had his fair share of criticism, and I think he deserves some of it. But as we've seen and we saw against USC, he can call a pretty darn good game when he's on. And I love his aggressive attitude. I love his ballsy approach to calling the game. Three straight quarterback sneaks. I mean, you got to love that. What if Iowa doesn't get rid of a Greg Davis though?

What are we looking at from an offensive perspective? And the final one I want to wrap up with is what if Kelton Copeland is not hired from, I believe it was Northern Illinois. with is what if Kelton Copeland is not hired from, I believe it was Northern Illinois. What if we don't bring him over? That wide receiver group had a lot, no, a lot of work to be done to it. And he's done a great job of overhauling it. Considering the fact that we now have four guys, five guys who could be potentially starters on other teams. You have Brandon Smith, Amir Smith-Marset, Tyrone Tracy, Nico Reganey, and Oliver Martin. I think Oliver Martin, on any of the previous year's programs,

would have been playing. This year is a little bit different, obviously, because of the depth and talent that Iowa has at the wide receiver position. I'm not as sold on Reganey on everything, but regardless, he's still a very good player and makes some pretty big catches when we really need him. But what if Kelton Copeland isn't hired to revamp that wide receiver position? He's been so instrumental to the development of the wide receiver group, and coming into next year, that's a huge reason why Iowa should be considered a contender again

for the Big Ten West title. I think the schedule is very difficult, but when you have that many playmakers at key skill positions, you have to take notice of that, especially for an Iowa team that typically doesn't have those type of playmakers. So that'll do it for my what ifs. I would love to hear your what ifs. Feel free to tweet those at me on Twitter at LockedOnIowa, and feel free to Facebook me, send a message on Instagram, whatever it may be. I'll try to go through those at the beginning of the year if I get any good what ifs. Those are the ones I kind of thought of off the top of my head before jumping on and recording this show. But please let me know what your what ifs are. Would love to hear those.

Again, I appreciate you all tuning in to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. We've had a great year, a lot of growth, a lot of listenership. And I absolutely appreciate and love the support we're getting from you all. We hope to carry that over into 2020 and have an even better year, coming out with some bigger things, starting to do a lot better job of kind of crossing over with some of our sister podcasts on some of the other college stations, you know, Locked On Nittany Lions, Locked On Wolverines, that kind of thing, and want to make sure we're getting you some really good content.

So we're doing some crossover stuff with them. And stay tuned for all that fun stuff in 2020. Again, appreciate you all. Have a very, very fun and incredibly safe New Year's Eve tonight. And we'll jump back into the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast on Thursday, January 2nd. Until then, have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation. And go Hawks!