Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Wrestlers dominate Minnesota, Iowa lands a big time commit, and the Big Ten needs to figure out their basketball scheduling

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

The wrestling team dominated Minnesota and now turn their attention to Illinois this weekend. Michigan will not be there anymore due to health issues which we break down what this means for the wrestling team and the state of men's basketball. The Hawkeye football squad also landed a huge commit and another Hawkeye alum is heading to the Senior Bowl.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!KeepsIf you’re ready to take action and prevent hair loss, go to Keeps.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE to receive your first month of treatment for free.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.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back, Hawkeye Nation, to a Tuesday morning episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and today's episode is brought to you by Bilt Bar. Go to BiltBar.com and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get 20% off your next order. And I apologize for not dropping a show yesterday. I know I talked about it on the Friday show that it would be a little bit later. Ultimately, I got back from the ski trip, decided that

I was just not energized enough to give you a podcast. So I'll be giving you five this week, starting with today and finishing up on Saturday after the game versus Illinois, breaking all that down. We do have a lot of random news and notes we're going to be covering on today's show. Iowa gets two guys returning, which is going to be huge for these special teams. The wrestling team dominated Minnesota. We're going to talk a little bit about that. Michigan sports shuts down for two weeks. What does that mean for Iowa?

A few Hawkeyes have made the Super Bowl and Iowa lands a fantastic commit on the offensive line. And then finally, a little bit of Senior Bowl talk. That is all going to be on today's show. So let's get into it, though. Before we do that, though, please make sure you like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. Give us that five-star review if you like it, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But let's kick it off with the men's wrestling because the Iowa Hawkeyes wrestling squad is just, it's honestly just too good, right? I mean, they're just phenomenal, and what they did against a ranked Minnesota team is just so impressive all around. And let's get into each of those individual matchups.

Obviously not going to go through everyone in detail. Just want to go through what the scores obviously were for that. So let's get into that right now. So Iowa beats the 16th ranked Minnesota Gophers 35-4. The only match they lost was Tony Cassiope falling to number one, Gabe Stevenson, 15 to six in the final match of the day. But as you can expect, given the fact that Iowa didn't surrender a single point until that time, or a single match point, I should say, until that time, they pretty much dominated the rest of the meet. Spencer Lee took down number 17, Patrick McKee,

and a pin at 153. Number two, Austin Stanto, Tech Fault. Number 23, Boo Dryden. Number three, Jaden Ironman. Major decision over Marco Polanco, 22-9. Number five, Max Mirren at 149, had a decision over number 17, Michael Blakas, 5-1. Caleb Young, number eight. Caleb Young had a decision over number six, Braylon Lee, 4-3. Number one, Alex Marinelli defeated.

Number 14, Andrew Sparks eight to four number one Michael Kammerer and that was a big thing that we got Michael back had a major decision over Jake Aller 12 to four Nelson Brands at 184 number eight Nelson Brands had a 10 to six decision over Isaiah Salazar and at 197 number six Jacob Warner had a major decision over Garrett Jules 13 to 2 Iowa up 35-0 at that point. Tony Cassiope falls to number one, Gable Stevenson. So, again, a fantastic meet for Iowa. The fact that they absolutely dominated that is huge.

This is what we're expecting this season, though. It's going to be good to see if Iowa can get some of those tougher matchups where Cassiope beats a Stevenson, but that's to come. That being said, the guys who should be and are supposed to be the standouts are absolutely crushing it. Spencer Lee looks like a man on a mission, and Iowa gets Illinois this upcoming weekend at 11 a.m. They were supposed to do a try-meet with Michigan,

but they are not going to be going against Michigan. And we're going to talk a little bit about that now because Michigan has what they call the super spreader coronavirus strain at their school. I'll go into a little bit more details now, but basically there's a new variant of COVID-19 that has kind of started spreading in the UK. It reached the United States. It's been in 20 different states at this point with 195 confirmed cases. But apparently that strain has hit the University of Michigan Athletic Department. A player from the UK, an athlete from the UK returned, had it, and has given it to multiple athletes at this point in order to

basically stop the spreading or to stop, you know, the, the issue from being more out of hand. You know, the director of athletics, Donald R. Shepard,

director of athletics, Ward manual said, canceling competitions is never something we want to do, but with so many unknowns about this variant of COVID-19, we must do everything we can to minimize the spread among student-athletes, coaches, staff, and to the student-athletes at other schools. So they're working really hard to make sure that this doesn't become a huge issue, and I think it makes sense. The one thing I have a concern about is the fact that this means that the Michigan basketball team is going to miss a significant

chunk of games. And why that's a big deal is right now they are number one in the Big Ten conference, sitting at 8-1. Iowa is number two at one and a half games back with two losses. But why this is a big deal is that Michigan isn't going to play a significant chunk of games, and I don't know how they make that up, to be honest. I just don't see it. And the Big Ten has done a terrible job, again, go figure that, with trying to figure out how to reschedule these games. They just aren't.

Iowa has one game over two weeks. And they've had a game against Michigan State and a game against Nebraska postponed. Play another team. Just let that happen. I don't know why they're not allowing this to happen. And then the one thing I can say is at least the games that Michigan is missing are not huge games from a standings perspective. Penn State at Penn State versus Indiana at Northwestern versus Michigan State.

Ideally those get made up. At least it's not games versus Illinois, Wisconsin, or Iowa. Whereas you could probably look at those and say, what if those don't get made up. At least it's not games versus Illinois, Wisconsin, or Iowa. Whereas you could probably look at those and say, what if those don't get made up? Those are huge difference makers in terms of the Big Ten standings. But the Big Ten has to figure something out. You cannot have gaps of a week in between games for basketball when you're having games consistently postponed. I know it's not traditional. I know it's different. But you need to figure it out and you

need to begin to get those games played. And they're just not doing a good job of making it happen that quickly. And I know, I know Fran even talked about how difficult it actually is to make makeup games happen, but we've seen college football teams travel across the country to play games in less than a week. Why can Midwestern basketball teams not do this? Why is it so difficult for Midwestern basketball teams to play? Why wasn't Iowa scheduled to play Michigan State at some point over this next week when they have an opportunity to? I don't get it. I don't understand why the Big Ten is not doing that, but that's neither here nor there. We'll continue to keep you updated on what is happening with Michigan and that shutdown.

Again, they're missing at least four games at this point. No wrestling meet next week, which doesn't really impact the Hawkeyes wrestling team, but it still is a big deal. So to recap, segment number one, the men's wrestling team absolutely dominates Minnesota, and we're not getting Michigan next week on the mat. And Michigan sports in general have been shut down for two weeks, and we talked about all of that and why that is happening. Coming up on segment number two, we're going to get into more of the Big Ten recap, talking about what happened over the past weekend, where Iowa stands in the standings before we finish up with football on segment number three. Before we get into any of that, though, you know I have some awesome messages for you from the sponsors of the show today. Boy, we got a new one for you that you want to listen up in case you have any issues with hair growth. As guys, so much of our identity is

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loses to Indiana and that was a loss they couldn't, they shouldn't have lost. As you listen to any of the players talk, they know they shouldn't have lost that game. That was a bad display. One of the worst shooting performances I've ever seen them have. And it's unlikely that that continues. It's a good wake-up call though. Maybe a wake-up call they needed because they want to win the Big Ten. And as it stands, they're still in a very good position to do that. We're going to get into the standings, but first I want to go through a recap of the sports that have taken place over the last couple days, at least a couple of the games. So Michigan defeated Purdue 70-53 on Friday.

Maryland took down Minnesota 63-49. Ohio State defeated Wisconsin on the road 74-62. Penn State beats Northwestern 81-78. And Rutgers finally gets back on the win column, taking down Indiana 74-70. And why those games matter, obviously from the standings perspective, but there is so much unpredictability in the Big Ten. Again, the fact that Iowa went on a streak that it did, winning five games in a row, that is rare and not going to happen often in the Big Ten. Look at teams like Wisconsin, who is supposed to be contending for a Big Ten title.

They are losing consistently at least every couple games. They are 6-3 right now in the Big Ten. 2-2 on the road, 10-2 at home. That is not ideal, but it's not unexpected for the Big Ten. Michigan's been kind of the lone Wolverine. Obviously, that's funny because they are the Wolverines. Nice little pun there, Andrew. But the fact they've only lost one game is huge. Iowa, honestly, at this point, could very well be undefeated. They should have beat Minnesota. The way they played against Indiana, they would lose almost any team. And the fact they didn't lose by that much is still pretty impressive. But Wisconsin 6-3. Illinois is also 6-3. Iowa still hasn't played either of those teams, but has an opportunity to

build on that lead even more. They also get a game against Michigan. So you expect Michigan to likely lose at least one or two more games the rest of the season as long as they play those games. Obviously, the COVID issues pending, but Iowa is not out of this thing, and this conference is so tough from top to bottom. of Nebraska who hasn't won a single league game to this point every team has at least won two games even Penn State is two and five Northwestern's won three games three games against ranked teams at the time Maryland is three and six and a tough out Michigan State is down at the bottom half and they're always going to be a tough out at two and four in the conference and eight4 overall. Rutgers seems to be back on the winning

streak, the winning track at least, and that is a very long and lean defensive team that kind of can force teams to get out of rhythm. Indiana, they showed what they could do. They're not a good shooting team, but when they get pressure on you, they can force your offense to kind of collapse a little bit. Again, Iowa should have shot the ball better, but Indiana did a good job defensively. Minnesota, very hit or miss. Ohio State, also very hit or miss. Purdue has some good shooters as well. And then Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa. The four teams everyone thought were going to be

competing for a Big Ten title. They're all up there in those four spots. So again, Iowa, one and a half games back from Michigan. They have Michigan on their schedule. They also have two games against Wisconsin and a game against Illinois. So lots of opportunity there for Iowa to win the Big Ten Championship, as we have talked about plenty of times.

That is going to be a huge thing for the Hawks to watch out for. We're also going to quickly get into the Super Bowl, and then we're going to finish up with some football talk on segment number three. As expected, multiple Hawkeyes have made the Super Bowl. We're going to walk away with either two Hawkeyes winning it, possibly fantastic rookie Tristan Wirfs, and or Anthony Nelson winning that. And then on the Chiefs side, Ben Neiman and Anthony Hitchens.

Tristan Wirfs put together one of the most impressive rookie seasons we have ever seen, especially even for a tackle when you look at it that way. Just really impressive. According to PFF, the highest, greatest rookies in the Super Bowl right now, Tristan Wirfs is number one at 82. Next up, Clyde Edwards-Alarit for the Chiefs at 75.3. LeJarrius Sneed at 70.6. Willie Gay Jr. at 68.1. Tristan Wirfs is putting together a phenomenal season. He can cap it off with a Super Bowl victory in his first year. Anthony Nelson hasn't been getting much playing time, but let's see if he can make an impact as well on the defensive side of the ball for the Buccaneers

against the Chiefs. And then Ben Neiman and Anthony Hitchens both won Super Bowls last year with the Chiefs. Obviously wish them the best, but it would be awesome to see Tristan Wirfs and Anthony Nelson, two former Iowa Hawkeyes who have yet to win a Super Bowl, get an opportunity to do that. So fun stuff nonetheless. And Iowa right now, when you look at it, one of the interesting things to be tracking over the last couple weeks was how many Iowa players were in the playoffs and how many Iowa players were in the Super Bowl. And it goes to show you the development of these programs. Right now, according to Super Bowl 55, the Chiefs and the Buccaneers rosters, LSU has six players on the active roster. Clemson has four and Iowa has four. Michigan also has four. The only four teams above three, Iowa is one of those. Michigan is another

one. And from there, it just kind of drops down. A&M at three, Central Michigan three, Minnesota three, Mississippi State three, Nebraska three, Penn State three, et cetera. So again, Iowa being that developmental football program coming into the weekend. They obviously had the Bills as well, where they have a significant amount of Iowa Hawkeye players on that team and the Packers. They have Christian Kirksey on that team as well. So there's a lot of opportunity for Iowa players to get to the Super Bowl. It's awesome to see at least four of them get to the Super Bowl. And I'm excited to see the Buccaneers take on the Chiefs down in Tampa Bay in two weeks

and see two of our Iowa Hawkeye alums raise that Lombardi trophy. Coming up on segment number three, we're going to wrap up with some more football talk and then close out the show. But you know I got some more messages for you because that's what we do here on Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. We give you some great messages for things you need to be aware of. And this one hits pretty near and dear to my heart.

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day. We'll be dropping a show every single day this week, including on Saturday. We're going to be doing a lot of Senior Bowl coverage, hoping to get Aleric Jackson and Chauncey Golsan on the phone, talk to them a little bit about their practice days. We'll see if we can get that. If we do, I'll let you know as well. That'll be coming up this whole week. We're going to be breaking down the Senior Bowl, and we have a lot of other great content,

including the preview of Iowa vs. Illinois coming up on the shows this week. So stay tuned to Locked on Hawkeyes every single day. And let's get into some more football talk. As I alluded to, Chauncey Golston has been invited to the Senior Bowl. He's a late invite, but nevertheless, it doesn't matter if you were the last one or the first one, you're there for the Senior Bowl. And this year especially, the Senior Bowl is so important because it is a stacked group.

Without as many premier college events, without the combine being the same as it has been in the past, it's more important than ever for people to get out in front of scouts, especially at the Senior Bowl where you're going up against some of the best of the best. And Chauncey Golsan getting that late invite. We saw it happen with Michael Ojemudia last year. He got a late invite and he balled out and turned it into a third round draft selection by the Denver Broncos. So going to be a lot of fun watching Chauncey and Aleric go at it this week in practice.

And especially for Chauncey, this is a really good opportunity because a lot of what they do in the Senior Bowl is one-on-one drills. So that really favors the defensive end because it gives them an advantage. And from Aleric Jackson's perspective, if he does well, that favors him as well. Obviously, anytime you do poorly, it's not going to be great. But Jackson-wise, doing poorly isn't as big of a concern as Chauncey Golsan doing poorly because of the advantageous position that Chauncey Golsan is getting those one-on-one drills as a defensive end. I do have access to practice film.

Again, I do have access to these players, so I'm hoping to get them on the phone as well. We'll be breaking all of that down. Last year, I mean, this would have been an amazing year to be down at the Senior Bowl. So many great players there, and the fact that we have Chauncey and Aleric Jackson there would have been phenomenal because they give you such great access to those players. Last year, after each practice, I was able to go up, find Michael Ojemudia, interview him for a few minutes, and let him go, and it was as easy as that. It would have been the same thing this year had it not been for this pandemic,

but we'll be back next year, hopefully with a few Iowa seniors there as well, breaking down your Iowa Hawkeyes at the Senior Bowl. But again, we'll be doing it virtually this week, so stay tuned for that. Alongside some other football news as well, we have two huge returns from the special teams standpoint, Caleb Shudock and Austin Spiwak. I definitely butchered those names. I apologize again, just not good with names sometimes. But those two guys coming back is going to be huge. Obviously, having the extra year of eligibility. Caleb has been waiting in the shadows of Keith Duncan to get an opportunity to

kick the football full-time. He's been our kickoff guy, our specials kickoff guy, because he has a huge leg. So as we've seen Keith Duncan kind of not get any opportunities past the 50, we could see Caleb Shudock get a few more opportunities past the 50, which will help out this Iowa Hawkeye offense as long as he can be consistent and accurate as we expect him to be. As the number two guy for the last couple years, he even came in this past year to attempt a 52-yard field goal. So Iowa clearly trusts him. They trust him in big-time situations. Having him back is going to be huge for our

special teams. That also has Torrey Taylor. And then do not discredit the fact that we are bringing back our long snapper. Long snapping is an art, which I didn't realize until I talked to former Iowa Hawkeye long snapper Casey Creeder. But it is an art. It is very important that they have that communication and having Reiner Saab back as well to be able to catch those snaps is going to be big time for our special teams play. So expect our special teams to be back and loaded going into next year as well. And then finally, to wrap up our show, one last thing we have is that Iowa landed a huge recruit, Michael McClinsky, a former Texas commit. He decommitted from Texas, and really from that point on, it looked like he was going to go to Iowa.

Iowa was big in on his recruiting initially, and there's a good reason why. At 6'2", 285 pounds, he's a center from Jacksonville, Florida. His dad played in the NFL for nine years and is currently the strength and conditioning coach for the Jaguars. So he's got that pedigree. He's got that strength and conditioning piece kind of figured out already going into a very strong strength and conditioning program at Iowa. He's not ranked high, 1,073rd nationally, 14th ranked center. But what Iowa sees and what I see

on tape as well is an athletic guy who's a mauler who can really, you know, attack at the point of attack, sorry, get off strong at the point of attack and can learn under Tyler Linderbaum, which is something he also mentioned as well. Iowa doesn't have a true center on the roster outside of Tyler Linderbaum. There's guards who can fill over if we need them to, but it'll be interesting to see how quickly Michael McClinsky can get on the field considering Tyler Linderbaum is likely gone next year. So I doubt, I absolutely doubt that he's going to be there for another year, Tyler Linderbaum, that is. So Michael McClinski could get an opportunity as a redshirt freshman to start for the Iowa Hawkeyes. It'll be interesting to see what his development looks like. But again,

the fact that he's already has a big build, six foot two, 285 pounds, comes from an NFL pedigree, has that strength and conditioning wherewithal that you typically don't see from high school athletes. That is going to be huge. And he has the versatility that the Iowa Hawkeyes loved about Tyler Linderbaum as well. He played center guard and defensive line in high school. So again, a really awesome recruit and a snag for Iowa, giving them one of the best offensive line recruiting classes we've ever seen for the Iowa Hawkeyes. And that gets Iowa up to 18 commits in this class.

So phenomenal stuff for the Iowa Hawkeyes to be able to recruit as well as they did given the circumstances of last summer, given the circumstances of this year with coronavirus and not being able to do those in-person visits. Iowa had to change a little bit of what they do. Coming up, though, on tomorrow's show, we're going to give you a breakdown of what is left for recruiting. Iowa is hot and heavy in on a Northern Illinois defensive tackle. Also looking at adding another running back. And important to note as well that while we did land Michael McClinsky,

we lost an Iowa Hawkeye to the transfer portal. Former Northern Illinois transfer Matt Lorbeck has left the program and has entered the transfer portal. So as we get more information on that, where he's going to be going, we're going to be covering that as well on the show. But Matt Lorbeck has left. And it looked like he was going to get some playing time, but really when you look at the roster and how it broke down, I just didn't see a way for him on the field.

I know it was a dream of his to come to Iowa. He's now a graduate transfer looking to get an opportunity to start D1, you know, Power 5 D1 football, not just Northern Illinois. So best of luck to Matt Lorbeck as he transfers out of Iowa. And that does do it for our show today. Hope you enjoyed the show. We'll be back tomorrow breaking down more content on the Senior Bowl, talking a little bit more football and recruiting

and anything else that pops up over the next 24 hours. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode episode of the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic Tuesday out there, Hawkeye nation, and let's go Hawks.