Podcast by The Gazette
Summer conditioning is here for the Iowa football team and with it comes a new round of interviews on this edition of the On Iowa Podcast. As Marc Morehouse wrote Wednesday, WR Matt VandeBerg and DL Nathan Bazata have been dealing with injuries and both discuss them here. You'll also hear from DL Parker Hesse, LB Josey Jewell, OL Ike Boettger and OL Sean Welsh.lsh
Land of Ten's Scott Dochterman and I probably talked too long today. It was reminiscent of the old days, driving to all of the Big Ten locales and figuring it all out. Quick intro was a post I did asking Kirk Ferentz about recruiting areas for assistants. I think the headline there was Iowa is back in Florida and Ohio and kind of piecemealing it in Texas. And then we skipped right to the main event -- Iowa, Jane Meyer, Gary Barta, Tracey Griesbaum and what's next? None of the conclusions were particularly good for anyone. Iowa looks "too big to fail." If this were an HR procedural, the case study would be filed in the "how not to" tab. Iowa has announced it will investigate its processes. Maybe sweeping changes come. Lots of ambiguity was revealed. I'm not sure there's enough caulk to fix all of it. Iowa athletics director Gary Barta learned a $1.4 million lesson in documentation. B1G athletics directors shouldn't have to learn that lesson, not in a courtroom and not with millions at stake. The jury last week in Des Moines was unanimous when it found for Meyer in her case against the UI. Meyer's five claims were gender discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, retaliation, equal pay violation and whistleblower violation So, now Iowa has an athletics director with that prominent in his Google search. How long can Iowa afford this? Maybe Iowa appeals, but for a sitting B1G athletics director, that's a stain that's not coming out. From my end, Meyer was unpleasant to deal with, but who cares? My problems aren't your problems. Her attitude with media wasn't out of line with how Iowa is overall. It was just turned up to 11. Scott has an excellent example of this in the pod. You should listen. Griesbaum trail begins in early June. I wouldn't be shocked it Iowa won. I picked Michigan over Iowa last year like 42-7 or something like that. I'm not about to get in the business of predicting what juries will do. I know even less about the law than I do football. I asked the Twitter peoples what their over/unders are for Iowa football this year. I think the low was 4.5 wins. The high was 9 (I think there was one 9 out there). I think that says you have a healthy skepticism for a team that has a new QB, new OC, one proven WR who missed spring with a bad foot and is looking for some depth at DT. Skepticism is warranted. You're not a bad fan if your May over/under for Iowa victories is 5.5. There's a difference between skepticism and cynicism. We had a few cynical tweets. You're gonna have hop-ons. I'm at 6 right now. Scott built a good case for more optimism. Iowa does have a terrific OL and Akrum Wadley. I know I have this in another post, but I want to say Iowa is 18-4 the last four or five years when it rushes 40-plus times a game. Can the Hawkeyes do that and win in the Big Ten West? Uh, yeah. It certainly can. It has. If the Hawkeyes march toward that 40-plus number, without being hardheaded about it, your 5.5 O/Us will be vulnerable. We forgot about the NFL draft and got into that at the end. Scott embedded with former Iowa TE George Kittle. That was a good call. -- Time to go for Desmond King. You can let the muck of an unexpected drop in the draft pull you down, or you can work every minute and improve your standing on the Chargers and in the NFL. King has pretty much said this, BTW. -- CJ Beathard will have to produce at some point, but that's not right now. -- Scott is a Bears fan. I'm a Packers person. We both liked the Vikings taking Jaleel Johnson, so we both actually hate that pick. Can LeShun Daniels replaces LeGarrette Blount as the big back in New England?
Land of Ten's Scott Dochterman and I talked a little about a lot of things on the podcast today. First topic: The first round of the NFL draft starts Thursday. Neither Scott nor I will be on super-high alert that a Hawkeye will go in the first round, but you never know. Friday is second and third rounds. I expect at least two if not three Hawkeyes to go Friday. Does it feel like CB Desmond King has had the world's longest draft evaluation? Since the day he said he was returning to Iowa City for his senior year it's felt like he's been under heavy scrutiny. And he probably has, that's how this all works. I still think he's the first Hawkeye taken this weekend. Now, DT Jaleel Johnson or TE George Kittle? Johnson had a fantastic senior season and has the body and power that will get him an NFL paycheck for a long, long time. Case-by-case, depends on need, best athlete available and all of that, but Johnson should fit into the second or third round. I've not seen too many Hawkeyes rocket out of the Combine like Kittle did. If nothing else, his 4.51 40 and 11-foot broad jump forced NFL personnel people to do their homework on him. Yes, the first chapter probably was the mid-foot sprain he suffered this year and how that bit into his production, but then you go a little deeper and find cut-up after cut-up of Kittle's blocking prowess. And now he's in a great position, better than I would've predicted when the season ended. We went from the draft to the Hawkeyes' spring football. Quick points here: 1) We don't know where the alchemy is going to happen with the passing game. We acknowledge Iowa can still be successful here, but it's going to look unconventional (read really tight end-y) and, yeah, it also might not work. 2) Spring was set up for Nathan Stanley to take what had to have been a "leader in the clubhouse" status and build confidence and distance as the No. 1 over Tyler Wiegers. That didn't happen. At least going off everything Brian Ferentz, Ken O'Keefe and Kirk Ferentz told us, that didn't happen. We can only go off what they tell us, right? And then we saw the spring game. Touch, accuracy, it wasn't there for either QB. Then again, those plays and personnel groups looked a lot like last year's. Maybe there's another layer of going on here and we just haven't seen their best. 3) Jake Gervase is certainly another body at safety and he slings in on a web -- kind of like Spiderman -- just in the nick of time. The more bodies the merrier here. I see Gervase and Miles Taylor as starters with Amani Hooker, Noah Clayberg, Joe Argo and incoming freshmen Djimon Colbert, Camron Harrell and Geno Stone lending depth/competition. I think that's enough to find a good core of three. 3) Defensive tackle will be a hot spot. Lots of inexperience. It worries me senior Nathan Bazata was still out this spring. Everyone expects him back and, hey, he's a senior and coaches know what he can do. Still, his 2016 ended in injury, I'm sure he'd like to be up and running. 4) Man, Iowa has a lot of young linebackers. We opened, just a little, the Bo Bower vs. Amani Jones can o' worms. Why not? It's still April, right? 5) Iowa's offense will run through the O-line and Akrum Wadley, as it should. 6) We think two freshmen corners have to play. 7) Shoot, we forgot to talk about kicker and punter. We touched on the Jane Meyer trial in Des Moines. I've used this metaphor a lot lately, but let's say Iowa AD Gary Barta is a butcher going to work with a freshly whitened smock. He was on the stand for something like 11 hours. His smock at this point looks like it was used to clean the slaughterhouse floor. Everyone comes away from this unclean. I don't like that during athletes' exit interviews 27 cases of verbal abuse and 28 cases of mental abuse were mentioned and not investigated because they were anonymous. I'd like to think major college athletics can do better.
The basketball version of the On Iowa Podcast returns, welcoming Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery on to discuss last season, his recruiting process, his son Connor’s future with the program and looking ahead to next season and beyond. The Gazette’s Jeremiah Davis and Nathan Ford break down what McCaffery had to say and also look ahead to Peter Jok’s trip to the upcoming NBA Combine, as well as this summer’s Prime Time League.
Land of Ten's Scott Dochterman joined me for a tremendous . . . ly . . . long podcast today. Hey, there was stuff to talk about. The Hawkeyes wrap up spring practice on Friday night. Without getting too football-ly, what do we need to see? I think it'd be good for Iowa and this particular position group if a wide receiver went off for a bunch of stats and a bunch of swagger. I mean, catch passes, make plays and let the defense know about it. Now, what those numbers and who this would be, I don't know, but the Iowa passing game needs something positive. It just does, and so that would be something noteworthy to see this Friday. Defensively, I'm looking at free safety. With Brandon Snyder's injury, safety depth takes a big cut. Who fills that void? Scott and I talk a little bit about Des Moines, which was more practice and run-through than anything. Still, didn't see a lot of accuracy in the passing game (FWIW). Of course, last week Iowa announced that it's added Middle Tennessee State to the 2019 schedule. Many of you disagree with this selection. And many of you have figured out that Iowa State is Iowa's premier non-conference game. Some of you don't like this. Reality isn't always for everyone. Scott wrote last week that it's time for Iowa State to not be 3-9 in football. That Iowa playing a consistently 3-9 Iowa State isn't good for national perception. Sound logic. Now, there's five games before the Iowa-Iowa State football comes up for renewal (2021). Can Iowa State get to two bowls in five years? Is that enough to justify the series in the minds of what appears to be a growing number of Iowa fans? You know who's to blame for this discussion? Wisconsin. It had to go and beat LSU last year in Lambeau Field. The Badgers became highlight No. 1 on that day. It was a national story. This was the first game of last season. Iowa's first game? It dispatched Miami (Ohio)45-21. It probably got a minute on the Big Ten Network. Iowa fans looked at that and . . . hey, that's pretty cool. Let's do that. Iowa AD Gary Barta looked at something along those lines. Maybe it wasn't Wisconsin-LSU. Maybe it was Notre Dame-Texas on that Sunday night of Labor Day weekend. Barta was definitely "hey, that's pretty cool" and said as much during the pregame radio for ISU. I asked him in the postgame what exactly he was talking about. "As I watch more and more of these Labor Day kickoff classics, it’s something I might be interested in at some point,” he said. That was interesting for the Iowa AD to say that. And then he added that punch of reality, "I really was just reacting to watching some of those games last weekend. Who knows? Sometime in the future, but there’s nothing imminent.” There's nothing imminent. Iowa and Iowa State have a contract that runs through the 2021 season, when the Cyclones play host to the Hawkeyes on Sept. 11. (The general price tag on breaking the contract is $1 million. Iowa had agreed to pay MTSU $1.5 million to visit Kinnick in 2019.) This likely won't be revisited until 2021. The best thing Iowa can do for its national perception is win and don't lose at home to NDSU. The best thing Iowa State can do for its national perception is win more games. Spring football isn't even over and we've flattened this dead horse into a fine patty.
Getting back on the same page with Land of Ten's Scott Dochterman for some #oniowapod podcasting. We need to do more of this and will. Tentatively scheduled for later next week, but maybe we could move that up after Friday's scrimmage in West Des Moines. Today, talked areas of need for spring. Has anyone earned a job out of spring practice on the Iowa football team in the last five years? I don't think so, but I think you have to think of spring more like the beginning of the 2017 resume. So, I'm not sure anyone wins a starting job, but I'll bet the weeding out process is full-go with the staff evals. Can a player be trusted with a different workload than they had last season? Of course, that's the million dollar question. The resumes are being written every day from now until the end of August camp. Scott and I talked about five topics that ranged from who is doing what to oh boy, who is that? Something like that. 1. Wide receiver -- You knew that was going to come up. The names are new and will get newer in August. The names who are here were the topic. I don't know what Nick Easley will be, but he's on the depth chart right now. We think the time is now for Jerminic Smith. 2. Defensive tackle, who are they? -- With Nathan Bazata out right now (ankle), sophomore Brady Reiff has gotten the call up. Sure, he's 260, but you counteract that with bloodlines, attitude and technique and who knows? As it stands now, Iowa needs him and probably a relatively new player to log in. Sophomore Cedric Lattimore doesn't count as relatively new, but he will be a rookie starter who, it looks like, will be counted on greatly. 3. Can't not talk QB -- We're both at Nathan Stanley as the starter. Of course, he has to own it. There's some pressure on the QB job this spring. Everything in the passing game is new (there could be as many as five receivers jumping on board in the fall). New quarterback in a new offense with, presumably, changes coming in at least the passing game. That's a lot of new. 4. A Desmond King-less secondary -- It's finally happened. King has used up all of his eligibility. Enter sophomore Manny Rugamba, junior Joshua Jackson and sophomore Michael Ojemudia. There are jobs to be had here. Who's the nickel corner? Who are the extra DBs in the raider? Who's taking Desmond's spot on returns (we probably haven't talked about that enough)? 5. Punter -- Yes, Ryan Gersonde is on scholarship and Colten Rastetter isn't. But for now, Rastetter is here and punting. Gersonde is in Milwaukee finishing high school. One of these two will be Iowa's punter next season. We talked some pro day/Hawkeyes in the NFL draft. Scott sees five Hawkeyes getting picked. I'm at four. Scott sees a team drafting OL Cole Croston. We took your Twitter questions. Lots of people want to know where the attrition is going to come from with the roster needing to be trimmed by four scholarships by August. These take care of themselves and expect that news to start trickling out in June, after the semester. Also, we were asked about Big Ten night games. I see at least three and maybe more night games for Iowa this year. Just don't ask me which three (OK, probably something non-conference, Wisconsin and Penn State.) BTW, night games will be part of the 12-day TV picks this year. So, more night games.
The basketball version of the On Iowa Podcast returns from its hiatus to discuss Iowa's four-game winning streak to end the regular season, the blowout Big Ten tournament loss to Indiana and the Hawkeyes' NIT prospects. The Gazette's Jeremiah Davis and Nathan Ford also take a look at the NCAA tournament and share their picks.
It's been awhile since Land of Ten's Scott Dochterman and I did one of these #oniowapods, so we covered a ton of ground. We started with Iowa's coaching moves, rewinding to Ken O'Keefe's hiring as QB coach on Feb. 3 and then fast forwarding to yesterday when Kirk Ferentz rounded out his staff with OL coach Tim Polasek and WR coach Kelton Copeland. Will Kirk Ferentz and first-year OC Brian Ferentz mine Polasek for some ideas on the run game? Probably. It's probably a lot of the reason Polasek got the job, despite not having a ton of experience coaching offensive lines. Or, really, no formal experience, at least on his resume. Scott brought up the fact that Copeland played for Jerry Kill at Emporia State. Does he take a chunk of the special teams? The NCAA votes on the 10th assistant coach in April. It probably happens. Where does Iowa go with that? We touched on that. We talked salaries for the coaching hires (ranging from $540K for O'Keefe to $225K for Copeland). Hey, we talked recruiting and some of the stories we liked best from Iowa's 2017 class. We took your #oniowapod questions from Twitter. They ranged from how many Busch Lights did Hawkeyes fans consume upon hearing former OC Greg Davis retired (this did give me one more chance to give my "it wasn't just Davis" rap that you're all tired of hearing) to an over/under on TD pass for probable new QB Nathan Stanley. The number was 14. I said 17 and then promptly talked myself out of it. You've seen the 2017 schedule, right? Lots of footballin' and one hoops question at the end. Thank you for listening.
With Iowa hosting a "Whiteout" Saturday in support of former player Kenny Arnold, we welcomed on Ronnie Lester to talk about Arnold and his memories of playing at Iowa. In the first segment, we discuss the Hawkeyes' road losses to Minnesota and Michigan State.
