Lester, Parker, and Woods Gave Us TREATS | Coordinator Press Review Show

We got to hear from the Coordinators during this Week 5 BYE for the Hawks and they did not disappoint! Lester was the highlight, as he spoke with nuance and explanation that Iowa fans haven't heard maybe ever. Parker came with some spitfire and some stats to back up the Defense which may have been unfairly judged at this point, and Levar brought detail from the special teams room that allowed some fun insight to Dakin, Stevens, and the coverage units. We talk about reframing how we think about this Offense as Coach Lester provided great perspective on how little they have had time wise to get this thing rolling, and about Lester developing QBs better moving forward to fix an all time soft spot in the Ferentz era. We discuss Parker's macro view of the Defense, the CB battle, and Castro, and finish with Woods and why the fans should feel great about special teams moving forward.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is one of those weeks where I think, if
you don't normally watch the Tuesday presser, it is worth
your time. There's over an hour of Tim Lester, Phil
Parker and LeVar Woods. And if you're an IWILL football fan,
this is gold. They're just giving out tons of goodies,
answering questions, talking about this team in detail, with enthusiasm.
This is fun stuff. David and I we're gonna break

(00:22):
it down, let's have a day, let's go the rest

(00:51):
of you show. But at eight k F this week
we got the coordinators. I'm very excited. There's so much,
there's so much written, ten stories about this already. God,
there's so much. Yeah, I like to I like to
watch it. I don't I don't go through the uh,
I don't go through the transcript. I quite honestly wouldn't
even know where to find it. So got on there

(01:13):
forty seven minutes worth of Tim Lester and coach Parker.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I don't know why they cut off var yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Then it was yeah, it's like the the video went weird.
The audio was still going and then it like cut
and he was on a completely different question. So I
don't know how long LeVar stood there.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
He was probably up there for fifteen minutes. I mean
he he went in depth on a couple different things.
So I'm a little bit surprised.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
That one the video was seventeen minutes long, so he
was probably there for closer to twenty and then we
got like two or three minutes cut off. But we
got plenty of LeVar. I don't even know if we'll
get there. I wrote down so many videos. I definitely,
I definitely want to touch on all three. I'm gonna
have to call this something different this week. It's just
gonna be the press review show because because there was
no KF I'm sure he loved that to got to

(02:00):
hang out and not talk to.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
The to us.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, but we did get to hear from the other three,
and it's really I don't know, maybe it's just today.
I know, I just saw your tweet. You're on four
four espresso shots today.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, right here, Bud, I just cracked it open.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Oh that's good. You're not totally to be fair.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Though, Like I didn't mean to do it.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Their coffee brewer was broke, so they're like, oh, we
can give you an Americano, and I'm like, I don't
know what it is. I'm like, all right, sure, because
all I'm straight black coffee espresso, like that's it.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
I don't do lattes. I don't do any of this
other stuff. And then after I order it, she goes,
do you want to do you want to add any shots?
And she was like there's four in there, and I'm like, no,
I'm good.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Who Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
And also that's the only person.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Doesn't he do two quad shots every morning?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
So he does two venti black coffees from Starbucks and
he adds two doublespresso in each of them.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Jesus Christ, that's too much. Gonna die anyway, Yeah, I
am just try it. Well, No, he is, and maybe
as well. Burnt my mouth on an Americana one time
and never I just was like just stardo, Yeah, just
like I don't even care if it was good or not.
I'm never ordering with of uh. It kind of felt like,

(03:22):
not tim Lester or LeVar, they gave us at least
the energy that they normally do. Coach Parker felt like
maybe he was on an espresso yesterday. I felt like
he was a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
He was a little bit more edgy I'll call it
than usual, And it was very interesting to me because
I was curious how he was gonna do his opening statement,
just considering that the defense really hasn't been what we
expected thus far.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
I think it's fair to say, but he brought up
you know, through four games last year.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know, well, he brought the staff points this year,
but like he brought all the good ones first. I
was a little bit surprised by that, to say the least.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Just because you feel like he's he would be one
to like really hone in on the bad stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
I wouldn't say that, but I think with the as
senior led as this defense is, I thought he'd a
little bit more pinpoint and just have a little bit
more venom when he was focusing in on some of
the negative stuff. Not that he's going to be fully
negative in front of the media, and that's one hundred
percent by strategy and I respect it, but I thought
he'd be a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
To the point.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, I felt like of the three, he was maybe
the most vague and the most and the most not
like intentionally, but I got the vibe from him. Let
me see if I can. I wrote down like a
general feel of like the vibe of his entire twenty

(04:49):
whatever minutes was there's more to meets the eye with defense.
There's a lot of things that have happened through four
games that appear to be on one guy or on
another guy, or on one side of the defense or
at one level of the defense. And he pretty much
brought everything back to like, you guys just don't even know,

(05:11):
like you you don't know, you don't know what the
check was, you don't know what we're trying to do,
what I told him to do, if he's trying to
cheat it this. So he got a little bit specific
there on some certain things. He's like, there's a million
different things on these plays. I don't know who tweeted
it out yesterday, some one of the other reporters did,
but it was like they were like, uh, Parker's message

(05:32):
is essentially just stop worrying, like don't worry, like they
will get better.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
And that's kind of the way I what I took
away from it too. I think there's still a great
deal of trust that he has and his guys in
the defense that he's leading, And again it kind of
goes back I think we touched on last week. I
think there'd be a lot more panic about this defense
if it wasn't a group that had not gotten it
done before. They've gotten it done before, and I think

(05:57):
that's kind of my big thing. And I'm not even
try to take too much away when they play Ohio
State next week. Ohio State's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah like that.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Jeremiah Smith might be the best freshman wide receiver I
have ever seen in my entire life. He might be
their number one receiver right now. And you know, I'm
curious how Phil Parker then try to I want to say,
attack that offense, but try to limit that that offense.
But you're right, I think Phil Parker is a little
bit more vague than he normally was. And you know,

(06:28):
not to flip it to Lestri immediately, but Tim Lester
was as specific as I've heard a coordinator talk. And oh,
I love it when coordinators and position coaches don't talk
to us like we're dumb, because we learned something that
helps us a lot more too.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
There. I'll bring it back to Parker and we'll finish
on some of his stuff before we move on, because
I feel like Lester was the he was the.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Main event or the show.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, oh my god. There is something so endearing about him,
and I feel like I feel like in coaching there
is there's an element of Okay, you know your stuff,
you know the game, you're good with players, you can
recruit all this stuff x's and o's, but there's this
intangible you know, like players haven't intangible, they just this

(07:13):
guy's a great leader. This guy he just you know,
he's he's his work ethic. You can't really pin it.
There's not something you can really measure it by. And
I feel like in coaching there's a little bit of
that with endearment, like how and man you listen to
coach and maybe maybe this is just because and nothing

(07:33):
against Brian Farrens. I'm a huge Brian guy. People. You know,
I'll take that to my grave. People. Yea fault me up.
I love Brian, his personable, person personable, how he was
personally with the players.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Don't worry.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Sure they didn't go to class as much as I
should have. But but Tim Lester Man, he gets up
there and it's like I just love listening to this
guy talk. And the YouTube comments reflected that as well,
and the detail that he went into reflected that, and
it was just like, Oh, I could listen to two

(08:12):
or three or ten hours of this right here, and
I think there's probably a thirst for that because Brian
didn't give a lot of those specifics, and I don't
know if it's because he didn't want to. I have
a feeling that that's a lot of it, or if
Tim Lester is just better at communicating some of that

(08:33):
x'es and o's deeper stuff in a layman's way to
the media to anybody watching.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
That regardles a little bit of both.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, and regardless regardless of what the ratio is of
why it's happening or why Lester's better on the mic
in that sense, man, it's it's refreshing. It felt good.
We'll get back to him in a second funniest part
of the funniest part of the press conference was Doctorman said,
was talking about the big plays and he said, Uh,

(09:05):
I don't know what is Brockington or whatever the kid's
name receiver was that caught the long pass.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yeah, yeah, something like that.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Uh, He's like, you know, down the long down the sideline.
He got the long ball for the touchdown, and Phil
Parker goes did he catch it? He caught it? And
he's like, well, that's what it was called. He's like,
I don't know, I'm just asking you you we'm going
off of what you said. Yeah, clearly, Coach, clearly, Coach Parker.
That's just such a fun little like KF style dig of,

(09:34):
Like was it a catch? I'm still not sure it
was a catch. Don't know how they called that a catch.
We talked about it on our recap podcast.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
I'm too.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
I I really did not. I I thought it was close.
I think if they had called it incomplete on the field,
then it would have resulted in it being incomplete.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, I I.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
But it's the same thing about like we've kind of
gotten away where we're so specific by the rule book
to where people just don't let their eyes actually tell.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Them what it is. Yeah, Like that's not a catch.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
No, Like if you just watch it and you're just like, Okay,
did he catch that ball or not, you're like, no,
I don't think he.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Was actually kof.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
After the game too, we talked about oh, yeah, we
went oh of two interviews in this game or something
like that, like he's so pissed off at oh he's
reviews when it comes to Minnesota.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, I love it. Hysterical.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
I laugh really hard. I actually put did he catch it?
In my notes and then just a bunch of ha
ha ha, like I'm texting somebody. God, it was funny
when coach Parker drops a little joke or he tries
to get some humor going, that's just that's a bye
week gold right there. You're just not going to find
that with you're prepping for Ohio State, which, by the way,

(10:48):
the tone, the overall just tone of these of the coordinators.
It's so drastic. If like, if this game would have
gone the different.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Way, Oh absolutely.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Oh my god. I was like we talked about how
this game. We briefly mentioned how if this game goes
the other way and we're two and two right now,
the entire inside the complex, the team themselves, the coaches,
the media, the fans, man the vibe is just so different.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
Tyler, how'd you feel at halftime? We won't talk too
much about the game. I really want to hear about
all you thought at halftime.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
I didn't. I didn't feel good. I mean I didn't
feel good. I don't think I felt I don't think
I felt like maybe as I'm a bad person to
ask because I've said this a lot of times because
of the position I was in as a long snapper, specialist, kicker, punter,
long snapper. You basically, uh, you basically like lobotomized any

(11:47):
emotion out of you because interception happens. It's like, Okay,
as a specialist, you cannot let your emotions go upper
down too much because emotions get in the way of process.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
You have to bed and you have to.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Be so level headed and just you know, at that level,
if you're a starting specialist at a Division one level,
there are no physical issues. You can kick a field goal,
you can punt a spiral, you can snap a good ball.
It's all about mental and when you let a motion
come start to come in, which gets really tough. When
you start the game off and a Moni hooker is
a pick six against Ohio State. I would love to

(12:27):
just let the emotion ride there and just go nuts.
And of course sometimes we sometimes I did. I would celebrate,
but like I have a field goal snap right, yep, Okay, yeah,
you know Keith Duncan has it. You have to go
perform your job. You can't you can't celebrate like the
rest of the guys, because your job specifically is so mental,
and mental is really affected by when you let a

(12:48):
motion cloud that. So now, as a fan six seven
years later, yeah, uh, at thirty years old, I watch
and enjoy the games in a similar box where I
don't let myself you know, they'll score and I won't
really celebrate, and bad things will happen and I'll just

(13:09):
brush it off because I'm so used to that. But like, yeah,
I would say I was somewhere in the middle, not
nearly as down as a lot of fans were. I
also probably look at the whole picture more than people do,
as opposed to like, hey, how is this game going?
So at halftime, I'm sitting there thinking, well, there's generally

(13:31):
a trend, there's generally reasons why things happen. We've had
a couple of games go not great in the first
half and then we just figure it out. So I
had a feeling that there was a chance there. I
also just there wasn't a lot about Minnesota other than
the one big play that we just talked about, which
we don't think was a catch. There wasn't a lot

(13:51):
that like made me feel like it they were dangerous, right,
And I was a part of fifty three games where
like we played a lot of close football games. Right,
So if we're in a close game, the guys at
Iowa they feel good about it. They don't or they
don't feel bad, they don't feel nervous, they don't feel
like it's out of reach. I was a little disappointed
with the offense. I thought we definitely should have been
running the ball better. But then the third quarter happened

(14:13):
and it was like okay, and Lester sort of talked
about this. Yeah, like you know, he's like, it took me,
It takes me. He talked about his his script and
how it actually took him almost the entire first half
to get through his openers because he is trying to
figure stuff out. He's trying to what should we do here?
What are they how are they going to play us here?

(14:35):
And he said he that's that's actually probably an issue
from him his standpoint, he needs to.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
A near fall a second half.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
I mean, they just didn't need to throw the ball
a look, Well, you can get into the passing offense. Hell,
you and I could do an entire podcast on the
passing offense. Yeah, I have some thoughts about what Lester
said about yesterday. But again, he'll know more. He'll forget
more about quarterback play than I'll ever know. I can
only tell you from from where I'm sitting. But you know,
I give him a lot of crap for that second half.

(15:03):
I think you need to give the offensive line. How
about Jacob Gill, I'm like he is probably one of
the most underappreciated players when he got to campus.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
I touched on him last week. I'm gonna say it again.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
That forty yard run that he had, Jacob took out
two different players. He is not a big guy, Tyler. No,
he is not a big guy. So for him to
be able to make those blocks. And I and let's
talked about yesterday when when I asked him my question,
and I wish I phrased it a little bit better,
but I didn't want him to go down one rabbit
hole or lead him one way or the other.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
I just kind of wind him to talk about it.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, And I don't know if you heard the stat
when I said it against stack boxes. This season, Caleb
Johnson is averaging ten point six yards a carry. Yeah,
and has six touchdowns and twenty one carries. The national
average is four yards to carry against stack boxes, and
Lester went in depth about we more formations and most

(16:01):
college teams right now, and that's why the passing offense
is taking a while to be figured out, because we're
raying so many different things, the timing of the routes
and all these other things. But he said, because we
have so many formations, the passing game is going to
be farther along. Once we reach a certain thresholder're just
going to kind of take off with it. But he said,
because of all the formations, the wide receiver blocking and

(16:23):
just the pre snat movement even against the stack box,
and if defenses know what's coming, they still have to
think about three or four five different things because it's
not so cut and dry. So when he went in
depth on that, it was really really telling to me
that one, very early still Iowa hired the right guy. Yeah, yeah,

(16:44):
Two he's trying to do different things, and if just
because the results are not there, you have to look
at the overarching process.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
And three, and this is a completely fair point.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
A lot of Iowa's primary playmakers they didn't exactly get
a lot of time with him to the spring and
in that summer.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
That is what that is the second note that I
wrote down. It is bolded on my notes here. I
think that we get caught up all good stuff there.
And I want to come back to his response to
your question because I was I was sitting there like
eyes glued, ears glued. I was like, oh, wow, this
is not something I've heard before. Yeah, we maybe on

(17:25):
the outside because it's just so easy, like, oh, I
have football's here, they're in camp right now, do do
do do doo? Okay, they finished camp. It's week one.
Like we don't see any of the work. We are
blind to it. Yep, I know about it. I know
what those days look like, feel like how long it feels,
the amount of stuff that gets done. But now, as
a frickin' podcaster in my walky basement, like I'm also

(17:49):
just like I'm numb to it. I just sit here,
you and I wake up. We don't go to the complex.
We don't have forty five plays on the script today
to practice and get get work in and advance this
offensive system. We just expect we as in, you, me
and the fans all just expect. Oh they're gonna it's
game one. It's game three, it's game four, like they

(18:12):
should have everything in and everything should be tip top shape, right,
And then he said he mentioned, oh yeah, by the way, like, yeah,
I was here in the spring, like didn't have kid,
didn't have Soley, didn't have gil Leche practiced one day.
Rhese Vandersy was a senior prom yep, and he's so

(18:32):
then he and then he makes the comment at the
end of that statement, he goes, we basically started this
thing eight weeks ago, and my mind was like.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Oh, shit, shit, yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
And I think that's really, really, really something that we
need to like spend a moment on collectively on the
outside of the program. Right now, they they have eight
weeks with all of the guys that they're trying to
run it with on game days where they've been able
to work. And within those eight weeks, really you've got

(19:04):
three or four or five days a week they've barely had.
They've they've barely they're in they're in the second inning
of installing this offense. And I get it. That sucks.
No excuses they've had to they've had to install. And
I love what I love the way that Lester talked
about I think doctor Man asked about it. He's like,
you know, you talked about early on, right when you

(19:25):
came in. We have to find what works the best
for this offense now and get really good at that.
But the way that Lester talks, it feels like they
have forty percent of what he wants in right now.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
And this is what we talked about last week, remember,
And I think it's it was something to do with
learning the new offense. And plus there's some limitations I
still think at quarterback, like this is not Tim Wester's
passing scheme. I'm telling you that right now. He has
so many more downfield plays that IOWA has not even tried.
And I'm sure you wrote down that down too, and

(19:56):
we'll get into that. But this is a different offense
right now. Then we will see next season.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, next season's going to look completely different.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
I'm not sitting here saying, oh, by golly, Iowa's going
to take the Big ten by storm with its offense.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
But there's gonna be.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Teams next year that are gonna be very, very surprised
about the way IOWA runs its offense next season.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah, Lester's hand, the offense is handicapped right now. By time,
they just haven't had time in the game. And actually
the first thing he started with was what he calls
time on task. That's the first note I had. He said,
this is an advanced system, and a week like this
is so important because we've had eight weeks we get

(20:39):
we get twelve percent of what we've of what we've
had total, to add on to the ones, the twos,
the threes, all getting reps in this offense, especially a
week where the opponent is us. We're just fighting against us,
trying to install as much more as we can. God,
there's so much more. And so I think the point

(21:00):
I wanted to make there was like, hey, on the outside,
I know it's frustrating, but this is this is sort
of the nitty gritty nuance of when you say, oh,
it's year one, we have to give him time. This
is why you have to give them time. And I
get it. We play Ohio State next weekend. We have
seven more, six more games on the schedule, ideally a

(21:21):
bowl game. But there is there when you break it down,
like this is the reality, and yeah, it's going to
look different, especially as guys continue to catch on.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
It's also worth noting too, I think there's a little
bit of angst and pressure from the fan base because
of the team that we all know that they we
think they can be in terms of making a college
football playoff push, looking at the future schedules, replacing so
much next season, So there's an extra level of I
want to say accountability, but there's pressure to get this
thing right immediately. And that's not a fair situation to Leicster, No,

(21:56):
But I also am not blaming the fan base and
the media for almost applying that pressure. No, because there's
just so many different factors that are going into this situation.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
And I like what you said about.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Year one because guests who saved his job this year
and I said, I'm going to wait until year three.
If there's no progress by year three, you have to
make a change. Is that georget and the offensive line,
they have been so much better this season, health, experienced,
veteran leadership. Yes, they can still grow and improve, we

(22:27):
know that, but look at what they're doing in the
run game compared to what they were the last couple
of seasons, like Barnett took over.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
You know, I'll just be honest. Kind of a fucked
up situation, Tyler.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
It was it was.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
It was not ideal.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
It was uh man, what can I even call it?
It was? It was a combination. We did a whole
podcast on this, me and Drake did one time. Basically,
you had a couple of guys miss you missed in
recruiting on a couple guys. You got a couple guys
randomly just retire or like have to medically retire or
or quit for some reason. And you had a couple

(23:03):
guys leave early for the NFL. And those three factors
you had a couple guys in each box left you
with basically a decimated offensive line room of which you
just had to pick the scraps up from three years ago.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
And say, George Barnett told me this media day from
the two because I asked him about coming full circle,
like what the expectations are reflecting back from your one
and he and I had probably a ten minute one
I want to buy it and he just said, I'll
keep it real with you, David. We had maybe two
big ten starting caliber linemen year one, and he obviously
I'm not I would ask for names.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
I think we can kind of watch the tape and tell, yeah,
tell you know, and you can tell but he is
not wrong in the least.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
And I love that he just kept the real with
me about that, because that's one thousand percent true. And
that's again that's why I said, you have to when
it comes to position coaches, unless there's just such a
bad downgrade or decrease in production, you have to wait
till you're three.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Year. Three is the judgment year.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
I always try to give coaches at least two years
to begin to turn the ship a little bit.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Back to the answer to your question. I thought it
was so interesting to hear it put in a way
that he said, yes, we've got a lot of stacked boxes,
but they also have to deal with a stacked formation.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
So essentially what he's saying is, Okay, you know, the
last couple of years, they've stacked the boxes because we
can't pass. Right now, this year they're stacking the box
maybe because sure, our passing game is still developing, but
it's also because they know the run game has been
effective through three or four games now. But then the
counter to the counter is, but we're gonna we're gonna

(24:47):
hit you with some of these formations that I'm talking
about that a lot of schools aren't putting out there,
and now the receivers are in on the formation and
you have to deal with all the blockers that we're
bringing to your stacked test, stacked box. And so that's
that was interesting to hear on why they're able to
sort of stay out in front of a stack box
and still average the crazy stat. I mean, that is

(25:07):
a wild stat that there may not be another running
back in college football history that has averaged ten yards
of carry on a stack box.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
So Dereck Henry might be the only close one.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, well aliens don't count. Yeah, So that was just
really interesting to hear and that that was one of
maybe fifty examples of things he said during this press
conference where I just sat there and I was like,
and it really it really hit me when he started
to talk about kid and how he thought this was
his best game and how he grades a quarterback. And again,

(25:42):
this is nothing against Brian. It could be I'm not
I'm not, you know, making the final call here. I
think Brian knows a lot more and could explain a
lot more about the ins and outs of football and
even the quarterback position than we ever heard from him.
Because once things started to roll poorly. He was like,
f you guys, I'm not giving you a bunch. You know,

(26:02):
he was on total defense.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
I don't blame I don't blame him for that.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
I don't either.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
I don't think anybody can blame the media for trying
to sure you know it's it was just a clash
of a bad situation. And and and I'll keep it
realty to Tyler, like, this is where I have some
said I have something for Brian.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Brian should have never been in a position to be the
quarterback coach.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
I think, I think especially that it was.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Just one of the best worst decisions Kirks made.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
And I wish just given the scrutiny you're getting double
and triple down. And again I'm not trying to go
down back into Brian, but I'm just saying this is
what Tim Lester has had to like rebuild from, and
that's my point about it.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
And I in the same way that I think Brian
would have been maybe a slightly better offensive coordinator if
he didn't have to worry about being a quarterbacks coach
as well at the like in the same in the
same breath, I think your offensive coordinator should be your
quarterbacks coach. I think that makes I think that makes
sense in totality in the end bottom line, and I

(27:00):
think Brian is maybe one of the best offensive line
coaches in the country at any at any level. And
I love the aspiration of like, hey, could we be
an offensive coordinator. I think O line might be where
he's best suited. He happened to play a line Tim
Lester happened to be a pretty good quarterback.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
Damn good quarterback.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
And the way that he talked about grading kid, the
way he talked about what the development of court like,
I am so excited because we are turning the corner now.
You could probably say Sullivan's certainly dual threat. It's what
we're using him as exclusly. Yes, And every other quarterback
on the roster, especially the ones coming in, Uh, you

(27:44):
could tell me their names. Let me let me try,
actually resar is he in the program yet or is
he coming in next year?

Speaker 2 (27:52):
In the program?

Speaker 3 (27:53):
He's he's more of an athlete than a quarterback in
my opinion right now. Okay, with a lot to fix
his throwing mechanics, but that dude can run and he's
good athlete.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
The kid in the class then that'll come in next year.
He's a dual threat.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
He is, he's his nickname is Jimmy Football.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Is it Jimmy Sullivan?

Speaker 2 (28:11):
There you go, Yeah, yeah, let's.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Go, dude, I pay attention to come on now. And
then we just had a didn't we just have somebody
two weeks ago at Troy there was a there was
a Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
His name is Cash Herrera Cash dude, Cat, I mean,
come on, come on right, he's hired.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Uh, we're making this. You know, we went from we
had we had CJ during my time and then that,
you know, my year ended with Nate, who was a
step back in mobility. But Nate was just such a
pure I mean, I think even more now the fan
base is looking at Nate's standing like, damn, what a
pocket passer guy was? Just that's who That's who you
want if you're gonna have a pocket pass.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
He is one of the most underappreciated quarterbacks in program history,
especially given what came after him.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
And that's no shot to anybody who had takeover for him. Yep,
going knock on.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
Nate Stanley was he couldn't win the big one against
the like, couldn't beat Wisconsin. But yet the game Ohio State,
but he was one of the most consistent pastors and
program in three YEP.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
We tried to tell him, Uh, the tide is turning
to where like every quarterback on our roster, the knock
on these quarterbacks is not going to be well, they
can't move right. So if we get these guys who
are more dynamic, are more shaped to play modern day football,

(29:36):
and then you have this offense that Tim Lester is implementing,
and you have Tim Lester as the quarterback guy. He's
the one who's developing and evaluating the quarterback talent. God,
I think the tide is turning. Man were in the
early stages. It might be a few years out from
where people are like, oh, you know the joke of

(29:56):
Iowa not having a quarterback that can do anything or
an offense that can do anything. I think we're on
the ascension out of those national punchlines. I think we are.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
It comes down to quarterback development, which has been probably
one of the biggest criticisms in under Kirk.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
In my opinion.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, the guy k I mean, Lester's a guy who
I think can do it. And this is something I
did want to talk about with the offense too. Yeah,
and you being in the program, you have more experience
with this.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Because I have my opinions on him.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
I was a little bit surprised that Tim said this publicly,
was that he wanted to call a couple of deep
shots against Minnesota and then the group shot him down.
And you know what, all this is where I'll keep
it real. I'm happy the group shot him down. You
can't throw a deep shot in there when Caleb Johnson
is absolutely decimating Minnesota and you're flowing like that. I

(30:50):
like the mindset, and that's something that Iowa has to
do in the coming weeks. Yeah, and I know you
need in rep you know, game reputation reps to actually
make it happen.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
It was not the time to do it.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
No, I'm happy that Tim thought about it, but I
actually think that was a pretty good decision not to.
And just like Caleb and even Jazz, Jazz had a
couple of really really big runs in that game too.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
The run game was just working against it.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
I told you, I told you, I told you. With
Lashawn out like Jazz is a little like many adjacent
version of of of Kayleb Williams. Don't worry about the
stats or Kayleb Johnson. Uh, the stats are what they are.
He's he's going nuts. It's video game numbers. I'm telling you.
The way he runs the ball, the way that he
moves sort of, even the way that he looks. He's

(31:34):
not as built as Caleb is, but Jazz is, like,
he is such a great what I would consider a
second option.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
I'd have him a number two four.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
Games in and probably you know with Lashawn Hurt, Kamari's
probably three and Lashawn's four at this point. But again,
the numbers don't matter. It's just what they give us
and how how many reps they can give us. You're right,
Tim said a lot. And he's so. I think part
of his endearment is he he he and maybe people
don't think he is, but he's so honest. He's just

(32:07):
he's he's just honest and he's just telling you like
it is. And he has a very good way of
being optimistic about things, but like explaining why there's optimism
and you believe him, right, I think there's no I
don't think there's bullshit in him. I don't think there is.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
I think it's really going to help on the recruiting
trail too.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
You know where he was really honest as well, is he? He?
He in a way and Brian wasn't good at this
because Brian, I think was like I think at one
point who was it? Was it Labis who He's like,
you don't want to see him out there or something
like that. And the way that he like was trying
to be funny or like talk about guys specifically.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
To the media just to deuce Hogan.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Yes, I think that's maybe it just hasn't hit. But
Lester straight up told us what most people would think
is our best pure athlete at the receiver position. He's like, yeah,
Caleb Brown just he just didn't He hasn't run routes correctly.
He's not doing what he needs to do up here physically. Yeah,

(33:09):
probably one of our best athletes, biggest playmakers. But if
he doesn't run the right routes, if he doesn't understand
the playbook, if he doesn't understand versus what coverage, what
kind of route he needs to run. That was a
little nuance that he added in there. He's just not
going to be the guy.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
That's why.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
By the way, too, that's right because at times, you know,
we don't know what play they're trying to run like
a kid can make a totally air throw and everybody's
gona blame k But guess what, the receiver ran the
wrong route?

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, I mean he's supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Lester said that they had to play versus Minnesota. That
should have been an easy, like a ten yard out
route or something, and the guy didn't cut off the
route well enough and he kind of rounded it instead,
and all of a sudden, it's second and ten and
people thought, oh, bad ball by kid, No bad route
by the by the receiver. And this is why. This
is why, and it's never going to change because that's

(34:00):
what it is like. You can't ask every fan to
know football, and even if they know football, you don't
know what was called, you don't know checks were made.
It's just you're never going to know all the details.
But it's uh it And part of that is the
timing stuff with the individual route running and stuff. But
it's just like, man, when all of this does click
and they double what they've got in the playbook right now,

(34:21):
it just it feels very exciting.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
That tells me that if Caleb Brown can figure it out,
and he's been as big of a playmaker, as they say,
and I'm not trying to hype him up too early
because obviously a lot of things happen.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
I mean, Tyler, he could be have a massive year
next season.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
It could go crazy, he could go accolutely crazy, and
I think, I think we have the potential for that,
and I do, I do believe that something this offense needs.
And again, I don't know if I like this will
come back to sort of that second half play calling stuff,
because he said, Lester said, we missed a couple. I
had a couple called that we checked out of talking

(34:58):
about uh this ver article passing game you guys, you
guys pressed him on it like once or two, two
or three times, and he's like, yeah, I had a
couple of called. We missed a couple, We checked out
of a couple, and then in the second half, I
had several that were set up. We just didn't need them.
And he's right, yep, when you're when you when you
when you give the ball to Caleb Johnson is just

(35:20):
ten yards of pop. Why would you call a seam round?

Speaker 2 (35:25):
You just know exactly.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
And that's the other part of it too, Like one
if I called it and then you know, you know,
Kate and they throw a pick and then then everybody's
is everybody pissed off and Kate and everybody's pissed off
at last year, Like but you know it's it's it was.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Not worth the risk unless they're forced to call. That's why.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Like that opening, that opening drive against Minnesota arguably saved
the season in my opinion from the outside, because they
had that in the second played austranger.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
For nineteen yards the second half of like the five
play drive.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah, yes, that saved the season in my opinion. I
think that totally totally changed the momentum of the game.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
You know what it did for me was a lot
of times in the Iowa games the last couple of
years you just felt like, like usually in that situation,
you struggle in the first half, you're like, God, our
offense can't do anything. You come out in that second half,
we get the ball, same thing, You should be excited,
and you're like, I just there's no way we're going anywhere, Like,
there's no way that something changes here. And then in

(36:23):
five plays we're down the field and in the end
zone and I'm just sitting there going none of that
made sense I've had compared to what I'm used to, Like,
we run an awesome I mean, they brought the house
and showed heavy action to the left side of the field,
boot out Ostranga, I think he went for like twenty
or thirty yards, got it to midfield. Then we then

(36:46):
we rip one off in like two or three plays.
We're in the red zone, and you're like, well, that's
not Iowa offense, is it?

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Iowas Halftime adjustments besides the Iowa State game has been spector.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, and he and he talked about that. He's like,
we've been doing an awesome job of making adjustments at halftime,
like we've been We've been great at that. Also mentioned,
specifically with the offensive line, that because they're veteran guys,
a lot of the mistakes or things that they're seeing
in the first half, those guys are auto correcting because
of their experience, and that's why we're making such a

(37:22):
big difference. And I get it as a fan at home,
You're sitting there thinking, well, we can't just wait till
halftime to start playing well every game. Obviously that's not
what they're doing on purpose, but at least they're at
halftime you can see the significant difference, the significant changes
that they're making. Yeah, it's it's it's crazy, I do think,

(37:45):
and it's it. We still lack that vertical passing game.
Whether you know they need more time, we don't have
the athletes. Caid in all, honestly is probably not your
best vertical passer in the country, even if we had
the full offense in the playbo. I do think we
have to. I think I think Caid similar to Week
one when he threw a couple of balls up to

(38:06):
Reese and he's just like, hey, buddy, make a play.
I think we need one or two more of those.
A game where we judged where you just trust the
receiver to like, hey, and if you're not going to
catch it, you become the defender and make sure it
doesn't get picked. And hey, then we took a shot, right.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
I think the other thing we need to talk, like
really addressed to is look, Cada a couple of bad throws.
I think in that game there were a couple obvious
drops where Kate did put the.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Ball on the money.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
But one of the best.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Passes I've seen Cad throw this year was the one
that they ruled and complete at.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
The two yard line.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Oh Ranga, that was as perfect of a pass as
you could ask for.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
It's a difficult catch, no doubt. Well O Stranger read
it well.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
He put it in a position where only Ostranga could
get it, and he just I mean that was a
dot by Caid.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, I think that all in all. I think if
you asked your average eye a fan right now, like,
is there really any compared to the last two years,
is there really anything you can complain about? A reasonable
person would say not really. I mean we've improved, like
I said before, Caid, not blowing anybody out of the water,
But the floor is so much higher than what we've.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Had the left that's yeah, no question.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
I mean, like, still be better than one hundred and
twenty second passing offense, and sure see that that's still
an improvement. I do think, though, if there's any reason
to be encouraged, I think the wide receiver room is
more talented than any of us saw it. I still
don't know what the ceiling is for them. I don't
think it's an elite room by any means. No, but well,
I think can get the job done. Like you can
see the pieces that are building there. Like Reese could

(39:42):
be a red zone dog. Yeah, I love asking a stranger.
Stranger gets started for one hundred different teams around the country,
one hundred and fifteen.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Probably he's that good.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
Jacob Gill has been just unbelievably consistent in everything he does.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, he's a When he came over, it was like, oh,
we got Sullivan the quarterback and his buddy receiver. I
guess like we're just taking walk on, like we're just
taking the Northwestern.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
We didn't even know if he was in a scholarship
when you took him right and just because.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
We looked at the status and we're like, okay, like
is a body.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
He's the most out of nowhere player that we have
this year, and I think Reese could be You give Reese.
I just like I work with a lot of athletes
and people generally on the fitness weight room, lifting, work
out side of things, you look at Reese and like,
you just know, he's a nineteen year old this offseason

(40:38):
with a frame he could become dangerously physical on the
outside over.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
The next cat to trusted him in that second half
when he needed to catch, and Reese had a couple
of drops over the last couple of weeks. So for
him to go right back to race and for Reese
to make that play, I think that's going to really
boost his confidence up too.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
A lot of offensive talk. I want to swing it
over because I don't want to use David's entire day
up and I want to get to some more a
couple more points of what Coach Parker said, and then
we'll finish with some some coach uh coach Woods. Coach
Parker said, basically, you put Lee and Hall and Nester
in a bag and just pull one out there. The

(41:17):
talent level is very, very close. It's basically about game flow.
Who they feel the best at that time is going
to help them win. Maybe not the best thing. You'd
love to have just two clear guys. With Jamari on
the other side, who's a stud by the way he's
gonna start in the NFL. I think maybe, But the

(41:38):
you know, it's it's a close it's a close battle.
They've got three guys basically, and and they're doing something
similar at safety with Xavier and Cohen. And he was
like very upfront, He's like, hey, these guys are competitive,
you know, he was vague, but he was. He's like,
it's competitive. They're all making good plays. He said, Xavier
had his best practice like yesterday or Monday.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
The same thing about k Brown too. We should probably
throw that in there too.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
And I know when people hear that, they hear what
the last few years of like, oh, Spencer Peachers had
great practice. I think, like that's legitimate. Yeah, when when
at least at least when I was there and then
I would see that coach said somebody had a good practice,
it was always like, yeah, that guy did ball out
today like he's and the they are getting better and

(42:22):
better every single day. He said that they've to eliminate
some of those big plays and like people were just
kind of getting at you know, hey, you've been a
little bit more lax of days go on, uh, you know,
giving up these big plays. This year, he said, they
focused a lot on alignment, like pre snap alignment, and
I think that is something especially for young players, especially

(42:45):
for the entire defense as a whole, like when you
have it. Josiejewles was a good football player because he
was always in the right spot. And I think to
some extent, Jay Higgins and Nick Jackson are both that
way too. When the entire defense gets their alignment correct,
whether you know that it's a run fit or it's
a it's a back end coverage, that's a big thing.

(43:07):
That's the kind of thing that gets better week over week,
especially when you have a bye week.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
I mean, Jay Higgins is as good as Jay Higgins
is because he's a film room savant. He's a guy
who understands the game at a high level, and he
makes the plays when they're offered.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Because, like how with.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
All due respect to Jay Higgins, and he is a
good athlete, he is not an elite athlete as.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Far as no, he doesn't have top in speed.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
But if you look.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
At if you listen and describe like that interception he
had in that Minnesota game, he literally told us, oh,
I watched this on film all week. When they line
up in a certain formation, brosber will always check down
after three seconds. So Jay waited calend to three and
then made a play on the ball.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, I think the better play Higgins succeeds awesome to
get the interception, obviously it meant more. I think the
best play he made in that game was when he
lined up on the inside receiver the three receiver, they
went empty, and he was on the he was on
the white side of the field, and he tracked this
receiver on an under route across and made the play.
And sure Brosmer could have led the receiver a little

(44:12):
bit more. The receiver was not at full speed, but
Jay ran with an inside like a running back across
the field as big as he is and made that
play as a Mike linebacker, like dude is just playing.
They're so good for sure. And then the last thing
on defense I'll say that I caught was, you know,
they asked about Castro being less impressive big play wise,

(44:37):
pressure wise, stat wise, and coach Parker sort of alluded to, yeah,
he might not have the stats or like the flashy
things that are happening, but I guarantee you the opposing
offense is going, hey, where's where's twenty nine? And I
think that's something that goes under talked about or sort

(44:57):
of just under the ratelar Like from fan perspective, in
the media, we're kind of like, oh, yeah, Castro is,
like he's doing good, but he's not having a great year. Yeah,
it's because they're avoiding him, Like I think.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
I think at times he has. He's missed a couple
of plays that I think certainly last year. I mean, yeah,
but Castro is still making a huge impact on defense.
I know there's reps they'd rather have back this season,
but he's gonna apply that for the rest of the season.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
He's going to be better for that.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
And on top of that, you know what, it reminds
me of not to the same degree it reminds me
of like when they had Desmond King. I was just
going to say, like, if you're an All American with
eight picks and you come back for another year, or
if you make all these plays, guess what they're not
throwing the.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Ball to you go look at the stats too.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Anybody listening, please go look at the stats of of
the Like the throw chart of teams in twenty sixteen,
they didn't throw. Teams did not throw to an entire
side of the field because Desmond was over there. Desmond
only ended up with like two picks.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
That yet two picks, but you sold Jim Thorpe finalists
because he shut down half the field.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Well, he literally closed down I think a field is
fifty three yards across. He closed down twenty six yards
of horizontal space because he was just there.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
And we all talked about it, like think of think
about this, like I feel bad for whoever lined up
opposite quarter of Desmond and Josh and all those guys.
Maybe they could still be damn good, but they're getting
targeted every play because they don't want to throw the ball.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Like maybe still ended up as an NFL guy.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
For a deacame Yep, yeah, maybe got.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Targeted and he got criticized like crazy.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
And I remember it too. There was so many throws
that went Mabon's way on the other side, and I
think for a while there it would have been Reese.
Uh oh god, now I'm blanking his last name. I
can't remember Reese.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
Oh my god, totally smokes.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Somebody's saying it right now as they listen to us.
But that's that's the effect that Castro's having right now,
is like the other team, the other quarterback knows probably
don't want to throw too close to his way. We
don't want to give him an opportunity to change the
game right now. So good stuff from Phil Parker as well,
and then we'll finish here. We'll wrap it up with
Coach Woods, my favorite to listen to although Lester making
a hard case such fun to listen to. Talked about

(47:25):
how Reese knew that that punt against Troy was not good.
Everybody knew the punt was not good. Everybody knew the
coverage was not good. They heard about it at halftime.
That is not something.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Would have loved.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Oh God, I want to know what coach would because
Coach Woods stays pretty low key. He's he's pretty level
when he gets though. Oh they got there. The punt
coverage unit got their ass streamed at halftime of that
Troy game. And I glad I'm not there because if
I was there, I would have been on that. But uh,
definitely wish I could be a fly on the wall

(47:58):
for that. But they talk about how everybody knows Reese
can smoke it, They know he can do what he
did this past weekend. He opened it up with you know,
what he's done this season is really a microcosm of
what they've seen in totality with Reese. It's just a
fight for consistency at this point.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
I mean I asked him if it was you know,
like if he said anything to him throughout the week,
or if this really speaks to Reese's maturity and level aheadedness.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Because that's interesting. You talked about about a half hour
ago about the.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Mentality of being a specialist and the way you have
to approach everything, and I think Reese put that on
full display and to understand that as a true freshman, who,
by the way, is not even from this continent. Yeah,
that showed me a lot.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
Yeah, he said something in the answer to your question
of the focal point of and this is this is
maybe hard to understand, and I think the best analogy
is like maybe shooting free throws. More people have played
basketball and shot of basketball than that have tried to punt,
snap or kick. When you're a specialist, there's in large

(49:01):
part two ways that you approach the position and when
you can when you can get to it's antal. It's
a mental thing again, going back to the mental side
of the just the nature of the position. A lot
of guys are kicking, and this is like almost everybody
in high school. They're trying to not miss, right, I
just don't want to miss. I don't want to hit
a bad ball. When you cross over the threshold of

(49:23):
I'm no longer trying to not miss, I'm I'm seeing
how good I can make this, how far I can
kick this, how good of a field goal, how pinpoint
accuracy it can be. It's very similar to like maybe
the at large style of play that Kirk plays, or
people like to say that he plays, is like he's
not trying to win the game. He's trying to not
lose when he gets up right. It's the same thing

(49:46):
within this, within this specific area of kicking or punting.
There was a while there in my first year, starting
in twenty fourteen, where when I was snapping the ball,
I was just trying to get it to the guy.
I just didn't want to throw it over his head.
In my head, that's how I thin thought about it.
I don't want to throw this over his head. And
then later on in my career it was how pinpoint
could this be? If I could just hit this one

(50:10):
little pin headsize dot on his hip and it's aim
small miss small. When you start to be more confident,
coach was used the words he wanted them to be
the aggressor and they wanted to go on the attack.
When you start to have that mentality as a specialist,
now you get loose, Now you get freed. Up and
you get to see your true potential, and we get

(50:31):
to see that fifty yards fifty yard average no returns.
It was huge.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
As much as we have to dumb down the game
to a certain degree when we talk about the larger
scape of college football and we're talking to college football
fans and even me at times right and immedia members
me too. It's so interesting when you get those little
snipbits like that from LeVar, and it also just makes
me think and should make other people think, like, oh
my god, this goes a lot deeper than.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
Oh god, you actually think it's so deep, like it's
such a simple game, but it's so complex.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Even even just like you know, a punter, a kicker, snapper,
they essentially do one thing over and over and over again.
All the other positions they have to do a lot
of things over and over and over again. And even
just for the snapping, kicking, punting, the detail of which,
like the angle of your foot versus the angle of
like the little details of kicking, punting, snapping could just

(51:22):
blow your mind. And then it goes a million miles
further than that talked about Stevens.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
Steve Stevens, Yeah, that was some compelling stuff too, because again,
you talk about coaches keeping a real LaVar keeps as
reel as it was. He even said, like, yeah, Drew
at false confidence last year.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah, and that was really telling to me. He said, No,
he's got now.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
He's reading maybe one to two pages a day, but
he's reading now. He said, this is what the real
confidence looks like. And Drew's playing like he has real confidence.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
And false confidence is better than no confidence. Yeah, right, But.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
How do you respond when you get down on that fault?

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Wait, when you catch an obstacle, when you catch a
little bump in the road, that false confidence gets real
shaky and you start to feel like a fraud versus
what he said is he now has conviction over confidence. Yeah,
which was an awesome distinction. Love that out of Coach Woods.
Great way to put it. I think I can tell
I've been saying it all along because I'm a geek

(52:22):
and I'm the only one who watches it. But like
every time Stevens has hit a kickoff, I'm like, God, damn,
that's booted.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
I mean, even Woods, I think was stunned that Minnesota
returned four of them, and they weren't bad balls By Stevens.
The Minnesota guy just thought he could break one.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
They were really trying to like make something happen there.
Stupid by their return team.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
I think they ever got past the twenty.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
No great, great coverage. The kick coverage team is looking
great this year. Kind of some low key things that
came out of Coach Woods's mouth was like, one, he's
not a fan of PFF, and I don't think any
coaches are, which makes because PFF acts like they have
all the stuff right and they don't because again they

(53:05):
don't know they remember.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
After Nate, I'll go back to a PFF like, I
think they do a lot of things well, but there's
some things where you're sitting there going, what.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
The hell are you watching?

Speaker 3 (53:13):
Remember Nate Stanley threw five touchdowns against Ohio State. Of course, yeah, yeah,
he wasn't even the Big ten quarterback of the week.
It was a guy through like two picks.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
It's weird. And then also he didn't want to say
numbers specifically, But if you watch Drew kick and you
know anything about it, and you listen to Coach Woods,
somebody asked him about like, hey, you thought maybe it
was you who asked about I think it was asked
about kicking the field goal at the end of the
Iowa State game. They're like, yeah, we didn't really think
about it, but we've kind of looked at it since then.

(53:42):
He mentioned, like in the NFL, you see these guys
that are in the mid sixties now on these top
end field goals, Like, yes, it's tough to do in
a game. It's mentally like a huge mind f because
you're you're like, okay, I'm back here. I really got
to put something into it. Drew Stevens can kick a
sixty year field goal like that, I know for a fact.
And also just based off the fact that every kicker

(54:05):
I ever played with, even the ones who didn't play
in the games like our our two's and our threes,
other than maybe Keith, I think Keith might be the
only one I saw. I saw and snapped in practice
for multiple sixty yard field goals like we were on
we were kicking off of the fifty yard line. Yeah,
and I saw Marshall, Kine, Olden Hafar, Josh Proll, absolutely,

(54:28):
I everybody they could smoke.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
How I should know this at the top of my head.
How far was the game winner against Pitt wasn't that
like fifty.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Six fifty seven, Yeah, fifty seven, and it was probably
good from another two yard. It might have been good
from sixty. I think it bounces through on sixty, so no,
it probably it probably was good.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
It was close, man, I remember that.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
But yeah, so good to know that Drew has it
and like it's very visible. And then the last thing
was he said that Drew. I think Drew said this himself,
maybe that he's more process oriented now and not as
much of a feel guy. And I chuckled at that
because Coach Woods said something like at some point every

(55:11):
specialist starts to understand that you can't just be You
can't just go out there and just feel it out
every time. Yeah, and just and you know, you have
to have some sort of process, and that is true,
like there's got to be some structure to what you do.
But I personally was very much a feel guy. Like
I just I'll never forget. There was a time my
senior year where like for some reason, not accuracy wise,

(55:35):
but like the spin of the ball it was coming
out like a duck. Yeah, and I just decided to
not snap for two weeks in the middle of the season,
like I did not snap balls at practice. I was
just like, I know what I'm doing. Every snap that
I'm doing is just coming out wrong. I did it
for period. It was like a seven minute punt period
at the beginning of the period. I didn't do anything
for the rest of practice, and it just self corrected.

(55:56):
After two weeks. I was like, it's just a feel thing,
like I just need to get it out. So but
it's fun to hear because a lot of guys do
need that process like it is a very Specialists are
very heady. Specialists are very overthinkers, and they just I
just think about Miguel Rosinos, who just texted me this morning.
He's got like eight months until he's a doctor now,

(56:20):
so fun stuff out of them. And personally, I think
we should kick more field goals. I know that's like
a weird thing. It's like, okay, but.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
I've been surprised they have not even attempted a fifty
hother this year.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
It's a mistake, man, and I don't know how many
it's It's a very unique situation where you're where you
get close enough, you're kind of at the thirty thirty
three to forty yard line heading in and you get
stopped and now you have a decision. Do we go
for it. Do we do a short punt or do
we kick the field goal. I think in those situations,

(56:52):
like I think we should kick more field goals. I
think Drew makes them. I think we get more points.
But hey, I get it field position. You know, maybe
there are times where we should go for it. But
you know, I'm just.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
Saying I do wish we got the coordinators more. I
really hope with the second bye week, I hope we
get the coordinators.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
At Oh please please, I'm gonna ask.

Speaker 3 (57:12):
I think I'm not gonna be the only one that asks,
But it's just it really helps us just kind of
get inside their minds about what they're thinking, because you know,
I'm very opinionated. A lot of us are very opinionated,
but like, I never want to act like I know
what they're thinking. I can only go based on what
I'm thinking, and I can explain to my own words

(57:32):
what I think they're thinking. But like the insight that
they gave us yesterday, like that yesterday was one of
my favorite press conferences I've had since I started the
job in twenty eighteen. It was as informative as I
can remember. It was transparent. It was great, and that
helps me, that helps everybody else.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
I got the same vibe I was. I was six
minutes into listening to Lester, who was up first, and
I was just like, Oh, this is gonna be this
is gonna be fantastic. Either. I immediately was like, Oh,
me and David are gonna have so much to talk about,
which we did fifty eight minutes on the ticker on
my screen. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
I think I was literally about to text you. I
was typing up a couple of things.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Well I was it get text you like, Oh, I
don't know if you're watching, but this is gonna be
good hater.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
So which is good because today's my birthday. So I decided, Plus,
we didn't have an episode to really preview this week,
so we're not doing it ain ever. Birthday, Tyler, thank
you thirty years old, thirty years old into the thirties.
Feel better than ever, and.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
Hopefully I have the same vibe in eight months, I'll
be join you in the thirties club.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Yeah, dude, Yeah, it's great. We are not going to
do a main episode this week, so the David Iicult
and Tyler Klover Press Review is the Thursday episode. You
guys are not hearing this on Wednesday when we record it,
you'll hear it one day later. It's the main feature.
We are excited to be back next week OSU preview.

(58:54):
Maybe the boys can go in and do something. I
don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Caleb john'son for revenge game.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
It's why they play from Ohio. True, that's why they
play the games. Thank you guys for listening. We'll be
back with the five ten five show tomorrow with coach
Justin Lima, and then we will have a Monday recap
of the college football weekend for you guys in a
few days. We will see you then. Hey, thanks for
listening to the show. If you want more, you can

(59:21):
check us out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube by
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next time. Hawks by a Million