The Answer To Why Iowa's Giving Up Big Plays | WUW 539

We sit down to break down the game from Saturday as the Hawks come back from a halftime deficit to beat Troy 38-21. A game that many walked away from with a weird inconclusive feeling. We discuss why this win doesn't 'feel good' even though the stat sheets say differently. We talk about the blunders on the Defensive side of the ball, where we've seen big plays hurt the Hawks in back to back weeks, and a huge mishap on special teams which is usually the area that Iowa dominates in. We break down the Offense and how Kaleb Johnson is currently a Heisman contender, and how Cade actually played well despite a general feeling of lackluster-ness from his position. We talk passing game and how it needs to evolve moving forward, seeing Brendan Sullivan for the first time, and where things need to be heading in to Floyd week.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Weird game. Iowa beat Troy thirty eight to twenty one,
but I don't think most Hawkeye fans left that game
feeling more confident or optimistic about the season. Kevin and
I are gonna sit here for the next hour and
try to convince you why you should be from a
former player's perspective, and maybe that helps. There are reasons
to have some hope, and having hope isn't just good
for the brain, but probably good for the salts podcast

(00:22):
is like chicken suit, Let's have a day, Let's go.

(00:51):
Welcome in to the Washed Up Walkouts Podcast, although it
could be changing the name soon, who knows. Inside joke.
We're here, we played Troy. We're two and one. We're
glad you're here. If you're joining us, thanks for being
here every week. We love having you guys here at
the Washingtup walk Ons. Kevin, how you doing, I am doing.

(01:13):
I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I've had a nice little Sunday and I'm ready to
get my week started.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah, I'm ready to get this kicked off as well.
We record this on Sunday afternoon evenings. It feels like
this is the start of my week. Because as far
as work goes, it's like the first thing kick kicks
off the week. So we don't have our star player tonight.
We're down. We're down a man. No Grant Allen don't
even know where he is. Didn't ask questions, just said, hey,

(01:40):
not gonna be able to make it. So that's unfortunate
because Grant really he he's got like one or two
good one liners every single show that it's just like
and good for him. It's just a pleasure to have
on the show. And to be honest, he might not
be here because of his another poor performance on the
betting this week. From what he gave us on the podcast,

(02:04):
I think we'll go over it. I think what did
you tall to this weekend?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Utah won by seventeen So unfortunately you recorded a day early, right, Yeah, yep,
the day that we would have recorded, we normally record.
They announced starting quarterback for Utahs out, so wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Have made that bet.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Also, they were on like the three year or three
yard line third down with like three minutes left in
the game. They're up fourteen, they get down to like
they're like a half yard away, so it's fourth and
a half yard. They kicked the field goal, so it's
like half a yard away from covering that game despite
not having their starting quarterback. But I was honestly surprised

(02:47):
they gave up as many points as they did. But no,
that's a that's a loss lost by half a yard stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Okay, that hurts. We might as well just go over
your other two bets. That slides into my bet because
we took the same one. I did end up ruining it,
although at least I wasn't the only loss for you.
And then Gary had four picks that he put out
for the podcast as well, and he went one for four.
So not a great weekend from the walk Ons. I

(03:14):
did go too, and one we'll talk about that in
a second. But the Georgia Bulldogs, one of Kevin's picks
for this weekend, played Kentucky. Maybe should have lost that game.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, I didn't get a chance to watch. I was
at a wedding Saturday night. Maybe I'll get a chance
to rewatch it or watch it sometime during the week,
But just updating my phone every so often, like, what
did you see it?

Speaker 1 (03:39):
What happened? I didn't see us, I didn't see it.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
I feel like they have one of these games every year,
like it was like a couple of years ago, as
like Miszoo took him down to the wire when Miszoo
was a very average football team that year. I mean,
it's good to know their defense is still I had
good I don't care, but their defense is still playing
at an elite level. But you just couldn't move the ball,
couldn't put points on the board.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
What happened. I don't know if Kentucky has a good
defense or what happened.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
All I saw was the boxing. They were thirty one
to South Carolina last week.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
The reason I even know about this because it's not
like I'm walking around, you know, checking the entire college
football scoreboard. I'm just not that guy was g Bone
posted a tweet of like the halftime score and it
was six to three Kentucky, and g Bone titled it
something like I'll always remember this Kentucky. And so I'm like,

(04:37):
oh my God, Like what did the final scoring? I
look thirteen to twelve, and I'm like, gee, Jesus, they
damn near did it. And they scored a you know,
Kentucky scored one field goal in every quarter. And from
what I saw, they had the ball plus fifty territory
on Georgia with three minutes to go, and they punted it.

(05:02):
And this isn't the you know, the Roll Roll Dogs
podcast here, but.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, they were fourth and thirteen at the oh they
went backwards, they were, Yeah, they were fourth and eight
on the Georgia forty seven once they had a false start,
and then they're fourth and thirteen on the their own four.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
So maybe so maybe they weren't going to go on
it probably Yeah, yeah, I mean, I feel like in
that situation, you got the number one team on the ropes,
you probably you gotta go get point, get you gotta go.
You just got to go for it. So it looks
like maybe the a penalty forced amount of it three
times at that point too. Yeah, I mean, and with
the way the game was going, clearly Georgia wasn't running
it up on them, they weren't doing a whole lot offensively,

(05:47):
so maybe they thought they had a shot. Either way,
they don't come away with it. They were minus twenty
four in that game. They were one of your picks
also a loss, and then obviously iowa your third pick
and one of my third pick as well, a pick
that I said, I am so confident. It was my
favorite pick of the weekend. It was my favorite pick
of the weekend. And to be honest, keV if Iowa

(06:07):
plays defense like they normally do. Granted, they also accounted
for a pick six, so that cancels out one of
the I guess if you want to play that game.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
You can play that game. But it really comes down
to four plays, and this is a blowout win blowout.
Two long touchdown passes that we gave out, gave up
a punk return for a touchdown, which we'll talk about
ever see that anyway, and then fourth and one we
can't on their own on fifteen going in and we

(06:38):
can't convert there. Those four plays happened differently, and we're
talking like to a forty something to nothing ball game here.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
And I think that the how paper thin that line
is between it being what it was, which was a
game where the Hawks were down four points at half, okay,
holy shit, and a game where this could have looked
like Illinois State where we won forty to zero, kind
of speaks to the feeling that I have, I think

(07:08):
the feeling that a lot of people have. And I
don't know if you feel this way too, just a
weird sort of a weird game, sort of a weird
feel to it.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I mean watching it like you're thinking like, holy shit,
this team's falling apart. And then you know, at the
end of the game, score ends up about where you'd
expect that. You know, the line was twenty two. They
went by seventeen, and you I'm thinking back, it's like, really,

(07:38):
it's those four plays and we're talking about, well, Hawks
look great this week, right, Yeah, yeah, outside those four plays,
Hawks look great this week, and everyone's being like, Okay,
we're we've got a good football team. We can go
make a little run in the big ten here.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
And maybe that's maybe that's the district.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
And it's also because it's just compounded on the back
of a bad loss last week.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
There is still one hundred percent from the fan perspective,
because this is how we get to live on the outside, right.
It isn't just flush it and move on. Fans chew
on it. Podcasters, people who are the noise, people who
are doing shows on this. We have to chew on it,
we have to dissect it. So, yeah, we're still feeling

(08:21):
that one point, that one point where it's still a
bad taste in our mouth. Everyone's still kind of like, eh,
but we we toss that one in the trash, right,
We just left that one, and so there's still a
whole lot of well, unless we kill this team. Seventy
to zero this week doesn't do a lot for me
as a fan. It's just we need. The only thing

(08:41):
that's going to quench the thirst of a Hawkeye fan
right now is like a really solid win in Minneapolis
on Saturday night.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
And honestly, given that they have the pig right now,
even though.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
They shouldn't, it wasn't fair catch, definitely wasn't.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
I feel like most Hawkeye fans will be happy with
any win, I would hope, because it's a rivalry game
they have. We got to get the pig back. Obviously,
we want to look as good as possible and at
their place. Yeah, exactly exactly. But I think most rational
Hawkey fan's gonna be fine with any win they can
find Minneapolis this weekend.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
And we'll get there as well as we probably you know,
get towards the end of this show and then obviously
our previous show later in the week. But we'll just
finish out quickly. What the rest of the picks were
so kevin tough week after starting seven to zho to one,
that is going to go to a seventh three and one.
It's still to the mean right there. Yeah, and still
a great you know after three weeks, that's still a

(09:36):
great record. I mean, if you're if you're back in
seventy sixty five, seventy percent, that is go for three. Man,
that's can't happen. You know, it can't happen. South Carolina
game day. They should have won the game. They had
so many opportunities to win that game.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
And I saw, almost like Iowa last week, they had
so many opportunities to win that game and then just
penalties and then.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
I think the refs might have been eight off on
that one. Do you see why they pick six got called.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Back the block on the qby It wasn't even like
you hit him with the shoulders.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, ude, questionable, bit dude, that ref That ref had
LSU money line right there. That's wild. That's a wild
call to pull the laundry on that. Anyway. Nonetheless, South
Carolina covers the plus seven even though they lose the game.
Good bet for me, and I was worried about this one.
I said, you know what, I Texas Tech has looked

(10:29):
just very questionable in the last few years. Basically ever
since they had the homes, they've been really irrelevant on
the national scene. And they're playing North Texas. I said,
I North Texas. It's North Texas, right, Thank you Texas
Tech Red Raiders for at least making me look somewhat
okay here. I think they beat him by like forty

(10:51):
It was a It was a big wine. So I
go to and one kind of saved the podcast. Texas
State lost by three or on a state to kick
off the weekend last week, they were plus two. Grant
had a plus two. Florida got sort of dog walked
yep by Texas A and M in the for a

(11:12):
rough year Man Florida and Florida State. The whole state
is is Miami. Miami's looking good. Miami's looking good.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
He's going to be the best school in the state
of Florida.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Again, Pitt, when's the I think they call it the
backyard brawl or something like that versus West Virginia. I
think late in the game, so I think they did
cover the plus two and a half there. That's Grant's
one win and then we talked about it. He was
betting Miami over Ohio. Emotionally, he loves when power five
schools or Power four schools go into max schools. He

(11:44):
just thinks they deserve to lose. And that didn't happen.
Cincinnati beat him by like nine or ten points and
Miami of Ohow did not cover. So that's what the
rest of the slate looked like. There. We'll get into
this this Troy vers Iowa game, Like Kevin said, I
think that disconnect on why you feel weird about it,
why you feel for one, we were down at halftime, yea,

(12:05):
So that when when you get through a whole half
of football versus team, you know you're supposed to be
similar to the Illinois State game where we were only
up six at half, there's some sense of like, uh okay,
we've played half of a game here and it doesn't
look like it's supposed to that that carries weight. But

(12:27):
like Kevin said, four plays two Matt and shout out.
I don't know. I didn't pull up the box score
for this. I have some numbers in my head, but
this guy for Troy had the game of it. This
guy never had a game that good in high school. Guaranteed.
This guy had two hundred plus all purpose yards punt
return for a touchdown. This guy, this guy literally had

(12:47):
a Christian McCaffrey game on the Hawks Saturday and.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Three touchdowns, five for one hundred and forty two receiving.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
And a sixty two yard sixty three yard punt return. Yeah,
I mean just and you know, credit to him. He
was balling, he was out there making plays. But if
you take away these really big plays because usually in
a loss, usually in a game where you feel like
your team doesn't play well, it's sort of the theme.
It's like, Okay, this whole game has not been sort

(13:17):
of what we wanted, or if we win the ball game,
it's like, okay, things were clicking, clicking, clicking. This one
felt like a tale of sort of two teams where
you watch Caleb Johnson in the offense just road grade people,
I mean, Kevin, we're running the ball now.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
It feels pretty good when the Hawks are running for
almost three hundred yards in a game. That's what makes
me very optimistic moving forward, right is the things on
defense I know can get fixed, yes, and should be fixed.
And obviously the special team that's feel like like a
wild fluke. Well, yeah, and we'll get into that. But

(13:55):
the questionable part of our team, it's been the offense
for the last however many years. Yes, them playing a
very good game to finish out non conference play makes
me feel good going into Big Ten play.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Absolutely. If you had to take a guess, and I understand,
it's Iowa State, who's a formidable opponent, and then you
have Illinois State and Troy, so it's not the greatest
sample size, but it's not like the worst first three
games ever either. If you had to take a guess,
because I know you didn't, look, where do you think
Iowa's offense Total offense ranks after three weeks? We were

(14:27):
one hundred and thirtieth of one P thirty last year,
and I'm pretty sure we were damn close to that
after three games.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
I'd say probably around average mid sixty.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
We're fifty fourth in the country. Okay, averaging four hundred
and nineteen yards per game. Fifty fourth in the country.
Nebraska a team that a lot of people are high
on right now, they're fifty first.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
And I mean, yes, obviously we haven't played the toughest schedule,
but pretty much. All the other teams out there haven't
played terribly tough schedules either, exactly ninety five percent of
them haven't, right, So it's what you're working. Nebraska's five games, the.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Nebraska has played UTEP Colorado.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
UTEP is pretty equivalent to Troy. Colorado is worse than
worse than Iowa State in Iowa State, and then you
and i is probably on par with Illinois State.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
It's a very similar non conference So you know, it's
it's this perception stuff. Right. We walked out of Kinnick
yesterday with four hundred and sixty two yards of offense.
Caleb Johnson is damn near a Heisman contender at this point.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
And when you're the leading rusher in the country, you
are a Heisman contender.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
You're right, one hundred percent. He's so good, by the way,
he's very, very good. He's so good at running back
and Cad McNamara as much crap as he takes, as
much flak as he's received in the media and the
fans and the booze and all this stuff, and not
that that hasn't been warranted, because we talked about last

(15:58):
week how he has to play back, and he does
he and the guy throw eighty two percent completion rate.
I think he was eighteen of twenty one or something
like that, eighteen of nineteen of twenty two, twenty three,
and you know, he had a hundred I think he
had one hundred and fifty yards or something like nothing crazy.
But when you're running the ball for two fifty three hundred, well,

(16:21):
you're not going to have three hundred of unless you're
unless you're the top offense in the country and you're
averaging six hundred and fifty yards a game of offense.
So another reason why you look at this game, you
look at the stats, you're like, oh, yeah, if you
give me those stats, Iowa fans are signing up for
those stats, Kevin, They're signing up for those No.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Right, it's like last year and two years ago, we'd
have love to win games thirty eight to twenty one.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Oh my god, we're averaging thirty two points a game.
I think. I think in our twenty fifteen season, I
think we averaged something like thirty two point nine points
a game or something like that. Yeah, that's yeah, that's
generally if the if the Iowahawk guys can average thirty
plus points, a game with the defense that they're known
to have, and I'm glad you mentioned it in the

(17:10):
front of the Front of the show. Here the way
you did very fixable mistakes. It's not a talent issue.
This isn't like we don't have the right people, which
is a bigger issue we've had that's been the issue
at a couple of spots the last couple of years.
They're fixable. This is stuff that you go back and
look at film. This could be a communication thing, it

(17:32):
could be a guy's got his eyes in the wrong spot.
You know, it was a tough day for TJ. Hall
mm yep. And DB's you're gonna have a tough day.
Everyone you do. Everyone knows that you had a tough day.
Everybody knows. It's like when the kicker has a bad day,
everyone knows. You know, there's no hiding from it. Yep.

(17:54):
If a guard, if the offensive guard has a tough day,
most people.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's like, oh the offense it's a line in general,
had a bad day.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
It's like he probably could have done. But was that
guy his you know, it gets lost in the wash.
You out there on on Revis Island, your toast, Yeah,
can you I guess we'll go there first because chalk
it up for another reason and another tally under the

(18:22):
why is this a weird feeling game? Well, it's because
this game didn't go like Iowa games go. Iowa wins games,
being elite at special teams, elite at defense, we never
give up big plays, and our offense sucks ass, and
just about all of that was sort of flipped on
its head. I mean, you know, the offense wasn't a

(18:43):
world beater by any means. Caleb Johnson is actually Superman.
But outside of that, we're we're just a you know,
we're a good offense right now. I think there's a
lot of people who would argue that, but you know,
look at the stats. It is what it is.

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Speaker 3 (19:49):
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Speaker 1 (19:53):
What's up with the uh? What's up with the big plays? keV?
I like it? I don't like it at all. We
got to fix it. Somebody get on this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
And and this is another thing that I guess you
can spin into a positive light. It's like it's not
like it's endemic of like just people blowing coverages right
like you know you sometimes you watch a game like
one team's just moving the ball down the field at
will versus another team because the team who's playing zone

(20:24):
just can't get guys in the right spot. I just say,
guys not being with the right receivers getting the right zones.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
I don't know if you watch Nebraska, you and I
at all. That is exactly what that game was about.
Nebraska was just picking them apart. Their zone was so
soft it was silly. Sure, so yeah, that's not the
problem here.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Is it's two plays where there's more of a technique
issue on the player in question.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
And stutter move on the first one, right.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, first one, So he's got that guy one on
one in that situation. Usually in that coverage we have
that corner pressed, which makes it a little easier and
obviously a little less susceptible to double moves. Sure, I'm
guessing he was playing off to trying to disguise that
fact that he was he was on an island out there.

(21:13):
But yeah, he uh he he bites on the comeback,
and what you're supposed to do is take an angle
so that if he does break it up, that you
can just collide with him, because obviously if he gets
past you, there's you're just hoping that ball is overthrown
or something, because you saw what happened. Guy, there's a
good ball and he trots into the end zone so

(21:37):
bad angle on the break on the move, and then
he's just in a spot where he can't recover from him.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
And there you go. That's say at speed too, that
guy was real fast. No, yeah, he's a good receiver,
don't get me wrong. Yeah, guy's an athlete.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
I mean they you know, we know it's Troy, it's
a Sun Belt conference, but those guys spend thirty hours
a week practicing football too.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
I've said it rever and I think a lot of
high school kids feel this. And it's all around the country.
Like there's a lot of these athletes that end up
in the Sun Belt or the American or the MAC
or a D two school because for some reason or other,
like they just didn't get noticed they were just talented,
or they played in a you know, I'll go to

(22:20):
the grave. And of course I'm biased because he's my
best friend and you know, but Blake Gimble, for anybody
who was around in the early twenty teens and saw
what we were doing at Marshalltown offensively, I mean we
were throwing for like five hundred yards a game, and yeah,
sure it was a little bit of a system. Thing.
We didn't run it a whole lot. Gimble could sling

(22:41):
it and we just played bad competition. There's a lot
of there's not a lot of people who come to
Marshalltown to recruit.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah, and that's like a whole nother discussion about how
recruiting works, and you know, getting your high school coach
to call college coaches and advocate for you getting your
film out there.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
But yeah, oh and by the way, Troy in Alabama.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Right up in the wash right, because there's a million
high school football players. I think that's the actual number
is like one million.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
I believe, so, yeah, like one point one or something.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Pretty much all of them want to play college football basically.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
So you know, you got recruiting coordinators and coaches just
getting bombarded with hey, look at my film. Hey look
at my film, Hey look at my film. It's easy
to just you know, get missed.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Right, And a guy like this ends up at Troy,
and he's very possible that this year, next year, that
guy won't be a trended and after this game, somebody
else is trying to make him not be at Troy,
potentially Alabama. I think Troy is in Alabama. So kind
of a hotbed down there anyway. So so you know,
stutter move, we get, we bite, guy rents past us

(23:51):
and there's your first touchdown. Okay, I've seen I've seen
things out there, and I don't know why people would
come to this conclusion or not what they saw, what
they heard from an interview whatever. I saw something about
the second one not being his fault and as a
potential miscommunication with Shulty did what did you see? Is
there any validity to that theory or so what I saw?

(24:15):
Who did you hear that from? I saw some Twitter.
It was one of the I know, when you say
some Twitter account, you're like, okay, why are you even
given that anything? It was one of the ones that
like is in a ship poster? They don't post me.
They're not like a If.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
It wasn't Hawkeye game Film, I don't give it a
whole lot of.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
It might have been Hawkeye Game Film.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
But whoever runs that account you usually have, in my opinion,
a pretty good handle on things.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, they're decent, they know they're shit. Yeah, what I
saw is that they were I don't know what the
original call is, but it looks like they cut they
checked the cover two playing cover two across the board.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
And then yeah, number two receiver runs of post and
kind of takes the safety with him. The number one
receiver the outside receiver, Yep, it's an outside release and
just goes vertical, in which case the corner has to
carry that guy. If you get two verticals and you're
playing cover too, you got to carry that guy because
you can't.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Ask the safety to cover both.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Right, And it looks like I don't know if he
was looking for something to drop off on, like towards
the flat or in the deep flat, but it looks
like he stuttered for second, like kind of uncertain about
what to do, and then the guy gets behind him
and there you got our touchdown.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
That's what it looked like to me. So maybe a
I don't know what you would have what you guys
called that in the defensive room, but a miss assignment, yeah,
a mental mental assignment.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
I don't know if it was mental or you'd have
to be in the room and know exactly what the
call was, what the check was. And to me, it
looked like he was kind of hesitated for just a
second and then that second was all that needed.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Could have been just a second guess of what he
was doing and what he was supposed to do, and
that's all it takes, right, That's what it looked like
to me. And regardless of if the safety is supposed
to be over the top or something different is supposed
to happen on that defensive call, whatever doesn't matter, because
it looks like it's your fault. And I mean, guys

(26:22):
having a rough day at that point. You know, it's
just and this I believe this was actually after the
punt return because the punt return for TD Yeah was
the second touch was the end of the second half.
Yeah yeah, end of the first half, end of the
second quarter. So again, we're gonna get to this punt
because this is something that I can actually talk on
and Kevin can talk on. Been in that situation plenty

(26:44):
of times, a lot of factors that go into that.
But I want to quickly hit on some good things
that happened on the defensive side of the ball, because
for again, keV, like you said, outside of these four plays,
there's a lot of good stuff that's still happening in
this game. You take away these two seventy yard touchdown
passes and they've got.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
And we have one hundred and fifty yards.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Then yeah, one hundred and fifty yards and no touchdowns.
Outside of those two plays, we didn't really allow them
to sustain any kind of drives. They couldn't run the
ball worth anything. I think at some point we had
like three hundred rushing yards they had five.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, they had like one point one yard per carry.
Not good and ain't gonna go nowhere.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
I liked how much pressure, Like, we got more pressure
on the quarterback.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, yeah, the d line had had a better day
getting pressure just with the front four. And then another
thing is no penalties clean game.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Hey, how about that? How about that? And that's that
is a great thing to see because these first two
weeks there's been a number of things that are uncharacteristic
and we're like, okay, we got to start cleaning those up.
And I'm sure they've been harping on the penalties thing
all week, all the entire start of the season. They
hate that shit, All coaches hate that, you know, we

(28:02):
bring up there, it's.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
Like, you know, pal, these were a little bit of
factor of the first week, and then you know, big
plays turnover second week. Just get rid of the big plays,
and you know, it's pretty much all clicking together and
it's just getting all cooking at the same time.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
I want to get your vote on the premiere Automotive
Collision of the Week. I have two nominees, both from
the D line. I'm sure you remember Brian Allen mm hmmm,
set in a little edge and running right through that
running back. Yeah, that's a pretty good one. That's a
good one. Max Llewellyn hit a spin move for a

(28:42):
sack that was pretty saucy as well. You get you
tell me which one of those two or if you
have another one, because there were several hard hits in
this game.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Uh, you know, nothing else is really coming to mind.
That's going to be the other those.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Ones couple great. I mean I think we had another
couple sacks in this game. Llewellyn had the one, Uh
had the one strip sack that strip sacks.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
They're lucky to paunce On.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Oh god, that was such a lucky bounce. You know,
it's good to see because they can't run the ball,
we're getting pressure. This is the kind of stuff you
want to see as you work into your I'm gonna
give that to Brian Allen, by the way, that was
just a hype play. He's got a lot of potential too.
He's a scary man. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, that's a
scary dude. That's some talent. Uh. I kind of love

(29:28):
where our d line plays at right now. And I
know we haven't faced like you know, the you know,
Christian McCaffrey yet, but or any kind of like crazy
offensive line. But you only play who can play, and
you put out what you can put out. And I
like what we're putting out. Yep.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
It's gotta continue getting uh more pressure on a quarterback with.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Got to be able to get pressure. And uh, I
think we were people were a little bit worried about
that edge rush. You know, I think we feel solid
about Ya and Aaron in the middle. I think the
question has been can hurt it?

Speaker 2 (30:00):
And I think Craig's got a good rush when he's
in a rushing situation.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Sure, sure, so good to see that come along. We'll
give Brian Allen that collision of the game. Shout out
to Premiere Automotive for sponsoring that little fun segment of
the podcast. You know, Jay and Nick are who they are.
They're great linebackers. They fill gaps. They showed several replays
during that game of like from the field the end

(30:26):
zone behind the Troy offense view and you can kind
of get the sense of what the Troy running backs
were seeing and they would just like pop into a
hole and then there's there's Jay Higgins face and you're like, Okay,
well we can't go there, so we have to go
somewhere else. And yeah, it was, you know, good game
by them. I don't know how I didn't personally. I
don't really personally watch the safeties much at all. But

(30:49):
I think Shulty had a good game. I think Xavier
had an okay game. I didn't. I think Deshaun Lee
he's getting a lot of a lot of quality reps
out there as well. At the other corner, right, so
or Jamari Jamury sorry Jamari heading obviously the one pick
six uh commentator Jinx on that, by the way, I

(31:11):
don't know if you saw that clip, you didn't know.
So they're setting up for that play and the the
broadcaster goes, you know, they're they're doing some okay things
on offense. Here he hasn't thrown an interception yet. They're
they got to figure out how to run the ball.
But they've thrown some good passes, they're trying to work
it in and he throws it back. He's gonna take

(31:32):
this one back.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, So I was that would have been a cocktail
hour of the wedding. So I was watching it on
mute at that point. Ah, but that's funny.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
A lot of weddings this year.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Unfortunately that was the last one. No more weddings this year.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
That's good. I'm happy for you. Uh. So you know
big plays, big plays. Can't give up big plays, because yeah,
we don't.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
If we don't give up two or more big plays,
we win ninety the time.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
That twenty two point cover is real easy. We just
don't give up big plays.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Just one of them, just one of them, any one
of those four plays. If we get that first down
on their fifteen yard nine, yep, if we don't give
up pump returning touchdown, we don't give up either of
those two long passes for a touchdown, we probably cover
this fricking thing.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
We went oerver four on those big plays, and uh.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Don't get the cover.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
And I guess you know.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
So sometimes you make the right play and just doesn't
turn out. And sometimes you make the wrong play and
you get lucky when you're gambling.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
But I was gonna say, I was gonna I was
gonna play Devil's advocate advocate here and say, well, who's
to say Minnesota doesn't find a way to hit big
plays or like what you know, like these other teams
aren't just gonna like stop trying to hit big plays
on us, right, keV? Of course not, But what's the
focus if you're.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Playing fundamental defense? Big plays are a result of defensive air,
in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Not the offense, just like usually just like actively making it.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Unless you just have an avatar out there at wide
receiver who you can chuck the ball up.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Sure, say five hundred, chuck it.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Up there and let him go up and get it
every single time. Then yeah, sure that guy deserves those
big plays, but sure.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Most of it.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
If you're giving up passes over over twenty yards and
runs over fifteen yards, it's usually a result of defensive air.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
It's the old we beat ourselves, they.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Didn't beat us kind of thing they took advantage of
when we give him an opportunity.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
Sure, sure makes sense. Let's talk punt return. First of all,
I like Kate on our side of things, I like
Weachin back there. I think he's a great option. He
got a little too cute on the one that he fumbled,
and we got very lucky on we got a little
too cute. He tried to like kind of pluck it

(33:56):
out of the air as it was hanging off of
a bounce to try and like know, maybe if he
can make the first move, he can get around somebody.
We got to be careful. I like his aggressiveness. We
got to be careful.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
It's kind of been like the the theme of the
Returners ever since. Uh, basically since meerkat No.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Not so much meerkat No, I'm saying since after him,
Oh since appened. Yeah, Meerkat let about everything go. He
just like fair Cotter pretty much let everything covershead.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
We didn't. We didn't have anybody like like Cooper. We
had we had Does for a couple of years. Does early. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Uh, but yeah, been very aggressive back there on the
Punk return team since like twenty eighteen.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
It feels like and it pays off. It has a
lot of times.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, I don't think we've had nothing comes to mind,
if anything going.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
M maybe maybe I think we fumbled one.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
And twenty nineteen twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeh, I think there's one in there somewhere, but I
don't think it was crazy important. And you know, if
you play with fire, some times you are gonna it's
gonna burn you a little bit. So I like what
we're doing there. I understand that's that's kind of chalked
up in the fans' mind. Here is like, Okay, those
are like little specch teams blunders that you don't usually see.
Those are things that will also get fixed, or to

(35:16):
be honest, it quite literally could be a thing of like, okay,
we're into Big ten play, we're four, we're another game in.
We're just a little bit more into the groove of things.
We're not gonna take a dumb chance here and do
something stupid. Now, there was a I don't know if
this was Friday morning or Friday or Saturday. I think
it was maybe game day morning. They tweeted out some

(35:37):
stat account tweeted out that restake In was averaging thirty
nine point nine a game off of fourteen punts. He
had down six of those fourteen inside the twenty. It
was just kind of like a It wasn't like they
were trying to make a statement or anything. They were
just stating kind of what he had done so far
through two games. I quote tweeted that and said, has

(36:01):
to be better than this only ranks ninety first nationally
after two weeks. I see a lot of improvement coming
in this area of the game, pretty simple, like something
I can provide a little perspective on as far as
like you know what we're looking at average wise there
and my personal thoughts on if it's going to get
better or not, which I think it very very much

(36:22):
so will starting with this game, heet averaged forty nine
in this game. That's ten yards more. That's an entire
first down more. That makes a difference, huge difference, right, Okay,
I don't know how in tune you are with the numbers, keV,
but thirty nine not good? Thirty nine? Is this? The
reason I bring this up is because evidently this tweet

(36:44):
came off harsh to a lot of the followers that
I have. Basically every response I got, which it wasn't
like one hundred people responded, but there's probably ten responses,
and like almost all of them were, hey, give him
a break, he's just a freshman. Did Tory Taylor do
this good as a freshman. Did you know like he's
he's Several people were like all of his punts have

(37:05):
been great. Man, give him a break. You know, he's new,
he's figuring it out. And it may never have been
more obvious that people don't know what they're talking about.
And I don't want to make it sound like people
are stupid. And I know a lot of people get
they they don't like the way that I come across
because a lot of times I make it seem that way.
But on the listen to me on this one thing

(37:27):
that I do know, which is special teams averages and
what we need out of our punter. Thirty nine yards
is about what Rafstetter averaged. And I have nothing against Raftetter,
great friend when we were there in Iowa City. Loved
hanging out with the dude every day. Nothing wrong with

(37:48):
him as a human, great dude. But what I just
said that name, take stock of what you of, what
your opinion of him as a punter was. Okay, he
averaged thirty thirty eight and a half thirty nine yards.
I think thirty nine again after two weeks, ranked ninety
first nationally out of one thirty and Kevin might be

(38:13):
able to go out and average thirty nine. I'm not
kidding now. We don't need him to average forty nine
or Tory Taylor's you know, career average, which I think
is somewhere around like forty seven or forty eight. We
don't need that. And I understand there's like there's a
small margin here in the punning game, but we need
forty two, right, we need forty three. And his average

(38:36):
after three games with this good game on Saturday is
now up to forty two and a half or something
like that. We would take that, by the way. To
answer the questions of people wondering if Tory Taylor did
that good as a freshman, he answers, yes, he ranked
twenty sixth after his freshman year and averaged forty six yards.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Do they do they ever, like get more granular with
punting stats like cause if you're doing a lot of
plus fifty punts, that's probably gonna I always average.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Yep, I always. You know you're you're hitting on something
that I've wish they would do for a long long time.
I don't know how you how you do it, though,
because where do you draw the line right? Like I
have no idea. It's I get what you're saying. There
could just be a punter who's really good, and when
he gets his opportunities, he hits it forty five fifty yards,

(39:25):
but the team just happens to punt in the plus
fifty a bunch, so he has to kind of chipshot
it for thirty eight forty one for eighty percent of
his punts, and that just brings down his average. I
don't know how you reconcile that other than you just
sort of hope that across twelve thirteen games, the average
of how any long times out. Yeah, you just it

(39:45):
just averages out, and you know that everyone's going to
have to hit some short ones here here and again.
But yeah, if guys didn't have to worry about touchbacks
and they never had to plus fifty punt, I think
the average would probably go up like three to five yards,
you know, Yeah, but it would go up. It would
probably go up three to five yards for most everybody.
So it's just an even game. Rees had a good

(40:09):
game the other day. He had one bad punt. He
had two really bad punts. One of them one of
them was the returned for a touchdown. And I didn't
go back and look at how far we kicked that.
I don't think distance was the issue. In fact, sometimes
when we kick it the correct distance with the incorrect hangtime,

(40:31):
that is what creates problems. That's bad news bearers. Kevin
and I have both been on a punt coverage team
for a lot of reps. And when that thing doesn't
hang in the air very long and you're still twenty
five yards away, when you see that guy starting to
raise his arms and catch the ball, like ah fuck,
you realize there's a lot of distance between a much

(40:54):
better athlete and you and distance he still got some
guy your hip too. You're still trying to get off
a block most of the time. Yeah, So what happened there?
And I did go back and time it was Reese
hit a three point three three point three seven hangtime. Okay,
Generally in punting, you're gonna equate yeah, four three, you're

(41:20):
gonna equate the hangtime with the distance. So if we're
trying to hit a forty five yard punt, we'd like
it to hang for about four point five seconds. Forty
six yard punt four point six somewhere around there. Tory
Guys like Tory you're talking fifty yard punts. Five second
hang three three seven isn't enough. You can run over

(41:43):
ten yards if you don't have anybody uh in your
face or blocking you in. If you're already running, you
can run over ten yards in a second. So the
difference between three three seven and four three seven is
a big issue and reason why this was returned. If

(42:04):
you go back and roll it and you stop it
when he catches that punt, a lot of space and
that's space, there's and there's a lot. A lot of
that is because of the hangtime, not all of it,
not all of it. Yep.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
The gunners got washed down. They didn't get very good releases.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
We had a right formation called both gunners on the
right side of the formation. Both gunners released inside and
got washed in. And what happens when that when when
those guys get washed is one of those guys has
to fight outside. They have to fight back out to
create a contain. Didn't happen. The core guys who are

(42:44):
in the core of the formation also didn't have didn't
keep their lane integrity. Their net was very very very thin.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yeah, you're going to have from the core guys. The
snapper is going to be head up on the returner. Yep,
you have two guys five yards on either side of
the returner, and then you're gonna have two guys ten yards.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Either side of the returner.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, and then you slowly bring that in as you
get closer to the ball, you can bring your your
net in.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
We had like on the to the field side of
where he caught it. We had like two guys like
basically right on top of each other. Then not take
good angles and yeah, he was off to the races.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
And then you add in the fact that he's got
elite speed and he's a great athlete.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah, so almost what you might call a mental lope.
It's like not being detailed about what you're doing in
that very rep.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
You know they're running hard. Effort was fine, a physical
effort was there, but mental effort being keyed in on
your objective and how you're gonna go about this rep
was poor spacing. And this this was the whole issue
that Coach Wallace brought to us back when we overhauled
the punt thing. Was like we worked on punt net

(44:05):
and where you're supposed to be when that guy catches
the ball. What it's supposed to look like we would
look at film reps from the from the eye and
the sky from behind, and it looks like a flying v.
It looks like the birds in the sky. You got
a it's an arrow tip and it spreads out and uh,
you pull that tape from Saturday and there's no there
is no net there. There wasn't a net. So a

(44:27):
lot of things went wrong. Punt wasn't high enough too,
it came down too fast. There's a couple a couple
lapses in judgment from the gunners who got real excited
when they got an open inside release. The cor didn't
do their job exactly. I don't know where the shields
slash Reese was on the back end. I didn't.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, but you know those guys got to make tackles
on that guy in the open field, yet he had issues.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
You're not expecting them by any means to absolutely come
up with the play there. So it all things bad,
all things bad. They're going to work on the punt
net this week, let's just put it that way. And
it's fourteen ten and a half. Then there you go.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, So I was texting my one of my buddies
who had bet on Iowa too, because I was like,
this is my favorite game of the day and it's
ten to seven, and he's like, I was dead to me,
Like I'm like, you know what, they're moving the ball.
I think I still like them to cover this game. Yeah,
Like two minutes later they returned the point.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
I'm like, I'm sorry, never mind, he said the cover.
They almost still did cover the damn near did. So
you know, there's there's the punt an elongated description of
what went wrong there. I'd bet I'd bet a lot
of money that they don't encounter at least the spacing

(45:49):
problem again this year. Now, Reese might kick a ball here.
And on the other side of things, I understand people
sentiment on off of my tweet of like, hey, he's new,
he's a freshman, let him get warmed up. And I'm
not saying he's a Tory Taylor. Tory did, however, kick
in the top twenty percent of punters his freshman year.
Granted he didn't have to deal with crowds. It was

(46:11):
the COVID year.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Tory terror Uh probably ruined.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Punting for us. Tory Taylor probably did ruin punting for
all of Iowa. Because we're not going to find someone
like him. He's like a kind of a generational guy.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah, how often you get fourth round draft picks at punter.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
US there's usually like two or three guys drafted every year,
and it's usually in rounds five, six, seven. So for
Torigo in the fourth round is it's pretty rare, Pretty rare, Yeah, nonetheless,
And I understand that from the fans perspective, you can,
you can take this. But from a former player's perspective,

(46:47):
the other team don't care if he's a freshman. In fact,
they love it. Vegas don't care. Vegas doesn't care.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
They only care that we won by seventeen.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
The guys who are blocking on the punt return don't care.
It's he's in the game. We got to have his best, right,
And I know that's there.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
There's always a saying like for for a freshmen who
got who're you know, either got the opportunity player earlier
or because of injury or something that we're playing like
as a true freshman's you're in the army now.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yeah, you're old. Time to grow up, yep, it doesn't
matter how old you are. Yeah, And I think the
good thing here is that I've seen clips of Reese
punt and we've seen in game already several reps of
what his potential is. Kids got a big leg. He
hits the ball pretty consistently turnover, which has you know,

(47:39):
sometimes been an issue. He's just got to settle in
and find a little bit of consistency. It's that's all
he has to do. He's gonna be fine. I like
now after three games has average much better. But he
was one factor, one variable of the problem the other
day on that specific punt, and that's just hey, we

(47:59):
get to learn. We get to learn.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Would you expect averages to go down actually throughout the
year because it's going to.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Get colder, Yes, sir, Yes, sir. That is a huge
issue in the Midwest slash Northeast, slash north anything basically above.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
The Mason Dixon.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Yeah. Yeah, the uh you know, we've talked about it before.
The balls the balls get hard. You heard it here. First,
the compression does not work the same. Physics does not
end up working the same in much colder temperatures. Tory Actually,
this is another reason why Tory was so great, is
because the style with which Tory punted that end over end,

(48:39):
he could that that is much more conducive if you
can hit it that way than hitting the spiral punts,
And so even when it got colder, it didn't affect
his tory's punt as much. But you will usually see
the Ray Guy winners come from San Jose State, San Diego, Utah,

(48:59):
somewhere up in the Mouth Mountains where the elevation factors
in you get like an extra five or ten yards
per kick. Texas, Florida, somewhere south where you just are
never going to have to deal with snow. It's never
going to get below fifty degrees and like that ball
is always cushy and just pops off the foot. So yeah,
I would like to see over the next couple weeks
Reese continue to average forty two forty three, push up

(49:22):
upwards towards that forty five range, and then just try
and hold onto that forty five range as long as
he can into the winter because it will drop. You
hope that maybe with his with him being fresh and
learning and getting into the groove of being a punter
in college football as a young kid, it might counterbalance

(49:43):
the weather decline in average and it could just sort
of even out and he can just settle in at
forty three ish. Can't be thirty nine though, can't be
thirty nine. Let's finish this podcast with a few other
just quick notes that I put down. We talk about
kJ being a star. He's he's so good. I don't

(50:04):
want to run him into the ground. He has taken
a huge workload these first three weeks, and I don't
know if we want to beat him up with twenty
five plus carries a game and rely on him for
one hundred and fifty yards per game. But it's great
that he can do it like he is capable. We
were about to enter a big ten slate that you know,

(50:24):
things get just one step more real.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
I mean that brings up another point that's a really
positive look through three games into the year, is we're healthy.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Health is great.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Healthy is incredibly important, so important. You got if you
got your starters who started the year playing all year,
that's such an advantage because that's it's a very rare thing.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
And at the end of the year you've got that's
several points on a spread. To be honest, Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, because injuries happened, and there's other teams that are
getting banged up. Wisconsin just lost their quarterback.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
You know, the guy's going down all over the place.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah, to be completely healthy through three games, that's that's
quite the blessing. Another reason to be optimistic moving forward.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
And I love that, Kevin. I love that you're finding
the optimistic reasons here because you know, maybe that's what
we're used for. Sometimes it's all doom and gloom. There's
a lot of inconsistency, a lot of lot of Hey,
I was trying to find themselves here. They're trying to
search for their identity. Eh, we're going to clean it up.
We're going to clean it up. I understand. It's it's
it's time. It's time to put up or shut up,

(51:32):
because we got Minnesota fifty fourth into a offense thirty
two points per game, four undred and twenty yards per game.
You know, good stat line from kid the other day.
He did miss a wide open Lache. I understand. I
saw the screenshot. I saw the freeze frame. Freeze frames
make things look easier than they are in the field
when you're not elevated and able to see everything. I understand, though,

(51:55):
could have had an easy touchdown to Luke Lache. I
think Luke Lache mentioning his name is one of the
big issues I'd like to bring up on the offensive side.
I don't hate what we're doing offensively. I do find
it a little bit weird and quirky that we decide
to give Brendan Sullivan reps in a like, hey, you're
our first and goal guy. Like, but hey, don't they

(52:19):
if they have to account for him being mobile? And
that opens up a lane for Caleb to run in
a touchdown because they're worried about something else. Or he
can do a little fake handoff and run out and
throw it to throw it to was it a stranga
for the touchdown or I don't know even know who
scored the touchdown, but hey, we'll take it. We'll take it.
I think we might have something there with Sullivan. I think,

(52:40):
you know, everyone at this point is like, hey, we
need Brendan Sullivan in the game. I think he's a
great option to have. I wouldn't even hate if we
use a two quarterback system like that where we where
we use him down in the red zone.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Just give me a pass option down there. It makes
it a lot harder to defend.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
So yeah, and and people are gonna. Well, if it
makes it harder to defend there, why don't we use
him everywhere? I understand, but the coaches. Coaches see what
they see. These guys are in the positions they are
for a reason. I love that Jazz comes in for
the first reps of the year at the end of
the game and gets really good, valuable reps and shows

(53:20):
why he is also a really good running back. Guy
runs hard, guy wants the ball in his hands, He's
bringing the thunder, gets himself like a thirty seven yard
touchdown run. I mean, come on now, love to see
him come in and get great reps. I think we
need to target Caleb Brown more. I think we need

(53:41):
to target Luke Liche more. I think we need to
target Cayden weechin Moore.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Well, here's the thing. You just pulled out five names
out of a hat. And who's who you're taking those
touches from. You're taking them out of out of Caleb
Johnson's hands.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
You know, it's like, I so great, great, you know
great question to that theory. I think when we're not
able to run the ball for three hundred yards on
a team that's maybe a little bit more formidable, on
run defense, and we need to be a little bit
more balanced run pass. I think that automatically creates a

(54:17):
few extra opportunities on the receiving end. Kyleb ends up
not having twenty five plus carries. He maybe is twenty,
so there's five extra passing plays. I think we've targeted
a Stranga more than Leche, which I find a little
bit backwards. I just think Lache has that potential. But hey,
if a stringer is going to get it done, I'm

(54:37):
okay with that. I just think. And then Weichen got
his first catch of the game the other day. He's
only really seen action, you know, with the ball in
his hands on punt and kick returns, and he made
a great like thirty three yard catch or something like that,
made a great play coming across the field. So just
guys that I'd like to, you know, I'd like to
have weapons involved, and I think those guys are weapons now.

(54:59):
I will say Jacob Gill's been a great surprise. He
transferred over with Brand and Sullivan from Northwestern. He's already
been our he's our number one receiver, and he's proved
that he's sure handed, he can run routes, he can
get open. So I love what he's given us, and
and that sort of brings me around to the final point.
And I don't. I don't. This is what I'm the

(55:19):
most confused about. And I don't know if you can
tell me, keV. But we're running the ball for great yardage,
we have a leading rusher in the country. Why do
I feel like our line sometimes isn't good and then
sometimes they are good? Are they up and down? Are
they I'm confused. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, is

(55:42):
it just are they really hot and cold? Or am
I just dumb? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
I feel like we've been getting a lot of big runs,
which we haven't had in years past. Yeah, and that's
probably that's obviously bringing our average up. Sure, you know,
getting some great blocking schemes on those runs. Yeah, Like
there's there's a lot of like you still see like
a lot of penetration in the backfield every now and then,
or it's just a guy like one of the old

(56:08):
linements turned around because his guy just got right past
on them.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
I mean, yes, keV, Like on Saturday you saw several
just completely miss.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
Yeah, And it's confusing, honestly, So.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
I part of me feels like I watch him. I mean,
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna shy away from it.
In our in our group chat, and you know, we've
said some more critiquing. We said some things in a
harsher tone, and I'm not gonna let on those. I'm
sure everybody has, but there's been several times where people
in our group chat will be like, these guys are
soft as shit, and then and then I came back

(56:44):
the other day at the end of the game and
I was like, but wait, we just ran the ball
like really good. And also like sometimes they're absolutely road
grading people. So I'm not really sure how to judge
these guys. I think the best way for me to
say it without any real technical analysis behind it, is
like we have to find a little bit more of
an even keel consistency on the line.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
Yeah, I think it's more so, And I could be
off base here, but when these guys get their hands
on their guys, they generally do a pretty good job.
But sometimes they just get beat off the first step,
and that's when we get in trouble.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
That seems to check out with what I've seen on
several occasions. Is it fair to say they're better run
blockers than they are pass blockers or is it just
again it's just kind of hot and cold sometimes.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
I feel like pass blocking has been solid so far
this year.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
We haven't given up but one sack all year through
three games. I mean, I think we're okay too. Like
I know this, we don't go downfield a lot with
our passes. We're not you know, we're not running fifteen
twenty twenty five yard routes. I think our average yards
per attempt is like, you know, like eight yards or something.

(57:59):
It's it's not crazy. So that helps with timing in
the backfield and like those guys not having to protect
for six seconds. But I don't know that. The offensive
line is a little bit of a conundrum to me
right now.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Yeah, and it's a hard position to play too. Every
I bet every offensive line.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
That we play against. Uh yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Her fans are like, oh man, a freaking offerensive line.
It's like, you're probably right, it's a hard position. It's
a hard position group to coach.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Definitely not saying it's easy, but yeah, consistency can obviously
get better, and I think that's you know, something you're
gonna be able to say with every position, So you
know that's where we leave it. Yeah, I think as
a fan, if you're if you're sitting there confused, if
you're sitting there feeling like this was a weird game.
Am I supposed to be pissed because it didn't feel good?

(58:53):
Sometimes feelings and reality aren't the same. The reality is
is Kate had a great game. We are we have
the leading rusher in the country. Sure we were down
at halftime, but we really controlled the second half. And
we're two and one, and you know, I don't know
you have any other stuff.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
The stuff that went wrong can easily get fixed.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Can easily be fixed. And maybe maybe that makes people
feel a little uneasy because some people on the outside
maybe don't understand how to fix things, so they feel
like maybe they can't be fixed. Maybe it's a little
easier for us to feel down to earth. But I
don't know any of their final thoughts as we head
into a fight for the pig this week.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Bacon every morning this week.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
If you're a Hawkeye fan and you're not eating bacon
every you're not doing your part. If you're not throwing
bacon on the grinnel every morning, this week. That's it.
Podcasts will be way better when Grant comes back. Otherwise,
Kevin and I just sit here and have a conversation
like we used to at Betton Street, and you people

(59:58):
choose to listen. So Grant will be back this week,
probably tomorrow for the Patreon podcasts, and then further than that,
obviously we've got the whole lineup of shows this week.
I Colton, I will be there on Wednesday preview show
on Thursday for the Floyd of Rosedale Trophy, and then
the five ten five show with Coach Justin Leem on Friday.
We'll catch you in all those time slots as always,

(01:00:19):
Thanks for being here. I'll talk to you then. Hey,
thanks for listening to the show. If you want more,
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(01:00:41):
We'll see you next time. Hawks buy a million