TJ Hall EXCLUSIVE interview | Iowa Football's roster stability | Week 194 - Brada's Branded Thoughts

Intro some major kudos due to kirk ferentz and his staff for being able to retain his roster basically his entire roster through that early may transfer portal deadline more on that in a couple of minutes plus an exclusive interview with iowa defensive back tj hall hall and early enrollee already making his presence felt in iowa city we'll talk with him and don patterson coming up after this word from our local sponsor you may have heard of the real life hawkeye man cave known as kinnick Under the Kitchen under the kitchen well after lots of hard work there's not much space left to paint but the walls are exploding out for public consumption under the kitchen is proud to announce that you can now purchase exclusive prints of some of your favorite hawkeye legends including wrestling great spencer lee football players tyler goodson riley moss and drew tate plus an all-in-one murray family legacy print featuring keegan chris and kenyon murray himself signed and unsigned prints are available making the perfect collectible or gift for any hawkeye enthusiast for more information on purchasing one of these outstanding hawkeye prints visit under the kitchen on facebook that's under the kitchen on facebook so appreciate randy ingle and under the kitchen for hopping on to sponsor this podcast this show check out under the kitchen on facebook uh he is doing tremendous work randy doing tremendous work down in central iowa mitchellville just south east of us all right so the topic for today transfer portal we've been talking about it for months i've been very critical of kirk ferentz for not targeting more skill position players specifically at quarterback um i've had people say well it was never going to happen i don't know why you talked about it in the first place a fan can hope and that's what i am i'm a fan of iowa football and i look at a guy like gary bohannon who by the way is in the portal right now and is the last starting power five quarterback from 2021 to still be available all right emery jones just got nabbed by arizona state i know nil played a factor and certainly nil is a topic we'll continue to encounter but a guy gary bohannon can make an impact but here's the deal that's a topic for another day i want to discuss something that was brought to my attention by mike pharrell over at rivals and he of course follows the transfer portal even closer than i do that is his job exclusively recruiting and transfer portal stuff and he brought this to my attention i'll throw this tweet up for you Iowa and Baylor this is a tweet from mike pharrell this week speaking about the lowest entries or the teams with the lowest number of entries into the transfer portal he says as i recently mentioned iowa and baylor have had the lowest number of fbs scholarship players enter the portal since 8-1 that's august 1st with 5 that's august 1st of 21. equally impressive is that if walk-ons are added to the total they still have the least in the fbs iowa leading the fbs with just six baylor was seven oregon state with eight so quite a quite a record there quite a number i should say um certainly it would lend itself to to tell you that there's some sustainability some culture strength within this program regardless of what happened in 2020 and i'm not downplaying some of the allegations that are still out there and certainly this lawsuit i do believe that there unfortunately may be some ulterior motive with this lawsuit but i'm not downplaying the actual allegations of some injustice that was going on whether it be from brian ferenz chris doyle seth wallace whoever whomever um but i do think those numbers are indicative of a strong culture right now like it or not regardless of my criticism about iowa not going to the portal to quarterback that's gotten that's that is a different point altogether now here's another tweet from mike that i found interesting he says dug into the previous two years of stats for iowa and baylor to see if this year's numbers are a trend or Transfer numbers abnormality and here are the numbers so 2122 season iowa with just five scholarship players entering the portal 2021 iowa with just eight 1920 iowa with just six keep in mind that was before yes before the allegations came out in the summer of 2020 just six players entering the portal from iowa now we know we'd have to compare that to the the sum of the parts right we'd have to compare that to the sample size because the sample has changed right the logistics of college football and transfer portal have changed over the last year over the last couple of years but the point is iowa has not had a mass exodus of players at any point over the last three years you see the numbers from iowa and baylor 19 players over the course of those three periods from 19 to 22 2019 to 2022 iowa and baylor each with just 19 transfer portal entries and look at maryland it's 27 portal entries this season alone 27 that's what over a quarter of their roster that's uh insane that's like a third of their roster so look here's the deal Kirk Ferentz uh kirk farrens deserves credit for this because i can't speak to what happened behind closed doors what continues to happen all we really have to go off of is what the players say now and what these numbers say and the numbers tell us that players are not itching to leave all right now there have been some players here and there that i think you know unless they go on the record and and say one way or the other we'll never know but mark hallenberger leaving early was a bit odd uh given the fact that his brother especially given the fact that his brother had a run-in with seth wallace his brother jack kallenberger it was accusatory of of seth wallace for kind of making fun of him being a dyslexic young man and that that's unfortunate there have been situations like that i kind of questioned why didn't kyler shot and take an extra year here you know he didn't get drafted he's up in green bay now trying to to fight for a roster spot but regardless of those decisions um the bottom line is for the most part i was doing an excellent job better than almost every school in the country at sustaining a roster and let's also give credit to the position coaches um because we're going to talk about a few players here in a second that could easily have left by now and if you don't already know the may 1st deadline if you wanted to be immediately eligible if you wanted to be part of that immediate eligibility that one time waiver for a player that enters the portal to be eligible for the 22 fall season you had to enter the portal by may 1st or you need a waiver you need an extra wave this is not an automatic anymore so players that enter from now on if they want to play this fall they'll need an exemption they'll need a waiver from the instability so i did expect players to enter players multiple but i certainly expected one or two uh by early may we did not get that and i give kirk ferentz i'd give phil parker kelvin bell um a lot of credit on these decisions because all these guys george barnett's another one i mean he's got some guys that could easily have entered and they didn't so those coaching coaching staff deserves tons of credit i can't be dogmatic about we can't be dogmatic about the culture but certainly regardless of criticism and i think some of it's very much okay but i think you're right you have a right to be critical of some facets of iowa football right now this is something that kirk ferentz deserves major credit and kudos for so i just want to say that first of all let's talk about some of the players that decided to stay at least for now they've decided to stay we know it's been widely publicized alex padilla um he has made it clear that he's here um we thought maybe he would consider leaving after spring no sign of that happening but how about these three guys tyler indras a four-star recruit from norwalk why am i bringing up tyler well if you don't recall he was recruited by some major programs iowa wisconsin minnesota iowa state again a four-star recruit he redshirted in 19 then didn't play in 2020 red took another base basically a red shirt year in 2020 and then in 2021 did not see game action now don't know if he's dealing with injuries but certainly offensive line hasn't been um the best it's ever been certainly they've been struggling at times right um and yet tyler andrus has not seen the field so you wonder a kid like this perhaps he's thinking hey maybe i could go somewhere where there's greener pastures i have a better opportunity at playing time he has stuck it out i give tyler tons of credit how about chris reams another guy who has seen some game action but i mean did not see time in 2019 as he redshirted got hurt in 2020 during that coved year saw very limited snaps in 21 now he was not as highly touted at a high school as a guy like tyler andrus but you know he looks apart at six seven 270 from van meter and has decided to stay at least for now give tons of credit to him and how about this one he's gonna be number one on my list i've talked about this young man before dallas creative and i don't know him personally i'd love to have a conversation with dallas um here's a kid who was a four-star kid out of high school all right i'll give you some of the schools that offer dallas according to rivals i'll just read them duke illinois indiana iowa state kansas state kentucky louisville memphis michigan state minnesota ole miss missouri nebraska north carolina northwestern purdue syracuse vanderbilt western michigan wisconsin and how about an offer from yale he's a good student apparently he has stuck it out and dallas again he's a four-star recruit he's been here since 18 he redshirts in 18. he sees a little bit of action in in 19 and 20. um helps in special teams you know into 21 but he's been here for over four years now and he's not or approximately four years i should say he has not really established himself on defense and yet he stuck it out um i i don't blame any kid for leaving if you think that it's in your best interest the ncaa allows you to do that i just don't you know coaches can leave when they want i don't love the portal how it's set up but i do think you need to take advantage of it as a coach and as a player so i wouldn't have blamed a guy like dallas created for leaving had he chosen to do so but i also really respect him i respect reams and i respect indras and padilla for that matter for sticking it out don patterson said something very interesting during our season finale show over at the voice of college football back in january if you're not going to be first stringer just be the best darn second teamer or the best darn third teamer that you can be and a lot of kids these days don't have that mindset i give those three kids and everybody who stuck it out a lot of credit the coaches deserve credit and certainly the players deserve credit for attitude and again think it's a testament to culture we'll wait and see i know the lawsuit is still ongoing and whatnot i know it's a story line but uh things looking up and despite the fact that kirk has not gone to the portal very much during the off season just one ad that was steven and he has lost a few guys to the portal nobody besides tyrone tracy nobody that that really saw extensive action last year i give kirk ferentz a lot of credit for retaining this roster and keeping it in place we know iowa basketball is still looking for a big man in the portal they've lost out on theo akuba on fardaz amac who will they get will they get somebody i certainly think they will that's a topic for another day but don't lose hope folks they will get somebody at that five spot convinced of that i do believe that joshua gundelay is going to take a significant step forwards all right and i think it's clear because i don't see any reason why fran would take the guy back if he's entering the portal and he says he wants to leave um you're already playing on it's clear that i was still recruiting big men in the portal you've got seven foot riley mulvey back for his second year you've got owen freeman who's six foot ten six eleven coming in and 23. i don't see any reason for fran to take josh back unless they believe that he's going to take a big jump and i think i mean this will likely be the key year i mean if he doesn't this year that i don't you know he may enter the portal again next year and i guarantee you if he does that he's not coming back i do believe we're going to see a jump from josh now how big of a jump we don't know but he does have some good traits he's got a nice little post-up game i know he's you know his touch has been a problem i've heard people complain about that but he hasn't seen the floor much right but he's physical he can play defense and he seems to have some nice post moves so let's just wait and see on joshua gundale but they will get somebody else in the portal mark my words on that all right let's talk to tj hall tj tremendous young man you're going to hear that in this interview but i sat down with coach don patterson and tj hall to discuss his decision tj's decision to come to iowa and his goals moving forward don patterson was instrumental in getting tj to come here if you don't know the story on tj his dad terence played for coach don patterson when don was the head coach at western illinois terence a star wide receiver iowa recruits tj out of the san joaquin valley down in california don patterson very instrumental in getting him up here so without further ado let's give our attention to an up-and-comer who really made his impact known this spring here's tj hall TJ Hall i gotta i gotta ask you a couple questions tj so i'm gonna do this a little differently i've got a few questions that i like to ask incoming iowa recruits but specifically you and i i want to talk first of all about your your high school experience you haven't had time to really adjust to the climate but i know fresno's a lot different than iowa city so first of all what's your what's been your experience i'm assuming you grew up in fresno yeah so uh for the most part google fresno moved away uh but pretty much been there my whole life um the transition coming from fresno iowa is definitely uh different you know where i'm from it doesn't really snow like that you have to drive it by the hour or two and uh stepping off the plane seeing all the snow feeling the weather it was definitely different but it's nothing i can't handle um i just from back home usually it's very hot even in uh december it was hot uh always sweating but coming to iowa you know i know god won't put me nothing put me through anything i can't handle so i know i'll be just fine tj let me share with you what i used to tell i used to recruit texas years ago when i was at iowa and of course we had such a great program nobody could ever say anything bad about the football program the only thing that the texas schools would say is it's going to be really cold up there in the wintertime so i finally figured out a good response for him when i was talking to a texas recruit and in your case a guy i got in the san joaquin valley i could say the same thing to him i might say listen you can't fool me because i grew up in texas what's the season for extreme weather in texas it's called summer and i said i know what the summers are like they're brutal yeah for that matter a football game in september is not any fun either because it's also high heat and humidity in september yes sir and so in the summertime what do you do well you dress appropriately and you don't spend all kinds of extra time outside yeah try to stay cool and stay indoors as best you can yes sir and the reason i bring it up that way to these recruits in texas and then i simply respond okay our season for extreme weather in the midwest is the winter so what do we do in the winter the same thing you do in the summer we dress appropriately and we don't spend any extra time outside yeah yes sir and oh by the way as you already know as you already know tj falls in the midwest are second to none for football perfect weather for football in september october and if you're lucky even into november you've got great weather yeah and uh of course you're used to some brutal weather especially in the month of september in california yes sir and it's like i came to my official the penn state game it was october it was like perfect yeah ideal weather for football and the rest of the story of course the worst 30 days of the year you're not even on campus anyway you're home for christmas break and that's after you go to the bowl game and of course the bowl sights are mostly warm too yes all right so i got to ask you don talked about your dad terence and his experience experience at western but i i know kirk ferentz even talked about how how big of a role coach p played in your recruitment it's not often iowa goes out to california yeah he's able to land a kid that was wanted by the likes of arizona washington michigan etc so what sold you on iowa and how just talk about terence is what your dad has told you about uh coach patterson man he's told me a lot um one starting with coach patterson how he came from the hayden frye tree and uh that's a long line and then just iowa you know there's a lot of tradition here the culture um this is the iowa's the only uh football team here and i just love how the fans they're all in they're bought in and every game is sold out no matter what and then the the coaching stability knowing the coaches will be here they won't be going either to another place or having another coach every every couple years and then just uh meeting with coach parker and hearing him and hearing what the knowledge he has for the game and then hearing how here they just are hard workers they compete every play and that's pretty much the type of player i am i'm always competing always working hard Strengths now tj are you are you about 175 right now or is this a little bit low a little bit low you could go up about four or five pounds also the height too i'm six two you're six two okay because i saw one one side had you at six foot one had you at six two so i figured i'd split the difference on that so you are a lengthy corner and i know i'm gonna do this a little differently normally don i wouldn't have you on here when i interview an iowa recruit but given the special circumstances i'm going to ask you this question what are tj hall's strengths well tj i don't think you'll mind me talking about this a couple of years ago your dad your dad texted me and he said coach me i got a favor to ask and i said sure what is it and he said would you do me a favor and take a look at tj's video from his sophomore season and i want you to do me a favor and give us some ideas about things tj should work on and as you recall tj i did that and i reported back to your dad and i i'm sure that information got through to you yes sir and it wasn't anything that we need to share with them with the listeners but it's safe to say um you know we were able to think of some things maybe where you have some room for improvement and of course i know you took those to heart and that's one reason you still made rapid improvement even from your sophomore to your junior and now your senior year and the uh one of the greatest compliments i could give you tj i recruited a guy years ago from texas to play at iowa and he played corn and he played it really really well and he was taller than the average corner just like you are yes sir and his name was burton hanks yeah he was a great player and a great person and he had a chance to to turn down the university of texas to go to iowa his mom always said fred acres could not understand why a top recruit in texas would go to iowa rather than go to the university of texas yeah and i guess the reason is simply you know he felt a great sense of family at iowa and uh he also knew that bill brazier was a great defensive coordinator now you've got phil barker in that role for you uh by the way there was one other thing i said to a recruit from texas and and it's something you alluded to a minute ago tj you mentioned uh how big a deal it is to play for iowa and it's primarily because we don't have an nfl team in the state of iowa yeah so as i explained to the guys from texas years ago we are the dallas cowboys of iowa and at the time the cowboys were they were america's team and they knew what i was talking about it must be a big deal to play for iowa because if you're a little kid growing up in iowa you hope to someday be wearing black and gold yeah and uh and i know that's what a great thing for you to look forward to is to feel uh feel very special to wear that uniform and to have so many people behind you the entire state of iowa is behind you yes it's a lot looking forward to a coach with tj being lengthy i mean he's he's a i'm assuming you're probably going to end up playing corner at iowa right am i right on saying that tj i mean things can always change i get that but don i know you were never a defensive coordinator but what does length do when you're a corner typically you have a guy like desmond king for instance who's 510 maybe 511 probably that's generous so what will tj's length be able to uh help him on as far as defensive play there were times when we were going against corners that could cover except they simply weren't very tall and in some cases i might even tell the quarterback i don't care if the guy has good coverage or not go ahead and put it up because those 50 50 balls we're going to win those because this guy's simply not tall enough to compete against a taller receiver those 50 50 balls people are going to think long and hard about throwing those against you tj yes sir because i know you understand the high point of football yeah and i also know for a fact that you got really really good hands you had great hands yes and i know you proved yourself as a high school receiver just like you proved yourself as a defensive back yes sir yeah they they say they say a lot of dbs can't cash but i'm not one of those i know that and as you noticed iowa's defensive secretary in general has good hands great hands legitimately opportunities do we yeah no i wonder where you got those hands from t.j maybe mom i thought your mom had good hand-eye coordination too didn't she because she was an athlete too right yes sir mom was an athlete too whole fam was pretty much athletes mom was a softball player yep and when she was getting hand-eye coordination to hit a softball yeah she was at western she didn't play softball western though okay Defensive Backs so current defensive back room tj um just to name a few of course riley moss returning kayvon merriweather will be back obviously uh x is everybody's calling him xavier wampa but i mean conan traitor and then of course um or cohen and tringa and tringer man i have a hard time pronouncing his name already um and then of course orlando trader i can go down the list jamari harris are you close to anybody in that group yet yeah pretty much um a lot of them xavier he's my roommate um me him orlando and cohen uh we have a group chat uh i'm definitely looking forward to getting closer with riley moss came on mary weather uh terry roberts he was my uh my host when i was a recruit so i'm pretty close to him but i'm just looking forward to getting even closer with everybody if there's anybody that's going to teach tj don about working hard to earn Earning Playing Time playing time it's a guy like terry roberts who has busted his butt on social teams for what three four years now don very true and you know the nice thing about our scheme is you're well aware tj our basic um defensive structure is five defensive backs right yes sir the cash position i read something in the paper just the other day there's some discussion about about our experienced corner moving to that cash position maybe he's better suited to be that inside defender that's typically lining up over a slot uh maybe maybe riley could be better suited to play there and maybe that's uh gives him a chance to project even better for the nfl than he already does yeah so my point is it's not unusual to find three cornerback types out there playing the two-third playing corner and the guy playing cash you got additional opportunities to earn playing time just because we played pretty much almost all the time with the nickel nickel personnel grouping yeah yes sir yeah i'm looking forward to earning my spot working hard for all of it well it won't come easy you know nothing nothing worthwhile ever does come easy yes sir but it's there to be had and i just always remind the guys uh just focus on trying to be a little bit better tomorrow than what you were today yeah if you just make that little inch by inch improvement you're going to end up as a great player it's all there to be had and i'm looking forward to watching you get that done and i'm looking forward to having you over as a as a meal guest at our house sometimes we're not breaking any ncaa rules if i invite you over infrequently yes sir maybe all the time but it will be some of the time that's for sure yes sir definitely thank you coach i really appreciate it all right i couldn't be prouder and i'm also very proud of your parents because i know that both your mom and dad have done a great job of raising all your children yes sir definitely Weaknesses i've got uh just a couple more questions for you tj and we'll let you slide i know you probably got some other things on your mind but um first of all we talked about your strengths and again your length stands out on tape but but what are your weaknesses i want to ask you this question what what do you still perceive i know you've worked on things but what do you still perceive as weaknesses that you are planning on really focusing on this spring oh man weaknesses [Music] uh probably i'll say weight um definitely could put on some more weight uh that's just from working out or metabolism always going but i'll say that um jeez really i feel like i feel like i don't really have any weaknesses i feel like i have a lot of strengths but obviously i can always improve on everything but as far as i don't think that i don't think confidence is the weakness of tj's don i think he's got plenty of confidence that's important you got to believe in yourself you know you got to understand i'll say it this way tj guys that are afraid to play the game they're at a disadvantage you know you gotta embrace the competition and you gotta have a you gotta have you've heard it said great cornerbacks have a short memory they don't remember if they're if they're beaten they don't let it dwell dwell on them you know they they put it behind them they learn from it uh and they tend to forget about it as quickly as as possible that's there's never been a corner out there that hadn't been beaten the time or two yes sir the trick of course is not to let it happen very often that's for sure yes sir definitely all right final thing tj goals and i'm not talking we can talk short-term goals maybe you got a a goal of helping somebody or doing something for the children's hospital those are great but also personal goals making it maybe to the next level what are your your goals even after football you can go short term or long term um short term uh first i'll just start with with class um get the best grades i can in my class at least at least 3.0 and above um then on the field just stay healthy get bigger stronger faster get to know the playbook fast get to know everything quickly so i can give myself the best opportunity to get on the field and then i'll say long-term goals or actually you say it's short-term or long-term as far as the team i say definitely want to get back to the big ten championship and win that with the team and then long term um get to the nfl absolutely i think those are pretty good goals don't you think don those are lofty goals but they're all achievable yes sir they're all achievable and you've got the coaches to to get you there i think don you'd agree with that absolutely i tweeted out today i think phil parker is the most underrated defensive coordinator in the country and i think there's no question the most underrated defensive backs coach in the country i mean there's just no no question in my mind about that all right don anything else to to send tj off i know you'll see him soon but anything to to send him off with well let me let me ask you to do this corey if you will be sure that tj knows how to explain to his parents how to pull up this podcast because i'd like for your mom and dad to have a chance to observe you here on this particular interview yes sir definitely i'll send you the link uh as soon as we're off tj appreciate you jumping on with us this evening and uh hopefully we'll get to talk in a couple years about uh those goals you set out for us definitely thank you for having me on i appreciate it tj i look forward to seeing you soon coach i look forward to seeing you too appreciate you too coach you can tell just a great head on his shoulders tj going to make an impact and the length at six foot one six foot two um sort of like a julius sprints now brent's had his bright moments struggle eventually went to kansas state um and had had a decent career down there but i think tj's going to make an impact and we actually there was a little bit more hype around tj this spring than there was even xavier wampa now i know they play different positions but we know that iowa has struggled at times staying healthy at cornerback we know riley moss terry roberts jamari harris have all had their problems from an injury standpoint jeremiah harris is going to probably miss that first game due to his recent owi there's an opportunity for a guy like tj hall or a brandon diaz fernandez or a desean lee who will be a freshman or a orlando trader high hopes for that young man he would previously been committed to washington and arizona he's a steel and iowa doesn't typically get a lot of kids athletic defensive backs from the west coast so congratulations to tj being here and making an impact early this spring congratulations to kirk ferentz and the iowa football coaching staff a reminder to please visit under the kitchen on facebook for authentic hawkeye art and of course subscribe to this channel please hit the like button on this video it certainly helps me helps the channel to grow we'll talk to you soon