The Detroit Free Press published a list of salaries and Iowa ranks 5th out of 10 teams.  Northwestern and Penn State are not required to publish this information as Northwestern is private and Penn State’s state laws support it.

Iowa pays its assistants $2,318,052 million, or about $150,000 more than a year ago when they also ranked 5th in the league.  Ohio State ranks #1 in the league at $3,41 million.  Here is how the ten rank this year with last year’s ranking and totals in parenthesis, via The Free Press.

Iowa pays its coordinators the same amount; $325,000.  So does Wisconsin, but that amount is $480,000

Michigan’s Defensive Coordinator Greg Mattison is the top paid assistant in the league, earning $750,000 per year to lead the Wolverines defense.  Michigan Offensive Coordinator Al Borges is #3 on that list at $600,000, tied with Ohio State Associate Head Coach Luke Fickell.

This begs the annual question:  What exactly does Brady Hoke do, other than take shots at ‘Ohio’ and embody the stuffy and stodgy Michigan stereotype of years gone by?  I realize Michigan fans want this but they are paying a lot of money for a cheerleader.

Nebraska is paying its offensive coordinator Tim Beck $700,000.  He had some other offers last year and he got paid because of it. Here is another question; they have Taylor Martinez at quarterback…they don’t have another guy like that in the program, so after this year, what kind of offense doe the Huskers run and is it worth paying $700,000 to the coordinator for?  I don’t see any magic in the system, other than the individual plays T-Magic can make.

Here is what Iowa pays its coaches:

THE LINKS FOR 5/21

Should college football have 2 signing periods? | Hawk Central
Hawkeyes looking for second rowing coach in 10 months | Hawk Central
Horse Latitudes #8 — Iowa is the Cubs | TheGazette
Iowa basketball programs boast two Parade All-Americans | Hawk Central
Iowa hoops boasts All-American | TheGazette
Iowa men can stand tall with a beefed-up basketball schedule | Hawk Central
Editor’s Corner: Recruits have right to keep options open | Hawk Central
Hawkmania football & basketball blog » Blog Archive » Strength of schedule
Hawkeyes take mature approach to turning around 4-8 season : Hawkmania.com: Iowa Hawkeyes coverage from the Quad-City Times
Iowa coaches divided about need for divisional play in Big Ten : Hawkmania.com: Iowa Hawkeyes coverage from the Quad-City Times
100-days checklist: Big Ten – Big Ten Blog – ESPN
Jim Delany still No. 2 in commissioner pay – Big Ten Blog – ESPN
B1G assistant coach salaries on the rise – Big Ten Blog – ESPN

The post Hawkeyes Middle of the Salary Pack appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.

FETUS-HEAD FERENTZ? No, I am not lobbing unflattering names at Iowa’s head coach. I am quoting Kirk himself from this great Des Moines Register interview where Bryce Miller asked Ferentz if he had any nicknames in high school. Fetus-head Ferentz was one of them, or at least the one Kirk shared. If there was a worse one, he didn’t share it and quite frankly, I suspect there was NOT a worse nickname than that. Most of us have had nicknames we haven’t cared about or were ambivalent to, but that is what a nickname is. The two I had growing up in West Branch were Popper (as in the Johnny Popper John Deere tractor) and Walton (as in I used to love to watch The Waltons in the summer on TBS, before we went outside and started playing). I’d take those over Fetus-head Ferentz any day of the week.

Oh yeah, that entire article was a good read and reminded me of why I have always loved reading Sunday newspapers. The features have always been the things I have enjoyed the most about newspapers and what we see so little of in today’s climate. I was entertained.

JOK AN ALL AMERICAN: Iowa hoops signee Peter Jok made the 2013 Parade All American team. Parade has been doing this for a long time; 57 years to be exact. It’s a nice honor for Jok and I am excited to see him in the black and gold next year. I don’t know if Parade has certain standards or limits per college choice, etc, but there has to be something when Julius Randle doesn’t make the team. He would be a Top 10 draft choice this year and is projected as one in next year’s draft, which is much deeper.

If you scroll down the page, you will also see that Iowa City West’s Ally Disterhoft made the girls All American team. She will be joining Lisa Bluder’s Iowa squad next year.

TOUGH SLATE: I have written about Iowa’s much improved and much tougher basketball schedule a few times over the course of the last week. Rick Brown of The Register interviewed Fran McCaffery about that topic and the story was posted online over the weekend. This, from the item and McCaffery:

“You have to gradually upgrade the program, upgrade the schedule. Those kids came here wanting to be challenged with a schedule. Here it is. Let’s go play it.”

I love that Fran is confident. He has been since arriving on campus and at times he can sound too confident or he gets too high on a player. But we’ve come to expect that now so you just have to dial back your expectations based on Franspeak.

There is no Franspeak with this schedule; it’s tough and has a chance to be one of the Top 25 in the sport next year. Brown points out that Iowa could plays as many as 16 teams listed on Joe Lunardi’s most recent Bracketology list, which at this point is nothing more than a glorified and repacked preseason ranking. Iowa is a six seed so that puts them around 21-24 in the ‘eyes’ of Lunardi’s algorithms.

LAST CALL, CLONES: Scott Dochterman of The Gazette reported on Friday that Iowa has sent its final charity check to Iowa State. Well, Scott didn’t call it charity; that was me.

This is the last payment in a deal Bob Bowlsby did with ISU several years back, where Iowa basically gave more money to Iowa State for playing the football series, so there would be an equal distribution of the revenue. I don’t remember why Bob did that, so I can’t say with certainty that it was a bad idea. I think ISU just needed the money (insert a bad Andrew Dice Clay joke in here). At any rate, I am glad it’s over.

The post ICYMI Monday appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.

Iowa’s Big Ten schedule includes one home game in the first five conference weekends, and concludes with three November home games.

The Hawkeyes open the Big Ten slate with a divisional contest at Purdue on Sept. 27, before their first bye week Oct. 4. The Hawkeyes open their Big Ten home schedule against Indiana on Oct. 11, and visit College Park, Md., for their first-ever meeting against Maryland on Oct. 18. Iowa finishes its October schedule with its second bye week on Oct. 25.

Iowa’s five November games are all division matchups, beginning with Northwestern on Nov. 1 in Iowa City. The Hawkeyes then play back-to-back road games at Minnesota (Nov. 8) and Illinois (Nov. 15). Iowa’s visit to Champaign represents the first game against the Illini since 2008. Iowa concludes the regular season with consecutive home trophy games against Wisconsin (Nov. 22) and Nebraska (Nov. 28).

The 2014 conference season begins on Sept. 13 with Rutgers making its Big Ten debut by hosting fellow East Division member Penn State. Maryland will take part in its first Big Ten game two weeks later on Sept. 27 with an East Division matchup at Indiana.

From Sept. 27 to Nov. 29, the 2014 Big Ten schedule will feature 10 consecutive weekends of Big Ten competition, boasting at least five conference games each week. All 14 teams will be in action during the final two weekends of Big Ten play, including six division games each weekend. The winners of each division will meet in the 2014 Big Ten Football Championship Game, scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 6, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

Beginning in 2014, the Big Ten football division alignments will feature Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State and Rutgers in the East Division, and Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin in the West Division. Each school will play the other six schools in its division plus two teams from the other division in 2014 and 2015, which will serve as transitional years in which the schools will still be playing eight-game schedules. Beginning in 2016, each school will play three teams from the other division as part of its nine-game schedule. The cross-division games will include one protected matchup on an annual basis between Indiana and Purdue.

Before Big Ten action starts on Sept. 27, Iowa will play four nonconference games, including three-straight home games to open the 2014 campaign. The Hawkeyes host Northern Iowa (Aug. 30), Ball State (Sept. 6), and Iowa State (Sept. 13) in the Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series, before traveling to Pittsburgh (Sept. 20) for its lone nonleague road contest.

2014 Iowa Football Schedule

Aug. 30 Northern Iowa
Sept. 6 Ball State
Sept. 13 Iowa State
Sept. 20 at Pittsburgh
Sept. 27 at Purdue *
Oct. 4 BYE
Oct. 11 Indiana
Oct. 18 at Maryland
Oct 25. BYE
Nov. 1 Northwestern *
Nov. 8 at Minnesota *
Nov. 15 at Illinois *
Nov. 22 Wisconsin *
Nov. 28 Nebraska *

* denotes divisional games

Jon’s Take: The Indiana and Maryland assignments seem ‘seeded’ to me or as Marc Morehouse put it, ‘parity baesd’. Sort of like in the NFL…the better you do the tougher your schedule will be the next year, or in this case it would be the inverse of that. There’s nothing that can be done about last year’s 4-8 now other than to get better and this schedule will certainly help Iowa stand a chance to do that.

Iowa gets Iowa State at home and will avoid playing Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State or Penn State entirely. One would assume the same Big Ten teams will be on Iowa’s schedule in 2015, just flip the venue. Then starting in 2016, the league will go to a nine game slate and Iowa will start out by playing five road games and four home games.

I believe Iowa’s defensive line is going to be stout in 2014 and they should also have a solid offensive line and hopefully a quarterback who is starting his second year in a row. The receiving corps should be more veteran and there will be defensive backs with experience. The 2014 outlook was already brighter than what I see for 2013 and this schedule makes shine a bit brighter. We have to see how the 2013 season plays out before I would feel comfortable putting down a WAG at a record, but this schedule is about as good as it can get for Iowa.

The post Hawkeyes 2014 Big Ten Schedule Released appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.

I should’t say ‘worthless’ as it provides an entertainment value, but it’s not exactly a great barometer….which makes Joe Lunardi’s May 15th bracket much less valuable but still entertaining, considering Iowa is listed as a six-seed.  Iowa hasn’t been ‘projected’ this high since…wait for it…2006.  Pretty much everything you can bring up that was once good about Iowa basketball last happened in 2006…well, that was the case before this season.

When you look at brackets or bracket projections, you can also get a feel for what someone (or the computer) thinks of a team.  With Iowa as a six-seed, that equates to a ranking beteween 21 and 24.  A five seed, times four equals 20.  So a six seed times four equals 24…so the six seeds rank in that 21-24 range.  ESPN’s Chad Ford has Iowa 25th, so that settles in nicely.

Other Big Ten teams listed:

#1: Michigan State: I think this will be one of their best teams since the Flintstones
#3: Ohio State and Michigan
#4: Wisconsin: One of these years they aren’t going to make it
#5: Indiana: This feels like a reach to me
#6: Iowa
#12: Illinois: Definite reach. I don’t see them making this tournament

Illinois was in their last four in while Minnesota was one of the ‘Next Four Out’ and I don’t think they’ll be there come next March.

In looking at teams Iowa plays on this list, there are the two games each against Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois and one game at Indiana. Also on Iowa’s schedule is a home game v #5 seed Notre Dame and at #12 seed Iowa State. Iowa is in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament, as are #2 seed Kansas and #10 seed Tennessee. As I said yesterday, this is a challenging schedule.

Staying in hoops, there was this tweet from Iowa assistant coach Sherman Dillard on Wednesday:

Congrats to our own Devyn Marble and Aaron White for being selected to try out for the 2013 USA Basketball World University Games. So cool!

— Sherman Dillard (@shermandillard) May 15, 2013

Mike Hlas wrote that the last Hawkeye to be a part of this team was Greg Brunner in the summer of 2005…which of course was the summer leading into the 2005-2006 season, don’t ya know.

The Miami Dolphins picked up WR Marvin McNutt off waivers from the Philadelphia Eagles. McNutt will be reunited with former Iowa offensive coordinator Ken O’Keefe who is the receivers coach for the Dolphins. McNutt still has a tough road ahead, so perhaps he should rent and not buy just yet.

Marc Morehouse of The Gazette has a nice write up on the future of the Big Ten’s bowl lineup. The entire item is worth a read and here were some of the key takeaways:

-Bowls will have five a minimum of different teams in six year
-Big Ten will assign some teams to bowls, or give bowls choice of a few specific teams. The SEC has been placing their teams in bowl games for years, creating the best match ups. The Big Ten is going to start doing some of that.
-You can’t play in the same state for a bowl game three years in a row, unless the Rose is involved
-The Music City is back in play (alternating with Gator) and the Holiday Bowl may be as well.

Again, it’s a great read so give it a click…..as is this, from ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg, who lays out the 16 bowl destination possibilities for the 14 Big Ten teams starting in 2014. Yes, 16 options, 14 teams.

The post ICYMI: Bracketology in May Likes Hawkeyes appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.

First off, guard Pat Ingram is leaving the program. I wrote about that here and gave a few thoughts and opinions. I wouldn’t wager that there would be another transfer as I thought Ingram the most likely to leave given the depth chart for next year and the likelihood that Iowa was not going to redshirt him and tie up the ride for another year. I am looking forward to seeing what Kyle Meyer can do when the lights come on. He’ll be in the same scholarship class as Peter Jok, with Adam Woodbury, Mike Gesell, Anthony Clemmons and Jarrod Uthoff as sophomores. Iowa now has one scholarship to use this spring/summer if it wants to (namely if it can find a shooter, preferably a player who will be in his 5th year and could transfer in and only occupy the ride for one year but those don’t grow on trees). I suspect Iowa will bank that ride and that’s not a bad thing considering the lack of minutes for next year anyway. Speaking of those 5th year transfer possibilities, Rob Howe from HawkeyeInsider.com has some names.

Later on Tuesday we learned that Iowa’s ‘one plays’ for the upcoming basketball season would be at Indiana and Penn State and home against Purdue and Nebraska. We knew Iowa would be playing Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State two times each. I wrote that Iowa would have one of the toughest schedules in the Big Ten and the BTN’s Brent Yarnia agreed, saying Iowa’s was the toughest.

Here are the single plays around the league, courtesy of BTN.com:

Illinois: Michigan, Purdue, at Northwestern, at Minnesota
Indiana: Ohio State, Iowa, at Purdue, at Minnesota
Iowa: Purdue, Nebraska, at Penn State, at Indiana
Michigan: Northwestern, Penn State, at Ohio State, at Illinois
Michigan State: Nebraska, Minnesota, at Purdue, at Wisconsin
Minnesota: Indiana, Illinois, at Michigan State, at Nebraska
Nebraska: Wisconsin, Minnesota, at Iowa, at Michigan State
Northwestern: Illinois, Penn State, at Ohio State, at Michigan
Ohio State: Michigan, Northwestern, at Wisconsin, at Indiana
Penn State: Iowa, Wisconsin, at Michigan, at Northwestern
Purdue: Indiana, Michigan State, at Illinois, at Iowa
Wisconsin: Ohio State, Michigan State, at Penn State, at Nebraska

Yarnia believes Wisconsin has the best draw this year and that is certainly debatable. That’s perfect for them as I think this will be one of their more challenged teams. Purdue has a pretty good draw, too. Iowa had the ‘easiest’ Big Ten slate one year ago and it may have the toughest this year.

The Hawkeyes strength of schedule on the whole may have gotten a huge boost on Tuesday when the nation’s top high school basketball player chose to play for Kansas. His name is Andrew Wiggins and he is the best player to come out of high school since Lebron James. He’d be the #1 NBA pick this year if he could enter the draft and is rated the #1 pick for next year’s draft, which is a much deeper draft. How does this relate to Iowa? The Hawkeyes and Jayhawks are in the Battle 4 Atlantis with six other teams. Everyone is guaranteed three games so there is a chance they will meet up. As I wrote earlier on Tuesday, if Iowa meets KU in this event the Hawkeyes will have seven games against ESPN’s Jason King’s preseason Top 10. That’s real strong. No RPI concerns there. Then again, winning enough games to qualify for the tourney won’t be a given, either.

Over to football where Marc Morehouse and Scott Dochterman were at the Big Ten’s Spring Meetings…they penned several items that are good reads…here is a list then some thoughts:

Iowa Faces Narrow Parameters for Non-League Foes
Iowa and Illinois Looking Forward to Renewing Football Series
Source: B1G to Send 3rd Pick to Holiday Bowl

The league looking to add the Holiday Bowl is a great thing, in my opinion. Iowa has played in that bowl and San Diego is a fantastic place to visit any time of the year. The Pinstripe Bowl in New York sounds like it will happen with a Big Ten connection. I am not excited about that one, but then again I have never been to New York. I also have no desire to ever go to New York so as would be the case with the Sugar Bowl and New Orleans, the only time I’d consider it is if Iowa plays there in a bowl game.

Lastly, I love the picture that Clem Messerli took for us that is at the top of this item. I still feel the same way about Ted Valentine.

The post B1G Tuesday appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.

Here are those teams and number of games:

#3 Michigan State (2)
#5 Kansas
#8 Ohio State (2)
#10 Michigan (2)

Scott Dochterman of The Gazette tweeted on Tuesday that Iowa’s single plays in the Big Ten for this coming season will be at Penn State and Indiana and home against Purdue and Nebraska.

That means home and home series against Wisconsin, who will probably be a preseason Top 25 team. Iowa will also play a home and home against Minnesota, but the Gophers will be down this coming year from where they were a year ago due to the losses of Williams and Mbakwe on the inside.

Getting Purdue at home is a good break for Iowa as they may be challenging for an NCAA bid this coming year. Iowa will also play Northwestern and Illinois in a home and home series this coming year and both of those teams are being pegged for near the bottom of the league, although Iowa has just a couple of wins at Illinois since 1987.

You will be hard pressed to find a team who plays a tougher Big Ten schedule than Iowa will play next year. This is after Iowa played the ‘easiest’ Big Ten schedule in 2013-2014.

Iowa could be 10-8 or 9-9 in the Big Ten next year and be a much better team than they were this past season, given the strength of that schedule.

We know one thing right now; Iowa will not miss the NCAA tournament next year due to a low RPI. If they matched their 20-11 record from 2012-2013, they will be dancing.

The post Hawkeyes To Play Hard Hoops Schedule appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — University of Iowa head men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery announced today that guard Patrick Ingram (6-foot-2, 211 pounds) has asked for and has been granted his release from his scholarship to transfer to another school.

“Patrick is a tremendous person who was an integral part of our program last season,” said McCaffery. “Patrick indicated that he wants to be closer to home and we have granted his request. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”

The native of Indianapolis averaged six minutes, 0.9 points and 0.6 rebounds in 19 games off the bench as a freshman last season.

Iowa will return 11 letterwinners from a team that went 25-13 and earned NIT runner-up honors, while also adding redshirt freshman forward Kyle Meyer, sophomore swingman Jarrod Uthoff and freshman guard Peter Jok.

(end of release)

I don’t know that this is a shock to anyone in the Hawkeye Nation. Ingram had to stay back home in Indiana last summer to finish up some work, so he missed out on the Prime Time League and establishing that chemistry with his teammates. However the most significant aspect there is that he didn’t arrive in Iowa City in the kind of shape that his teammates were in given their involvement with the program last summer. Add to that the NCAA’s new rule that allowed coaches more time in the out of season with their players and Ingram came in behind the eight-ball.

While he showed some flashes in limited minutes last year, when the Big Ten season rolled around he rarely played and only then due to Devyn Marble’s ‘slump/injury’ or if players were in foul trouble. When you sat down and projected the backcourt minutes for 2013-2014, with Devyn Marble getting at least 32 and Mike Gessell with at least 25 if not closer to 30, we’re talking 20 to 25 minutes to cut up between Josh Oglesby, Peter Jok and possibly even some for Zach McCabe and Jarrod Uthoff who can swing out and play some three offensively.

This coming year, the minutes were not going to be there. Ingram knew that and felt that he needed to go play somewhere else. This is the sort of thing that happens to solid programs; players leave because of lack of playing time. This is much different than the three or four year stretch that saw Iowa’s best player transfer out of the program…from Tony Freeman, Jake Kelly, Jeff Peterson, Tyler Smith, Aaron Fuller and David Palmer who showed a lot of promise..they all left for reasons different than Ingram.

The post Ingram Leaving Hawkeyes Program appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.

ICYMI is internet acronym speak for ‘In Case You Missed It’.  There are Hawkeye related items you might have missed from over the weekend and we’ll try to put them all together each Monday.

ODDS:  BetOnline.com has released their odds for the Big Ten Legends and Leaders West and East

EAST
Ohio State -750
Wisconsin +400
Purdue +1200
Illinois +1300
Indiana +1700

WEST
Michigan State +200
Nebraska +200
Michigan +250
Northwestern +400
Iowa +600
Minnesota +900

I am not a better so I am not certain as to exactly what those numbers represent, but I do know the lower the number, the more they like your team. Ohio State is the only team where if you wanted to wager on them, a $10 bet would yield less than $10 (I think). Also per the link, Michigan State is the favorite in the West from BetOnline.com. I find that a bit interesting as they have some retooling to do, but then I took a look at their conference schedule which includes games against Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue and Indiana. They host Michigan then travel to Nebraska and Northwestern while avoiding Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin. This is a pretty good slate.

As it stands for Iowa, you say ‘Hey, at least they are not picking the Hawkeyes last.’ It’s going to be an ‘off the radar’ year, not under it.

WE’RE BACK: This has been a saying on the message boards the last several months as it relates to the Iowa basketball program. It actually dates back to when Adam Woodbury verbally committed to Iowa in September of 2011. One of the our board users posted ‘You Guys are Back’ as the subject line for a post, saying he was on the train riding to work when an Illini fan friend of his learned of the Woodbury get and said ‘You guys are back’.

Since then, we have seen ‘We’re Back’ posts on the board once a week or so during the basketball season and it’s become a bit of a running gag. However, someone over in the University of Iowa athletic department put together a nice photoshop of the past hoops season and underneath, it’s titled ‘We’re Back’. That may become the marketing slogan for this coming season. It would be a bold step for sure, but my guess is Fran McCaffery would green light something along those lines and embrace it.

This team isn’t going to sneak up on anyone next year. Iowa was 2-7 in games decided by four-points or less, and all seven of those losses came in Big Ten play. Two were against Michigan State, one each against Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Purdue and Nebraska. Of those six teams, the first four made the NCAA tournament and one of the losses to MSU was a Ted Valentine special. Iowa returns all its players save Eric May and this team may be ranked to start the year. Go with it.

TOP 10 UNDER FRY: Pat Harty follows up his column last week about his Top Ten Ferentz era players with his top 10 Hayden Fry players. I just saw the headline and am linking it here but want to add my own comments before I read it since I began following Iowa football in 1981 as a ten year old so I recall all of the great Fry era players. If I were to make a list, my Top 10 would likely come from this list in no particular order:

Tim Dwight
Chuck Long
Ronnie Harmon
Larry Station
Andre Tippett
Marv Cook
Sedrick Shaw
Reggie Roby
Chuck Hartlieb
Jared Devries
Leroy Smith

I sort of stopped at 10 and then remembered Leroy Smith’s 1991 season where he recorded 18 sacks for a 10 win team. I stopped typing here and then I read Pat’s list and was a bit surprised to see that we had 9 of the 10 same names. He had Smith listed 11th on his list and had Dave Haight in his Top 10. What’s yours look like?

The post Hawkeyes ICYMI Monday appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.

Gary Barta was on College Football Live talking about the Big Ten’s ‘No FCS’ decision. It sounds as though Iowa may try to keep their scheduled games with UNI but won’t add anymore going forward. I don’t want to pick nits with Barta, but this quote seems worthy: “..they’ve (UNI) beaten many Big Ten programs…” Many? Going back 30 years, I wouldn’t even use the phrase ‘they’ve played many Big Ten programs.’ They played Wisconsin last year and have played Iowa several times. Then the next team from the Big Ten was Minnesota in 1987, which is 26 years ago, and they lost that one. I looked at their games back to the late 1960′s and stopped there. UNI is a great FCS program, but they haven’t beaten ‘many’ Big Ten teams. Any?

Kirk Ferentz had a simple message for his players: If you want to play night games, win more games. ““One thing about sports — if you win, good things come with it,” Ferentz said. “When you lose, it’s not so good. It’s simple. It’s a level playing field. Go win.” I am sure Kirk was talking to himself and the coaching staff, too and not just leveling last year’s poor results at the level of his players. While football is a lot about execution, it’s still some about choosing not to attack vertically downfield and trying to mesh what you have done on offense for 14 years with what your newly hired offensive coordinator has done for longer and having the results be one of the worst Iowa offenses in the modern era. If that doesn’t change (ie if Greg Davis isn’t given the keys to the good car, not the grocery getter), then Iowa not being on in prime time is probably a good thing.

The Links

Iowa’s new football facility remains on schedule | TheGazette
Bet the farm on more State Farm Centers | TheGazette
Playing for UI in Uthoff
Horse Latitudes #3 – How’s Big Ten recruiting? | TheGazette

The post Three Hawkeye Things for May 10th appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.

He pegged ND at Iowa as the 6th best game in the challenge, and he also has Notre Dame 18th in his early preseason poll. He doesn’t rank Iowa and he is on a very short list of writers who have left Iowa out of their early season rankings, at least among the group of writers I have seen. That would also go for ESPN’s Andy Katz, but ESPN’s Jason King has them at 25th. In case you missed this from earlier this spring, here is a running list I have of writers and rankings.

Here are the games:

Tuesday, Dec. 3
Florida State at Minnesota
Illinois at Georgia Tech
Indiana at Syracuse
Michigan at Duke
Notre Dame at Iowa
Penn State at Pittsburgh

Wednesday, Dec. 4
Boston College at Purdue
Maryland at Ohio State
Miami at Nebraska
North Carolina at Michigan State
Northwestern at NC State
Wisconsin at Virginia

Doesn’t it seem like Duke has a home game in this event every year? How many true road games has Duke played in the B1G/ACC challenge? Ahh, but I digress. Here are some of my thoughts, having only read what Goodman had to say about ND v Iowa.

Michigan v Duke and North Carolina v Michigan State are two great games of possible final four caliber. Indiana at Syracuse won’t include as many great players as their NCAA tournament game. Penn State at Pitt could be sneaky good for the Nits if Tim Frazier can be back to 100 percent.

Right now, I would pick the Big Ten to be 5-7 in this year’s event. There is one big swing game here and that is FSU at Minnesota. If Andrew Wiggins chooses FSU, then the Seminoles win that one. If he doesn’t, I might be convinced to pick the Gophers. Wiggins is the best recruit in the nation and the player who might have been the #1 pick in this year’s NBA draft if high school kids could still go straight to the pros.

Here are the games I am aware of that will comprise much of Iowa’s non-conference slate:

v Drake (at Wells Fargo)
at Iowa State
Three games against this field: Kansas, Tennessee, Xavier, UTEP, USC, Villanova and Wake Forest
v Notre Dame

That will yield a much better out of conference RPI number than we saw last year.

The post Hawkeyes Out of Conference Hoops Slate Taking Shape appeared first on Hawkeye Nation.