Iowa and Big Ten Media Days are almost here
The unofficial start of the 2010 Iowa Hawkeyes football season is set to kickoff this week with a pair of media events.
On Monday, head coach Kirk Ferentz, quarterback Ricky Stanzi and defensive end Adrian Clayborn will meet media in Chicago as part of the annual Big Ten Conference meet-and-greet. Tuesday is more of the same, with the Big Ten Conference Kickoff Luncheon scheduled. Ferentz will begin speaking at approximately 1:45 p.m. on Monday.
The Big Ten Network will provide live coverage of all 11 Big Ten head coaches. Commissioner Jim Delany and Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne will also be on hand.
On Friday at 1:30 p.m., Ferentz and selected players will participate in the annual Iowa Football Media Day. A press conference will be held inside the Paul W. Brechler Press Box at Kinnick Stadium.
Former Hawks finalize NFL contracts in time for Camp
As the new NFL season gets under way, all of Iowa’s recently drafted players enter camp with a signed contract.
With the terms of Bryan Bulaga’s contract to play for the Green Bay Packers finalized, all six former Hawkeyes drafted in the 2010 NFL Draft have secured themselves a chance at the professional level. The black and gold will be well-represented on Sundays this Fall.
Bulaga was the first Hawkeye lineman selected in the first round since Robert Gallery in 2004. He signed a five-year contract for $14.75 million, with $8.76 million being guaranteed, and is expected to play backup for Green Bay’s starting left tackle Chad Clifton.
Pat Angerer, who was drafted with the No. 63 pick by the Indianapolis Colts, signed a four-year, $3.14 million deal that includes $1.35 million in guarantees. He is expected to serve as Gary Brackett's backup at middle linebacker.
Essential Hawkeyes needed for Iowa to win the Big Ten
Unforeseen factors often play a role in shaping how successful a college football team's season will be.
Injuries, rule violations, and other intangibles can throw a wrench in a team’s title hopes if there isn’t a proper plan in place. Since most teams don’t have the depth at positions like Ohio State, Florida, and Texas do, conditional response plans are needed should the unpredictable happen.
Being that those plans aren’t easy to construct, coaches are forced to look at harsh realities.
As awful as it sounds, some players are just more essential to a team’s success than others.
Even at Iowa, where the team philosophy is next man in and hard work is regularly rewarded with playing time, a few players are more vital to the team’s overall chances at a Big Ten or BCS title than others. It’s not that those players aren’t as talented or skilled, but more related to how much experience a player has or how far in their training program the player might be.
With the official start of the Iowa football season rapidly approaching, a few of the popular Iowa Hawkeye writers and bloggers put together their lists of indispensable players. Hawkeye Insider’s Rob Howe compiled a list of top 10 indispensable players for 2010 and Hawkeye Nation’s Jon Miller put together a most indispensable players ranking of his own.
Both Howe and Miller have covered Iowa sports for the better part of two decades. Howe is the Chip Brown of Hawkeye sports; Miller is the Colin Cowherd.
Worrying about the Hawkeye “Contingency”
The writers at the Cedar Rapids Gazette have been cranking out quality Hawkeye content lately. This time around, Marc Morehouse does a reader’s suggestion justice by taking an in-depth look at Iowa’s conditional response plan should the unpredictable happen at any position this season.
Mitigating the damage of potential problems is rarely fun to think about, but Morehouse does a good job of analyzing the possibilities available should any Hawkeye player suffer an injury before or during the season. Below are the options as he sees them, with links to his overall analysis at each position.
Worst Hawkeye Losses During the Ferentz Era
Losing is never easy for Iowa Hawkeye fans. Losing badly is even worse, and can be enough to send fans into a downward spiral of depression and gloom. We take our college football seriously in the Midwest.
Despite the obvious pain and torment involved, Mike Hlas of the Cedar Rapids Gazette recently set out to determine what the worst losses of the Kirk Ferentz era were. Although reading some of the game descriptions was like pouring salt on a gaping wound, the mini-series on the Hlog Blog was a reminder for Hawk fans not to let their expectations for the 2010 season get the better of them.
As Hlas explains, "what would good games be if they didn’t have bad games to help them stand out? And what would a picture of how far the Iowa program has come under Ferentz be without knowing that it was a process with bumps? Incomplete, that’s what."
In the series, Hlas lists the Iowa losses in chronological order and manages to list almost every painful memory a Hawkeye fan has had over the last ten years. In Ferentz's first year as head coach, Iowa went 1-11 and suffered a few brutal losses. Hlas has three of those games on his list.
Bryan Bulaga and Brandon Myers catch up on Twitter
While talking a break from doing client work, I noticed a conversation taking place on Twitter between two former Hawkeyes.
Bryan Bulaga (@BBulaga), who now plays for the Green Bay Packers, and Brandon Myers (@bmyers83), who now plays for the Oakland Raiders, were able to use social media as a watch to catch-up and make future plans.
Since I'm a self-admitted nerd, I thought I would capture the tweets into an image and share it.
DMR's Ten Iowa Hawkeye Storylines for 2010
The Des Moines Register's Andrew Logue recently wrote a series on his blog titled Ten Iowa Hawkeye Storylines for 2010. As part of that series, he tried to determine ten possible topics that could dominate the headlines for the Hawks this fall.
From the kicking game, to adding Nebraska into the conference mix, to power-ranking Stanzi among the all-time quarterbacks in Iowa's history, Louge's analysis stretches the whole spectrum of Iowa football. He does a great job of giving fans a preview of what they can expect to read about once the season gets underway.
The Top Ten games from the Kirk Ferentz Era
Not long ago, the writers at the Cedar Rapids Gazette set out on a task to determine the top games of Iowa during Kirk Ferentz tenure.
Marc Morehouse led the charge, and compiled not only his own list of games but a list of games as contributed by his readers. Fellow writers Mike Hlas and Scott Docterman also took part. Hawkeye Nation's Jon Miller followed, as did a handful of other aspiring bloggers.
The selections varied greatly. Morehouse, Hlas, Dochterman and Miller have all been covering Hawkeye sports for what combines to be well over 50 years, and all have different reasons for why some games are better than others.
In Morehouse's selections, it's clear he favors the close games. His No. 1 pick is the 6-4 win over Penn State in 2004, a classic Big Ten barn-burner. Most casual Hawk fans won't pick a defensive battle like this to be top of the list, but true fans understand the importance of this game.
Hlas favors the last second kick against Penn State in 2008. Dochterman favors the 2010 Orange Bowl championship. For most Hawkeye fans, the 2005 Capital One Bowl featuring Drew Tate's 60 yard, game-winning touchdown pass to Warren Holloway as time expired is the greatest game in the Ferentz era.
A Few Big Ten Coaches on Phil Steele's Hot Seat
Phil Steele has a habit of being right about college football coaches on the hot seat.
Steele is a sportswriter and football analyst that produces a widely-respected annual preseason magazine Phil Steele's College Football Preview . His magazine, full of statistics and information has been the most accurate preseason magazine for the last 11 years.
Along with his magazine, he publishes daily blog posts covering the entire spectrum of the gridiron.
In 2008, he started an annual Coaches on the Hot Seat list as part of his blog. Seven out of the 12 coaches on Steele's first Hot Seat lost their jobs.
Three of the remaining five names were on the hot seat again in 2009. All three were fired during or after the 2009 season, as were several others.
Being on Steele's hot seat list is not where a head coach wants to be.
Thirteen coaches made 2010's Hot Seat. Of those 13, four are coaches from the Big Ten Conference.
Michigan's Rich Rodriguez (No. 1), Illinois' Ron Zook (No. 2), Minnesota's Tim Brewster (No. 5) and Indiana's Bill Lynch (No. 8) all make an appearance on the list.
