Less than six months away

For one more year, the Big Ten will have four bowl games being played simultaneously for a couple hours on Jan. 1. The Heart of Dallas, Gator, Outback and Capital One.

This wasn’t a wise idea originally, and it remains unwise today. But that will probably change after the following season after the Big Ten has done its bowl shuffle.

The bowls start in less than six months. The good ones start in less than seven months.

All it takes are three things for Iowa’s football and/or men’s basketball team to make you rich in the next school year.

1. Bet a substantial amount on the Hawkeyes to be BCS or NCAA champions.

2. The Hawkeyes then win the national-championship.

3. Make your wager in Nevada, where it’s legal.

If Hawkeye football team goes 13-0, this could be yours

According to online site bovada.lv, you can get 250-1 odds on Iowa winning the 2013 BCS title. So if you bet a mere $10,000 on the Hawkeyes, and they go win it all, your return is $2,500,000. Good deal, right?

The odds aren’t so great in basketball, but you can still make a tidy profit off the Hawkeyes if they win the NCAA championship. The odds are 50-1. So you’re $10,000 wager will return $500,000.  To get really wealthy, you could take that half-million and put it on the United States to win the 2014 World Cup. Right now, the odds of that are 80-1.

Boom! You’ve won $40 million. Don’t forget to tip the person who suggested you pony up the 10 grand in the first place.

Some of Bovada’s 2013 BCS odds:

Alabama 3-1

Ohio State 13-2

Oregon 7-1

Texas A&M 15-2

Michigan 28-1

Notre Dame 28-1

Nebraska 50-1

Oklahoma 50-1

Wisconsin 66-1

Michigan State 100-1

Northwestern 150-1

Iowa 250-1

Six Iowa wins in the NCAA basketball tournament, and this could be yours

Some of Bovada’s NCAA basketball odds for next season:

Kentucky 15-4

Kansas 15-2

Louisville 9-1

Michigan State 12-1

Duke 16-1

North Carolina 16-1

Ohio State 18-1

Michigan 25-1

Indiana 33-1

UCLA 40-1

Wisconsin 50-1

Illinois 66-1

Iowa State 100-1

Purdue 100-1

Northwestern 500-1

Uh oh. One of the Hlog’s loyal tweeps sent a photo he took at Harrah’s in Las Vegas last month. I don’t know if these are still the odds, but you can get even richer betting on the Hawkeyes’ football team if they are:

Some of the greatest minds of our generation have claimed there are too many college football bowl games, or too many that are meaningless.

Rubbish! They clearly are magnificent. Why else would Little Rock, Ark., consider hosting one? 

Ford Field: Where December dreams could be forged

The NFL’s Detroit Lions want in on the bowl business, even though they are reportedly a professional football organization. ESPN.com’s ultra-connected Brett McMurphy tweeted Monday that the Lions were prepared to start a new bowl in 2014 that would eliminate Detroit’s Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, and would match a Big Ten team against an ACC club.

The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl’s contract is up at the end of the 2013 season. It currently is a Big Ten/Mid-American Conference matchup, though the Big Ten usually doesn’t have enough bowl-eligible teams to send one to Detroit. Central Michigan played Western Kentucky in the LCP Bowl last year. Big Ten teams have only appeared in the game three times.

Click here for today’s Detroit Free Press story on the matter.

It has long been a dream of mine to cover a bowl game in Detroit on the day after Christmas. Maybe the Lions can help make that come true.

In unrelated news, the Military Bowl is moving to Annapolis, Md. Plan accordingly.

Here is McMurphy’s story for ESPN.com on the Detroit bowl concept.

I’ll have a podcast with Iowa associate head wrestling coach Terry Brands posted later this afternoon. He, to no surprise, was a good guest.

Until then, here are a few observations from the weekend:

1. It’s great to have enough frequent-flier points for a free trip. Finding a time you want to go somewhere that is also a time when the airline will let you use them is the catch. It makes me understand “I’d rather be sailing” bumper stickers.

2. I watched some of the Billboard Music Awards Sunday night. It reminded me why I got satellite radio. Which was to listen to good music that you will never hear on the Billboard Music Awards.

3. The World Series of Poker’s Seniors Event (age 50-and-older) is June 14-16. The entry fee is $1,000. If someone or ones would like to stake me, I’ll play my heart out for you. I almost surely won’t cash (only 1 in 11 players do), but I’ll play my heart out. The reason I won’t pay it myself: It’s a thousand bucks!

4. Back to music. This closing sketch from Saturday Night Live two days ago has stayed with me. It’s about looking on the bright side of life. It’s Fred Armisen and Bill Hader’s final sketch with the show, in their immortal punk rock band, Ian Rubbish and the Bizzaros.

Brands has a long, continuing involvement with international wrestling. He talks about recent rule-changes FILA, wrestling’s international governing body, made to make the sport more appealing. He also discusses Hawkeye wrestling, and what the program needs to do to regain its spot from Penn State as No. 1 in the NCAA.

You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here and on Stitcher Radio by clicking here.

Webster County I-Club (Jay Christensen photo)

FORT DODGE — The I-Club annual spring banquet tour made a stop in Webster County Thursday night.

Here is audio from Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery.

Here is audio from Iowa assistant football coach Brian Ferentz.

Here is audio from Hawkeyes head wrestling coach Tom Brands.

“We’re going Star Trek!” Brands said. You’ll see what that means.

These clips are a little static-y in the beginning, but quickly get better. Turn your volume up. Much thanks to Jay Christensen for taking the time to record the audio and send it this way.

Whenever one of you good people out there has something you think would be of interest here (in any area) and are willing to share it, send it my way. The worst that can happen is I politely say no thanks. But it might be something that a lot of people get to see and enjoy.

CEDAR RAPIDS — Come a time in the not-so-distant future, people will brag about how they saw Byron Buxton play baseball in Cedar Rapids before he began tearing it up in the majors with the Minnesota Twins.

The Cedar Rapids Kernels have provided more good baseball in the first six weeks of this year’s Midwest League than many previous Kernels teams did over five months. It’s a team with prospects galore. But Buxton? Oh my.

A grand (slam) celebration (Mike Hlas photo)

Take Thursday night at Veterans Memorial Stadium. Buxton grounded an 0-2 pitch for a single in the first inning and then stole his 16th base of the season, but was retired on a routine fly ball and two bouncers after that.

His team seemed lethargic, failing to utilize scoring chances, and committing three errors in the first six innings. It looked reminiscent of the 2012 Kernels that went 53-86 instead of the team with the league’s best record this season.

Burlington led 6-3 going into the bottom of the ninth. Bees reliever Jairo Diaz hit a batter with a pitch, gave up a double, and hit another Kernel. It was a gift-wrapped opportunity, and Buxton came to bat with the bases loaded and one out.

“Bux obviously was paying attention,” Kernels manager Jake Mauer said. “He saw (Diaz) couldn’t throw a curveball for a strike.”

Buxton resisted Diaz’s first pitch to him, a two-seam fastball that was low for a ball. He then sent the next offering, a fastball over the plate, out of the park and into the night. Everyone in the stadium knew it was a game-winning grand slam the instant they heard the sound the ball made coming off the bat.

Buxton was swamped by celebrating teammates at home plate. Shortly afterward, he got the goofy baseball tradition of a pie tin filled with shaving cream rubbed in his face by a teammate as he did an interview on the field.

Popular items right now. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette-KCRG TV9)

The whole scene seemed like a moment out of “The Natural.” The 19-year-old seems to be just that.

The Twins didn’t make Buxton the second player taken in last June’s major league amateur draft and give him a $6 million signing bonus out of Appling County High School in little Baxley, Ga., because he was one-dimensional.

He is what is known in baseball as the five-tool player. They come around less frequently than walk-off grand slams. The tools are hitting for average, hitting for power, baserunning skills and speed, throwing ability, and fielding ability. Buxton, a center fielder, has all five. Tom Kelly, who managed two world-championship teams for the Twins, says Buxton is the fastest player he has ever seen.

Through Thursday, Buxton was first in the league in hits, walks and runs scored, third in batting average (. 343) and RBIs (32), tied for third in stolen bases, and tied for sixth in homers with six. All this in his first full season of pro ball.

“I love it with a passion,” he said. “I wouldn’t think it can get any better than this, just playing the game you love and it’s also your job.”

Buxton during an April game against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. (Liz Martin/The Gazette-KCRG)

Mauer may be the ideal manager for Buxton right now. His brother, Joe Mauer, was the No. 1 pick in the 2001 MLB draft and went on to become one of the game’s biggest stars as a Twin. Jake Mauer, on the other hand, spent five seasons in the minors and never hit a single homer. (He does joke that he led the Midwest League in hit-by-pitches in 2002.) So he can relate to a gifted player while still understanding what that player needs to learn about the everyday grind of the professional life.

“There’s no way to prepare for it other than doing it,” Mauer said. “A lot of these guys went through their first spring training this year. Denny Hocking, an old Twin, used to tell me the best way to get ready for spring training is just go stand in a hot field for six hours.

“These young guys are playing 140 games for the first time, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. That’s part of the process.”

Even phenoms aren’t phenomenal every night. Buxton had a mortal 11 hits in his previous 44 at-bats before his ninth-inning heroics Thursday. But when that table was set for that at-bat …

“It looked like he was ready for it,” Mauer said. “He expected it. He hit it a ton. A no-doubter.

“He’s not afraid to be good.”

Before rejoining his teammates in the clubhouse after the game, Buxton signed lots of autographs for fans while the sides of his face were still coated in Barbasol.

“You can tell he was raised right,” Mauer said. “His family prepared him for what’s going on here.”

A Kernel ... for now

“We raised him old fashioned,” Felton Buxton, Byron’s father, told ESPN.com last year. “We raised him tough and made him respect his elders.”

Buxton wouldn’t stand out if you saw all 25 Kernels stretching their legs in a truck stop parking lot in the middle of the night on a bus trip home from South Bend or Appleton. He’s 6-foot-2, 190 pounds. At his rural Georgia high school, though, he was the center of the universe. He played quarterback, defensive back and punter for the high school football team. Witnesses saw him throw a football 82 yards.

He did some pitching for Appling County’s baseball team, and had a 94 mph fastball. But he wanted to be an everyday player, and for good reason. You don’t waste his kind of speed and pop as a pitcher.

Mauer says the kid needs work on his baserunning, knowing when to take the extra base, how to be a more-effective base-stealer. But, he said, “I’m nitpicking.

“For him more than anything, it’s just getting that experience, preparing yourself to play every day, understanding what you’ve got to eat, getting your rest, that sort of thing.

“There’s big expectations on him, without a doubt, with what his draft-status was and the start that he’s gotten off to here. But he’s the one guy you don’t have to worry about the moment being too big or anything like that. He’s a lot more mature than 19 years old.”

Buxton probably won’t be here all summer. A promotion to Fort Myers of the Florida State League, the Twins’ next step up from Cedar Rapids, may be imminent.

So see him here before it’s too late. Even if he goes 0-for-4, in a few years you can say you saw Buxton in Cedar Rapids when he was just beginning his rocket ride.

With remnants of a shaving cream pie still attached to his face, Buxton signs a postgame autograph Thursday (Mike Hlas photo)

You can’t. Unless you give a team eight home games and none on the road. But that probably wouldn’t fly with the rest of the conference.

The Big Ten released its 2014 football schedule Thursday, and Iowa’s set of games is notable for who isn’t on it. Namely, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State.

In other words, the guts of the Big Ten. Oh, Rutgers isn’t on it, either. It took a while for me to notice that.

Now, with the Hawkeyes only playing two of the seven East Division teams, there were going to be omissions no matter what. And Iowa didn’t play Wisconsin or Ohio State in 2011 or 2012, so it’s not like it’s a new thing to miss out on facing top programs. But it’s striking — to me, at least — to see on paper that Iowa won’t play Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State or Penn State.

Here is who Iowa does play, and when:

Aug. 30 Northern Iowa

Sept. 6 Ball State

Sept. 13 Iowa State

Sept. 20 at Pittsburgh

Sept. 27 at Purdue *

Oct. 11 Indiana

Oct. 18 at Maryland

Nov. 1 Northwestern *

Nov. 8 at Minnesota *

Nov. 15 at Illinois *

Nov. 22 Wisconsin *

Nov. 28 Nebraska *

* – Divisional game

Two more things stood out to me. One, Iowa will have two bye weeks in October. That’s a freaky calendar thing. Normally, the 12 games will fit into 13 Saturdays, but not so this year and next.

Two, the Hawkeyes won’t play any of what I consider the league’s top six programs of the moment until Nov. 22. The six are the four aforementioned teams not on the schedule, and Wisconsin and Nebraska. By the heart of the 2014 season, Penn State may not be held in such high regard, competition-wise. Those scholarship-limits will come with a cost eventually. Northwestern may be added to the discussion.

Yes!

In any case, the three best Big Ten programs (as of now) that Iowa will face in 2014 will all be at home.

OK, there’s a third thing that stands out. That’s only playing one home conference game before November.

And there’s a fourth: Closing with Wisconsin and Nebraska at home within a 6-day period. That will be interesting.

Looking at the Big Ten schedule for ’14, you notice Wisconsin also misses Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State. The only difference between its opponents and Iowa’s is that it plays Rutgers instead of Maryland.

As for newbie Rutgers, it not only gets to play all the East teams, but its two games against the West are with Nebraska and Wisconsin. It’s reminiscent of the power-packed schedules the Big Ten gave Nebraska in its first two league-seasons. Unlike the Cornhuskers, however, Rutgers is unlikely to reach a league title-game in its second Big Ten season.

The final weekend of the Big Ten season is interesting. It contains Nebraska-Iowa, Illinois-Northwestern and Michigan-Ohio State, as usual. But now Minnesota-Wisconsin is a season-finale. That’s good stuff for the conference.

Before the summer’s over, I’ll look at the 2013 schedule. In that one, Iowa plays Michigan and Ohio State, Wisconsin and Nebraska.

Yikes!

CEDAR RAPIDS — Kurt Warner’s public charity is the First Things First Foundation, but his recurring theme is second-chances.

That has been illustrated in his USA Network reality show, “The Moment,” in which Warner gives people the chance to pursue career dreams they had set aside when their lives took unexpected turns.

It also was hammered home, literally, Wedneday morning on Ninth Street NW. That’s where Warner and his wife, Brenda, helped Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity with the building of a house that will be a second-chance of sorts for Beni Zeneli of Cedar Rapids and his family.

The Warners’ affiliation with our area’s Habitat chapter is four years old. Between raising seven children in their Arizona home and Kurt’s expanding television career, time fills up and they don’t get back

Brenda and Kurt Warner and the Pfeifer family, a beneficiary of a Habitat for Humanity house in Cedar Rapids (Liz Martin/The Gazette-KCRG)

to Cedar Rapids much. But they make it here every year to help support Habitat and do some good for the city.

This year, First Things First supplied a grant of $125,000, which has gone toward the hard costs of building two new houses on Ninth Street, and for supporting Youth United, a new program that encourages people from ages 5 to 25 to participate in Habitat.

This isn’t some high-minded cause that’s more concept than execution. The Cedar Valley chapter of Habitat is 25 years old. It builds and revitalizes houses. Candidates to live in those homes go through an application process. They are selected based on their need for housing, their ability to pay back a zero-interest loan, and their willingness to put in 400 hours of work with Habitat.

It’s a good deal all around. It has made and continues to make Cedar Rapids’ flood-ravaged areas a little better. For the direct beneficiaries, it’s quite a second-chance.

“Nothing is better than understanding the power and confidence gained from home-ownership, and what it means for a family-atmosphere and a family dynamic” said Warner, who grew up in a modest Cedar Rapids house with his mother and brother.

Brenda and Kurt Warner: Day-laborers (Joe Strathman photo)

“It’s a place that creates memories.”

Warner is a few years removed from his remarkable pro football career, a story that still seems unbelievable. Had the St. Louis Rams not pulled him from Arena Football in 1998 and given him a chance to play in Europe to show he was worthy of an NFL roster spot, you almost surely wouldn’t know his name today.

Already heavily involved in television with his analyst’s role with NFL Network (and a stint as a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars”), Warner was persuaded by producer Charlie Ebersol to host “The Moment.” People are given their chance to resume their quests for dream jobs, from NASCAR driver to a toy-designer.

“The premise is to give people a second chance at their dreams,” Warner said. “The only reason I’m here and have the platform I have is because somebody was willing to give me a second chance.”

Unlike most unscripted so-called reality shows, Warner’s lacks weirdness and meanness. The nine-episode run began on Thursdays in prime-time, but soft ratings caused USA to move it to Fridays at 10 p.m., Central time.

(Joe Strathman photo)

“I can’t say (the show) has caught on to the level we hoped it will at some point,” he said, “but I will tell you there’s a lot of people out there looking for a show that gives you hope tomorrow can be better than today.

“Unfortunately … I think a lot of people believe the best is behind them. I think there needs to be more television shows like ours that let people know they can accomplish their dreams and the future can be brighter than the past.”

You knew Warner wouldn’t spend his post-football life just making appearances for easy money.

“I think retirement presented us with the opportunity to focus on our family and make sure our kids knew that they were priority number one,” he said. “And we can be involved in new things that allow us to have a greater impact and allow us to have a lot more depth at what we do.”

Call it the second act from a man who touts second-chances.

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!

Marble’s reply:

Thanks Coach Dillard we’re going to represent to the best of our ability

The World University Games are held every other year, with 27 sports contested. Men’s basketball will feature teams from 24 nations. This year’s competition is July 7-16 in Kazan, Russia. The USA Basketball training camp for the team will be July 24-July 1.

The U.S. coaches are  Davidson’s Bob McKillop, Michigan’s John Beilein and South Carolina’s Frank Martin.

The last Hawkeye to play for the U.S. at the World University Games was Greg Brunner in 2005.

Melvin Ejim of Iowa State, who grew up in Toronto, will vie for a spot on Canada’s team in the event.

OK, the headline was an exaggeration.

But the Big Ten bowl lineup is about to get a makeover, starting with the 2014 season. And Mikey likes it. Because it puts all sorts of bowls, and lots of ever-changing possibilities, in play. That’s good for a sportswriter in November. Great, in fact.

If you think in-season bowl projections are woefully wrong now (and they are), wait until 2014. Because the Big Ten will not only have 14 teams, but as many as 16 bowl possibilities. Click here to let ESPN.com’s Adam Rittenberg lay out the landscape. In short form, the bowls the Big Ten will apparently be affiliated with are:

Rose

Orange

Fiesta

Sugar

Cotton

Chick-fil-A Peach

Capital One

Outback

Gator

Music City

Holiday

Pinstripe

Buffalo Wild Wings

Heart of Dallas

Little Caesars Pizza

And maybe even …

Kraft Fight Hunger

Fantastic. And best of all, it’s a big no to the Belk Bowl.

CEDAR RAPIDS — Three years ago, Iowa State offered its fans a popular, familiar face as the new men’s basketball coach, and a blank slate beyond that.

How would Fred Hoiberg, who had never coached at any level, be able to swim with the sharks of the Big 12 Conference and the rest of major-college basketball?

“Fans want hiring a coach to be a science,” ISU Athletic Director Jamie Pollard said Tuesday at the Cyclone Tailgate Tour stop at NewBo City Market. “But it’s really an art.

“Everybody can’t win, mathematically. So you need to find who’s the best fit. There wasn’t anybody who was a better fit for Iowa State than Fred Hoiberg.”

But winning makes you a good fit. Hoiberg’s hire was overwhelmingly popular in Cyclone circles, but there were skeptics outside of Ames. Could he bench-coach, could he prepare a team? More importantly, really, could he recruit?

Fred Hoiberg and 1-year-old Mills Raasch of Cedar Rapids (Cliff Jette/The Gazette-KCRG)

“I thought that was the biggest question,” Pollard admits now. “How would he acclimate to recruiting? It was a different world for him.”

The path Hoiberg took in stocking a roster for the last two seasons — two seasons with resounding NCAA tournament victories over Big East clubs of note — wasn’t to bring in a platoon of preps and try to gradually mold them into a competitive Big 12 team. That would have been a recipe for a lot of defeats and a crawl to respectability.

In an instant-gratification world, he needed competitive and compelling teams to sell to future recruits.

Iowa State was 16-16 overall in Hoiberg’s first season, but a mere 3-13 in the Big 12. In his second year, though, the transfers he had taken in became eligible to play. Royce White, Chris Allen, Chris Babb and Anthony Booker helped the team to 23 wins and a rout of Connecticut in the NCAAs.

In 2012-2013, White and Allen were gone, but transfers Will Clyburn and Korie Lucious joined Babb as three-fifths of the starting lineup for a Cyclones team that won 23 games for the second-straight year and walloped Notre Dame in the NCAA tourney.

Funny thing. For all the trouble that is associated with transfers, Hoiberg’s brought none.

“Talking to them and using background checks,” Hoiberg said, “I was very comfortable with that route, and how it worked out. We’ve had two great years. We were a call away (in a third-round NCAA loss to Ohio State) from maybe the Final Four. I felt the road ahead was favorable, and we were playing as well as anybody at that time.”

Last season, forward Georges Niang joined Melvin Ejim as ISU original recruits who sparkled. Freshman guard Sherron Dorsey-Walker of Detroit red-shirted last season, and a couple of nice recruits are on their way.

Guard Matt Thomas scored over 2,000 points at Onalaska (Wis.) High. Point guard Monte Morris of Flint, Mich., led his team to a state-championship and was the first “Mr. Basketball” in Michigan not to sign with Michigan State since 2008.

“I’m very excited about sprinkling them in and building our roster the right way,” Hoiberg said.

But what is “the right way” these days? Kentucky won a national-title in 2012 almost exclusively with freshmen who bolted for the NBA after that glorious season.

Georges Niang shoots over Notre Dame's Jack Cooley in Iowa State's NCAA tourney win over the Irish (USA TODAY Sports)

In the meantime, there were over 450 transfers from Division I programs last year, and this year’s list already contains over 400. Just this week, Nkereuwem Okoro transferred from ISU to Rutgers. Patrick Ingram announced he was leaving Iowa, immediately leading to speculation his scholarship could get filled by a fellow transfer.

“Now we’re competing with Kansas, Duke and Kentucky for them,” Hoiberg said. “Everybody’s taking them.”

But whether transfers or preps are your original building blocks, you still have to be able to coach.

“I think we’ve done a good job defining roles, which is as important as anything in today’s game,” Hoiberg said.

“Leading the nation in 3-pointers and being third in scoring, that stuff helps. Kids like playing with freedom.”

Hoiberg’s approval rating at NewBo Tuesday night was probably 100 percent. The questions of three years ago have received the answers Cyclone Nation wanted.

There no longer is such a thing. The NFL and college athletics have figured out you can stay in the news every day if you parcel the material out, and if you stage events. In recent years, the Big Ten’s spring meetings in Chicago have become a media attraction. It helps that Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez seems to have taken it upon himself to be the league’s middleman to the media, and drops factoids upon them.

Barry Alvarez (USA Today Sports)

Such as: The Big Ten football schedule for 2014 with Maryland and Rutgers included will be released Wednesday (League senior associate commissioner Mark Rudner told me today it might be Thursday).

And, it’s looking like the league will be affiliated with the Pinstripe and Holiday bowls starting in 2014.

And, the league’s ban on playing football games against FCS teams may be on hold.

None of those items will open ESPN’s SportsCenter tonight. But they’re good little morsels for Big Ten fans in mid-May.

My TheGazette.com colleagues, Scott Dochterman and Marc Morehouse, are in Chitown for the meetings. Check their blogs for stories like these:

Iowa faces narrow parameters for non-conference schedule

Iowa basketball’s single plays, quick notes

Scott tweeted this morning that Iowa’s single-game opponents in Big Ten men’s basketball next season are Indiana, Nebraska, Penn State and Purdue. Last season, they were Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan and Illinois.

You can connect the dots pretty easily. Next season’s Hawkeyes schedule is harder. Which is good. No talk about strength-of-schedule. Go 9-9 (or better) in the conference next season, and Iowa is going to the NCAA tournament. Period.

I, for one, felt deprived not getting the chance to cover Michigan or Ohio State in Iowa City last season. And who knows if Iowa could have bulled its way into the NCAAs if it had had the chance to beat those two at home? But there won’t be any what-ifs next season. Iowa is playing the big boys twice. I don’t count Indiana among those based on pre-preseason forecasts. To me, the top three opponents for Iowa in terms of strength are Michigan State, Ohio State and Michigan, and you can never put Wisconsin very far down the list.

Toss in Notre Dame, a game at Iowa State, and the possibilities of playing Kansas and/or Xavier in the Bahamas, and you’ve got a schedule. Glad to see it.

This could be the Big Ten's one day (Reuters)

Bouncing back to the bowls, I’m on record here as being strongly in favor of the Big Ten adding the Pinstripe and Holiday bowls. It should have one more West Coast bowl presence besides the Rose, and may not have a team in the Rose in years that game has a Football College Playoff semifinal. As for the Pinstripe, if you’re going to have an Eastern presence, have an Eastern presence. Besides, I love New York.

The Holiday will rank high on the Big Ten’s list.

The Big 12, meanwhile, will apparently lose the Holiday Bowl, which had fallen on its pecking order in recent years. It looks like the league will bump up the Alamo Bowl’s status and perhaps hook up with the Russell Athletic Bowl (formerly the Champs Sports Bowl, formerly the Tangerine Bowl, formerly the MicronPC Bowl, formerly the CarQuest Bowl, formerly the Blockbuster Bowl) in Orlando.

Also, the big fan-following Iowa State brought to last New Year’s Eve’s Liberty Bowl has opened eyes in Big 12 country and in Memphis, so the conference and the bowl may enter a marriage sometime soon.

I enjoyed Michigan football coach Brady Hoke saying Monday that Notre Dame “chickened out” of playing games against the Wolverines in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Yeah, because Notre Dame doesn’t schedule anyone who’s any good. Just Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan State, Stanford, USC, Miami …

Michigan hasn’t won a Big Ten football title since 2004, when it shared the league crown with Iowa. Get yourself back to national prominence — as it’s expected you will under Hoke — and then you can talk.

Besides playing Notre Dame this season, Michigan is playing Central Michigan and Akron at home and Connecticut on the road. The following season, the Wolverines host Appalachian State, Miami (OH) and Utah. I’d say that’s a bit on the “chicken” side, but it isn’t. Michigan lost the last times it played Appalachian State and Utah.

Wisconsin may have set a dangerous precedent. It was announced Monday that the Badgers will play St. John’s in men’s basketball on Nov. 8. In Sioux Falls, S.D.

It will be a home game for the Badgers. Former UW player Joe Krabbenhoft is the team’s video coordinator.

The game will help christen a $19 million arena in Sioux Falls.

Let’s not have this leading to, say, Iowa playing Seton Hall in Fargo, N.D., or Bangor, Maine.

Should the Hawkeyes like to move a game to the Cedar Rapids Convention Center, however, it would be a magnificent gesture.

Rudner (@BigTenMarkTV) is the Big Ten’s Senior Associate Commissioner and the man in charge of television administration for the league. He took a break from Tuesday’s Big Ten meetings to discuss a lot of scheduling and television issues on this week’s Mike Hlas Podcast.

To subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, click here. Also, the podcast is available on Stitcher Radio here.

Last November, it was revealed that Rutgers University would be joining the Big Ten Conference and start competition in the league during the 2014-2015 academic year.

The reason for adding Rutgers seemed to be singular, at least realistically. That, of course, is the New York-New Jersey television market.

It wasn’t that Rutgers had any sort of resonance as an athletics program inside the Big Ten or out. The Scarlet Knights have been 58-32 in football since the 2006 season, which is pretty darned good. But they’ve been playing in the Big East. If I asked you what signature moments come to your mind involving Rutgers football, would you come up with anything but a shrug?

Mike Rice: Deposed coach (USA Today Sports)

Rutgers women’s basketball has been a national power under the guidance of former Iowa coach C. Vivian Stringer, but the school’s men’s basketball program has been as nondescript as any program in one of the big six conferences.

The Knights have had seven straight losing seasons. They haven’t been to an NCAA tournament since 1991. They lost to Iowa in a 1989 NCAA first-round game, 87-70. They haven’t won a game in the NCAAs since 1983. That’s barely better than Northwestern!

Rutgers joined the Big East for basketball in the 1995-96 season and never had a winning record in league play. Its all-time Big East mark was 89-201. Its best conference record in the last seven years was 6-12.

That in itself is bad enough, but the real follies didn’t start until after the Knights joined the Big Ten. In early April, Rutgers men’s basketball finally got some play in the New York City newspapers. But that’s because coach Mike Rice Jr. was shown on film throwing basketballs at his players in practice, shoving and grabbing them, and yelling homophobic slurs at them.

Rutgers chose to suspend Rice for three games and fine him $50,000 rather than fire him after learning of his actions last year. That didn’t go over so well once ESPN got hold of the footage of Rice’s behavior in practice.

Rutgers Athletic Director Tim Pernetti, under plenty of pressure to step down himself, did just that. After accepting a $1.2 million settlement, that is.

C. Vivian Stringer: One of Rutgers' athletic assets (USA Today Sports)

Rutgers replaced Rice with Eddie Jordan, a seemingly safe and popular choice. Jordan was an All-American player at the school, had an NBA career, and coached 600 games in the NBA.

Just one problem: While Rutgers’ Web site said Jordan had earned an undergraduate degree at Rutgers, it turns out he had not. Which is interesting, since a bachelor’s degree is listed as a requirement to be one of Jordan’s assistants.

Jordan will stay on as the coach and the school and Big Ten will ride out this embarrassment. There may come a day when Rutgers have the men’s basketball success it has enjoyed recently in football and women’s basketball. But until then …

Here’s what Phil Mushnick of the New York Post wrote about the situation Monday:

It turns out Eddie Jordan, proudly announced as Rutgers’ new coach and holder of a degree from the university, didn’t actually graduate. Rutgers shot-callers seemed to be the only ones who had no idea Jordan’s predecessor, Mike Rice, acted like a raving, raging lunatic before the university purchased his presence.

Funny thing, though, throughout academia, Rutgers is nationally known for research.

Would this be a bad time to mention Maryland’s football program went 2-10, 2-10 and 4-8 in three of its last four seasons?

As I wrote recently, I’m in the camp for maintaining the Iowa-Iowa State football series when the Big Ten goes to a 9-game conference schedule in 2016. So, through their public statements, are Iowa athletics director Gary Barta and football coach Kirk Ferentz.

I wrote that it wasn’t like Iowa would drop ISU, which happens to be a Big 12 program that has beaten Kirk Ferentz’s Iowa teams more often than not, to schedule itself marquee college football names. That simply hasn’t been the Hawkeyes’ way of doing things. And, if you want to be honest about it, it isn’t as if ABC/ESPN has been hot to have big nonconference matchups involving Iowa. The Hawkeyes aren’t national needle-movers, at least not in 2013.

So came Friday’s news broken by CBSsports.com’s Jeremy Fowler that Iowa and Northern Illinois are about to do a deal to play games at Kinnick Stadium in 2018 and 2020.

No one’s reaction in Iowa is “Hey, Orange Bowl program Northern Illinois!” It’s “Oh, more games with a Mid-American Conference team.”

Yes, Central Michigan won at Iowa last season. That was a credit to the Chippewas, but also an indictment of the Hawkeyes. It certainly doesn’t make more games with MAC teams exciting prospects. But this season will be the 11th in Ferentz’s 15 in which the Hawkeyes have hosted a MAC club, and two teams from that league came to Kinnick Stadium in 2001 and 2003.

Iowa will play seven home games a season, period, just like any other major-college program. It’s a financial thing, and that’s basically where the argument ends everywhere at schools in BCS conferences. You’ve got to have that seventh game. We’re talking millions of dollars.

Keenan Davis only needed one shoe to make this catch vs. Tennessee Tech in 2011 in Iowa's 34-7 win (David Scrivner/The Gazette-KCRG)

But that required seventh home game, especiallly in seasons in which they’ll have five Big Ten road games, hamstrings the Hawkeyes scheduling-wise. No other Big Ten team has a locked-in nonconference rival except Purdue with Notre Dame.

Minnesota, for instance, doesn’t have a built-in nonconference rival. So it’s free to schedule a home-and-away with TCU. Which happens to be a Big 12 team, folks, and one Iowa State beat on the road. Plus, the Gophers have to schedule name-teams to be appealing in a professional market, at the risk of losing.

But Iowa’s formula for 2016 and beyond is quite clear: Iowa State, a MAC team and another lower-level  team at home during seasons with four conference home games. Iowa State on the road and two MAC-type home games when Iowa has five Big Ten home games. Look for the Hawkeyes to offer invitations to teams that are currently transitioning or will transition to FBS and are seeking big paydays. Like Old Dominion, Georgia Southern and Appalachian State.

The complaints that Iowa State is preventing Iowa from playing marquee teams down the road is valid only if you think the Hawkeyes would actually schedule marquee teams, and that marquee teams would actually schedule them. Since 2003, Iowa has played Arizona, Arizona State, Pittsburgh and Syracuse when it had the luxury of four nonconference games. But none of those matchups were anything resembling national games. By that, I mean few folks in Denver or Atlanta said “I need to watch this Arizona State-Iowa game today.”

Mike Daniels vs. Eastern Illinois, in Iowa's 37-7 win in 2010 (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette-KCRG)

So, it’s Iowa State, Northern Illinois and whomever in 2018 and 2020. It’s Iowa State and whomever and whomever else in a lot of years to come. As of now, the whomever in 2018 is Northern Iowa, and will be unless the Big Ten’s mission to drop FCS teams from its schedules becomes a hard-and-fast rule.

Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany understands the obvious, which is that the league needs better games to make more of a dent with television ratings, and to build strength-of-schedules for league teams trying to power their way into College Football Playoff.

But Iowa doesn’t want to drop UNI. Barta said so Thursday. Naturally, he didn’t pound home the real reasons, which are that it’s a home gate and a victory.

I know, I know, I know. The 2009 game. UNI coulda won, shoulda won. But the Hawkeyes wouldn’t  want to keep the Panthers on their schedule if they didn’t believe it was a designated victory. That’s no slight to UNI, which scared Wisconsin in Madison last season. But just on scholarship numbers and clout alone, Iowa should beat UNI every time they play. And it has every time they’ve met  in years that didn’t start with “18.”

I could note the hypocrisy of clinging to UNI in football while dropping the Panthers from the men’s basketball schedule, but Patrick Vint of Black Heart Gold Pants already made the case, and I don’t think I can improve on it. Vint wrote:

Shonn Greene with the first of what would be 13 100-yard games in the 2008 season, Iowa's 46-3 win over Maine (Brian Ray/The Gazette-KCRG)

Men’s basketball. When Iowa lost 80-60 at UNI in 2011 before a raucous crowd, it marked the sixth time in eleven seasons that the Hawkeyes had been defeated by the Panthers. Six of those games had been decided by 10 points or less. Northern Iowa basketball, a member of the Missouri Valley Conference, had been to the NCAA Tournament five times since 2004 and famously defeated No. 1 seed Kansas en route to the Sweet Sixteen in 2010. A win over UNI in most seasons is a feather in Iowa’s RPI cap on par with Iowa State or the middle tier of the Big Ten. And while fans of both teams fully expect an Iowa win in football and adjust accordingly, the Iowa-UNI basketball game brought out the best in fans; games in Cedar Falls were occasionally brutal. The arguments made by Barta Thursday in favor of the football series continuing actually apply to the basketball series.

So what did Barta do when the conference expanded its schedule from 16 to 18 games and Iowa’s contract with UNI came to an end? He pulled the plug in favor of “greater schedule flexibility” that came in the form of the Big Four Classic and cupcake home games against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and South Carolina State. There were too many conference games and an Iowa State commitment, and more in-state games against challenging opponents were not required. His arguments for UNI applied, but the financial windfall of a cut of Big Four proceeds and an additional home game won out over his impeccable logic.

Everything is a cash grab. Everything. It’s silly for Iowa to even pretend otherwise at any time.

I stand by keeping the Iowa-ISU game. A 9-game Big Ten schedule and the Iowa State game makes for a stronger schedule than the ones the Hawkeyes have usually been playing. We’ve seen Maine and Tennessee Tech and Eastern Illinois and Montana and Florida International and an array of MAC teams that didn’t leave footprints in Kinnick (and a couple that did). There will be two of those per year in the future. That’s just one-sixth of the schedule.

If Iowa is good, the other five-sixths of the schedule will be entertaining. If Iowa isn’t good, the nonconference schedule will be the least of the program’s concerns.

I’m assuming the six slots will all be filled by home games, since five of the seven games we know about are away from Iowa City. And of those six games, I’d think three or four of them will be tomato cans that every major-college plays at home in the nonconference. If that’s wrong, my bad.

But with that assumption, I’m asking you to write your own list of six teams to come to Carver-Hawkeye Arena this November and December. I have no illusions that you will be realistic about it, but … try. You aren’t going to get Kentucky, Louisville, Duke and North Carolina.

Here are the games we know:

Nov. 10 — vs. Nebraska-Omaha (home)

Nov. 28-30 – Bahamas (3 games)

Dec. 3 – vs. Notre Dame (home)

Dec. 7 — vs. Drake (Des Moines)

Dec. 13 – at Iowa State

So, what are the other six games? And if you just want to name three and assume the other three will be rum-dums, feel free.

At least the spaceship-shaped gym on the prairie does have a connection to a farm. The university’s Beef Research Farm isn’t far from the arena.

For 50 years, it has been Assembly Hall. But things were different a half-century ago. Naming rights for stadiums and arenas — even those of professional franchises — didn’t exist. It was the Chicago Stadium, Candlestick Park, Tiger Stadium, Comiskey Park, etc. Even the domes were just the Astrodome, the Metrodome, the Superdome.

This isn’t some sappy, sad dirge. Almost everything has a price now. It has reached the colleges. State Farm Center? Really? Shrug.

Besides, it’s not as if the Big Ten has been immune to this. The league already had …

Value City Arena at Ohio State.

TCF Bank Stadium at Minnesota.

The new arena that Nebraska will open next season is called Pinnacle Bank Arena.

TCF Bank’s naming rights are $35 million for 25 years. The Value City deal with Ohio State was for $12.5 million. Pinnacle Bank Arena is owned by the city of Lincoln.

State Farm is paying Illinois $60 million over 30 years.

My question is when this happens with a football stadium or basketball arena at Iowa or Iowa State? If someone makes an offer that can’t be refused …

Here are some other college sports facilities that sold naming rights:

Texas Tech: Jones AT&T Stadium, United Spirit Arena

Maryland: Chevy Chase Bank Field at Byrd Stadium, Comcast Center

Colorado: Coors Event Center

Central Florida: Bright House Networks Stadium

Fresno State: Save Mart Center

Louisville: Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium

Cincinnati: Fifth Third Arena

Xavier: Cintas Center

North Texas: Apogee Stadium

Taco Bell Arena in Boise

Washington: Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion

Miami: BankUnited Center

Akron: InfoCision Stadium

Arkansas State: Liberty Bank Stadium

Boise State: Taco Bell Arena

Arizona State: Wells Fargo Arena

Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said the schedule would get better. It couldn’t get much worse.

But there is already some teeth in McCaffery’s words. Wednesday’s pending announcement that the Hawkeyes will host Notre Dame in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge on Dec. 3 is a boon for Iowa fans.

Iowa State's Chris Babb blocks a shot by Notre Dame's Jerian Grant in ISU's 76-58 win over the Irish in the NCAA tourney (Reuters)

Just the name “Notre Dame” works. Iowa hasn’t hosted Notre Dame since Fido’s great-great-grandfather was a pup. Or more specifically, the last time the Irish played in Iowa City was 1950. Their last two meetings were a 121-106 Iowa win in a 1970 NCAA regional consolation game, and Notre Dame’s 77-68 Preseason NIT win in South Bend in 1990.

The Fighting Irish won 25 games last season, but bowed out with a 76-58 opening-round NCAA tournament loss to Iowa State. The Cyclones carved them up.

The Irish lose their top big man, Jack Cooley, to graduation. Cooley averaged double-digit points and rebounds last season. They return three starting guards. Jerian Grant and Eric Atkins combined for 24.5 points and 11 assists per game. Pat Connaughton averaged 8.9 points.

Just by switching from the weak field of the Great Alaska Shootout to Battle 4 Atlantis, the Hawkeyes not only traded up in destinations, but in opposition. They will play three teams among Kansas, Wake Forest, USC, Villanova, Tennessee, Xavier and UTEP. Those are recognizable teams from recognizable conferences.

And who in Hawkeyeland wouldn’t want to see an Iowa-Kansas game? It’s been a long time since those two hooked up. Since February 2000, to be precise. That’s when Iowa beat the Jayhawks in Iowa City, 77-69. Jacob Jaacks had 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Hawkeyes.

In December 1998, the Hawkeyes snapped Kansas’ 62-game home winning streak with an 85-81 win in Tom Davis’ final season as Iowa’s coach. Iowa trailed by as much as 18 points in that game. Kent McCausland made two 3-pointers in the final 1:40 for the Hawkeyes. Jaacks had 14 points. The big guy from Cedar Rapids seemed to have Kansas’ number.

As for the other games we know about, Iowa is at Iowa State, and will play Drake in the Big Four Basketball Classic in Des Moines.

Now let’s see how the rest of the schedule shapes up. There will be bunnies at home. Everybody plays them. But will there be more interesting games sprinkled into the mix?

And by that, I don’t mean successful and powerful people. I’m talking baseball. Willie, Mickey and the Duke. Sosa, McGwire and A-Rod. Sluggers.

Ryan Sweeney of Cedar Rapids got called up to the Chicago Cubs this week from Class AAA Iowa. Sweeney, an outfielder, is no stranger to the majors. The Cubs are his fourth big-league team. His appearance late in the Cubs’ game Monday night was his 536th game in the majors since his MLB debut in 2006. Nice.

Ryan Sweeney with a diving catch when he was with the Boston Red Sox (Reuters)

Sweeney’s career batting average is .280, which is pretty darn good. He had 102 doubles in the bigs through Monday, but just 14 homers. Which fits the Cedar Rapids pattern.

Our city has never put a true slugger in the majors, and this is the sport’s third century. We’ve sent a future Super Bowl-champion quarterback, Masters tournament-winner, and co-star of “Two and a Half Men” on their way. But not once has a baby born in our city gone on to become a genuine major-league power-hitter.

John Wathan, a very good Kansas City Royals catcher from 1976 to 1985, hit a career-high six homers for the American League-champion Royals in 1980. Yes, the Royals used to play in World Series.

Wathan is the all-time MLB career home run-leader from Cedar Rapids, with 21. But even that modest total comes with an asterisk, since he grew up in southern California.

Wathan, Sweeney and Bruce Kimm, according to my extensive research, are the only non-pitchers of the 12 Cedar Rapids-born big-leaguers.

Bill Hoffer. Phenom.

Kimm spent parts of four seasons in the majors. He had one career homer. But he was a true baseball guy, a longtime minor-league manager and major-league coach who managed the Cubs for the second-half of the 2002 season.

Calling Kimm a Cedar Rapids guy also comes with an asterisk, since he (and 134-win pitcher Mike Boddicker) were born in a C.R. hospital but grew up in Norway. They were cogs in the Norway High baseball dynasty.

When he was with the Oakland Athletics in 2009, Sweeney matched Wathan’s 6-homer season. He hit .293 and drove in 53 runs that season. Here’s hoping Sweeney eventually becomes a regular in the Cubs’ in the Cubs’ lineup and knocks several baseballs into Wrigley Field’s ivy. And maybe smacks a few into Wrigley’s bleachers or onto Sheffield Avenue.

But Cedar Rapids has been a pitcher’s town, and that dates all the way back to 1895. That was the year Bill Hoffer debuted with the Baltimore Orioles.

Hoffer went 31-6 as a rookie. He followed that by going 25-7 in 1896 and 22-11 in 1897. He was a fierce phenom.

“I couldn’t pitch my best when I wasn’t mad,” Hoffer said, according to BaseballReference.com. (Manager John) McGraw would yell at me ‘You fat-headed Dutchman’ and maybe some other insults. Then I’d get mad and throw that ball so damned hard.”

He pitched 926 innings over those three seasons, and it must have taken its toll on his arm. Hoffer won just 14 games over the following three years, and his anger-fueled meteor of a career flamed out.

Hoffer managed the Des Moines Prohibitionists of the Western League in 1904. Iowa didn’t have statewide prohibition on the sale and production of alcohol until 1916, so that team was ahead of its time.

Earl Whitehill of C.R. pitched in the majors from 1923 to 1939. His career record was 218-185. He was 22-8 for the 1933 Washington Senators.

Babe Ruth was a good friend of Whitehill’s, even though Ruth hit 11 homers off him. This is from the Society for Baseball Research’s Baseball Biography Project:

The Sultan of Swat

In 1924 he married 22-year old Violet Oliver. There has persisted through the literature a popular ‘urban legend’ mythology that she was the original model for the Sunmaid Raisins “maiden”. The Sunmaid Raisin company has since publicly stated that Lorraine Collette Peterson was the actual model1, and there is no record of Violet being painted or drawn for the role in 1916, when the image first adorned the raisin boxes. She was, regardless, a beautiful woman, and the couple doubtlessly drew attention wherever they went. She became close with Clare Ruth during the Connie Mack/Babe Ruth 1934 barnstorming tour of Japan, and the two couples were friendly off the field. Of course, the Bambino loved facing Whitehill on the field, too, as Ruth tagged him for eleven of his 714 career homeruns (only six pitchers ceded more 4-baggers to the Babe).

Imagine how Cedar Rapids would have been different had the Babe been born here instead of Baltimore. With baseball fans pouring in to see the Babe’s historical birthplace, the Babe Ruth Museum, and the Midwest League’s Cedar Rapids Bambinos, this would be the City That Ruth Built.

Tuesday’s announcement that former Ohio State offensive tackle Orlando Pace will be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame was surprising.

Surprising in the sense I would have sworn Pace already had been inducted. What took so long? Players are eligible 10 years after their last college games, and Pace’s Buckeyes career was over after the 1996 season.

Orlando Pace vs. Iowa defensive tackle Jon LaFleur (Gazette photo)

“Without question, he is the best offensive lineman I have ever seen,” then-Iowa Coach Hayden Fry said in 1996. It wasn’t necessarily hyperbole. To this day, many consider Pace the best offensive tackle in college football history.

Iowa went 8-4 in 1995 and 9-3 in 1996, and yet couldn’t lay a glove on Ohio State those seasons.

In ’95 at Columbus, the Buckeyes scored on their first six possessions in building a 56-7 halftime lead, then pulled their starters. The final was 56-35.

“Coach (John) Cooper was being kind to us,” Fry said.

The next year in Iowa City, OSU led 38-6 early in the second quarter. Iowa chopped that lead to 38-26, and that was the final.

In both games, Pace was up front leading an offensive surge. He certainly had talented teammates, like 1995 Heisman Trophy-winning running back Eddie George (who got into the College HOF two years before Pace) and stellar receiver Terry Glenn.

In the 1995 Iowa-OSU game, the Buckeyes had four touchdown drives of 1:08 or less. That Iowa team went on to beat Pac-10 co-champion Washington in the Sun Bowl, 38-18.

In ’96, the Hawkeyes pasted Texas Tech in the Alamo Bowl, 27-0.

Football players are big. Pace was a giant. (Gazette photo)

Ohio State, meanwhile, started the 1995 season with 11 wins, then lost at Michigan and was beaten by Tennessee in the Florida Citrus Bowl. In ’96, OSU went 11-1. It won the Big Ten and downed Arizona State in the Rose Bowl, and was No. 2 in the final AP rankings.

I’d like to say I remember watching Pace do this or that, but I always end up following the football. And it was constantly going places when George and Glenn got it.

Cooper’s 1998 Buckeyes also finished No. 2 in the final AP poll. Two years later, after 6-6 and 8-4 seasons, he was fired because of what then-athletic director Andy Geiger called a ”deteriorating climate within the football program.”

In other words, Ohio State lost too many games.

To subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, click here. NEW: You can subscribe to my podcast on Stitcher – for Android devices and online listening – by clicking here.

The Big Ten Network has 12 live prime-time football telecasts in the 2013 season. Six prime-time games involving Big Ten teams will be aired by ESPN/ABC.

The only Big Ten team that won’t appear in any of the 18 games is Iowa.

I had thought Northern Illinois-Iowa on Aug. 31 had a good chance for prime-time inclusion since Northern Illinois is coming off an Orange Bowl appearance and returns quarterback Jordan Lynch, and is in the Chicagoland market. But the BTN took Nebraska-Wyoming for prime-time that day. The good Wyoming demographics, I guess.

Western Michigan will play on the BTN twice in prime-time. It also plays at Iowa, on Sept. 21. A safe guess is the BTN will also get that game, but at 11 a.m.

The Michigan State-Western Michigan matchup is a nice novelty game. It’s at Western Michigan. Good for Michigan State for doing its fellow state-school a solid.

Total prime-time appearances: 

3: Indiana, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State

2: Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Wisconsin

1: Michigan State, Minnesota, Purdue

0: Iowa

The BTN games (Eastern times)

Thursday, August 29

7 PM – UNLV at Minnesota

Friday, August 30

8 PM – Western Michigan at Michigan State

Saturday, August 31

8 PM – Wyoming at Nebraska

Saturday, September 7

6 PM – Syracuse at Northwestern

6 PM – Southern Miss at Nebraska

Saturday, September 14

6 PM – UCF at Penn State

6 PM – Washington vs. Illinois (at Soldier Field)

9 PM – Western Michigan at Northwestern

Saturday, September 21

8 PM – Missouri at Indiana

Saturday, October 19

8 PM – Wisconsin at Illinois

Regional Coverage

Thursday, Aug. 29

7 PM – Indiana State at Indiana

Saturday, September 7

6 PM – Navy at Indiana

The ESPN games:

Sept. 7: Notre Dame at Michigan, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2

Sept. 14: Notre Dame at Purdue, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2

Sept. 28: Wisconsin at Ohio State, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2

Oct. 5: Ohio State at Northwestern, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2

Oct. 12: Michigan at Penn State, 5 p.m. ET, ESPN or ESPN2

Oct. 26: Penn State at Ohio State, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2

Just doing a little demographics sampling here.

You can’t help but link the three former Iowa football stars together. They were taken in the first, second, and third rounds of the 2004 NFL draft, respectively.

There wasn’t a highly regarded high school recruit among the three. Yet, they all blossomed into All-Big Ten players, All-American in the case of Gallery and Kaeding. It is an understatement to say the three were instrumental in the revitalization of Iowa football a little over a decade ago. The offensive tackle, safety and placekicker were truly impact players.

Nate Kaeding and Bob Sanders celebrate Kaeding's 55-yard field goal vs. Minnesota in 2003 (Brian Ray/The Gazette-KCRG)

Last week, Kaeding retired from pro football because of health issues. The groin injury he injured early last season with the San Diego Chargers flared up again as he was training in Iowa City. “The main lever in the kicking motion,” he called it.

There was no guarantee Kaeding would make an NFL roster this year. He had signed a contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a month ago, but would have had to beat out incumbent Connor Barth, whose full salary for the coming season is guaranteed. But had he shown in the preseason that he could still perform at his career standards, it isn’t hard to believe another team might have snapped him up had he not won the Bucs’ kicking job.

However, injuries happen and players’ careers often end sooner than they would have wanted. That’s sports, and that’s especially the NFL.

Sanders was brilliant for the Indianapolis Colts when he was healthy enough to play. He was named to two All-Pro teams, and was the 2007 Associated Press NFL Defensive Player of the Year.

Alas, that ‘07 season was one of just two in which he played more than six games. He played just 50 regular-season games over eight seasons, and just five over his last three years.

Sanders was nicknamed “The Hitman” when he was at Iowa for the most-obvious reason, but he received as much pain as he dished out with his no-abandon tackling. When he was right, though, he was a game-changer. He amassed 373 career tackles. He had a terrific interception in the Colts’ Super Bowl win over Chicago six years ago.

But over his career Sanders had foot, knee, ankle and arm injuries that cost him playing time. A torn biceps tendon was the capper.

Gallery came into the NFL as the second player taken in that ‘04 draft. by the Oakland Raiders. He was drafted that high to be a left tackle. He didn’t flourish at that position.

Maybe that was on him, maybe it was because he played with a constant changing of head coaches, offensive line coaches and quarterbacks in an Oakland organization that was 33-79 over his seven seasons there.

Dallas Clark, Nate Kaeding and Robert Gallery at a 2007 Iowa basketball game in Carver-Hawkeye Arena (Brian Ray/The Gazette-KCRG)

Once Gallery was moved to guard in midcareer, he became quite a good pro player.

“It’s tough when guys tell you, ‘Hey, if you would have won more games, you should have gone to the Pro Bowl the last couple of years.’ ” Gallery told The Gazette’s Scott Dochterman last fall.

The Seattle Seahawks thought enough of Gallery to sign him as a free agent in 2011. But he needed surgery for a torn groin muscle during his season as a Seahawk. Earlier in his career, he said, he played on a broken leg until he shattered it.

The New England Patriots signed Gallery before the 2012 season, but he retired during training camp. He just couldn’t bounce back physically.

Even kickers get hurt. Kaeding tore an ACL in the first game of the 2011 season. He rehabbed all the way back from that, and a year later he made all seven of his field goal tries in the Chargers’ first three contests. Then came the groin issue.

Robert Gallery at the 2004 NFL Draft (Reuters)

He healed, was waived by San Diego, signed with the Miami Dolphins, and played the final two games of the season. That turned out to be the end of the road, one in which he made 86.2 percent of all the field goals he tried.

Iowa went 8-0 in the Big Ten in 2002. The Hawkeyes’ coaches did well to sign recruits like Gallery, Kaeding and Sanders, and did even better to develop them and put them in positions to succeed. But they would be the first to tell you it’s up to the players to become difference-makers.

Three college teammates now in their early 30s made a lot of money playing football. But it came with a price, and each has the scars to prove it.

Ryan Izzo is a 6-foot-6 senior-to-be high school tight end who has been offered athletic scholarships by several major-college football programs, including Iowa.

Just hearing the name “Izzo” is enough to make you think “Michigan State.” That is, after all, where Tom Izzo has coached one of the nation’s dominant men’s basketball programs.

Ryan Izzo

“Let’s get this straight, Tom Izzo is a football coach who coaches basketball,” Nick Saban once said. Saban was Michigan State’s football coach once upon a time. And he was second-banana at MSU, as will any football coach in East Lansing as long as Izzo is there.

Iowa had already offered Ryan Izzo a scholarship. So had Virginia Tech, Rutgers, Pittsburgh and Indiana. This week, Mark Dantonio’s Michigan State program did likewise.

Luckily for the schools that aren’t MSU, this Izzo isn’t from East Lansing. Or Michigan. He’s from Sparta, N.J.

I can’t find anything that suggests the two Izzos are related, and you would think it would have been mentioned if they were. Here’s a quote from the younger Izzo from the Detroit Free Press story I linked two paragraphs ago:

Tom Izzo (Reuters)

“I play both basketball and football so I kind of follow both sports equally. I have been a fan of the Spartans.”

But Izzo also said this a month or so ago in this NJ.com story:

“I’ve always been interested in Rutgers, it being the state school of New Jersey, but it’s a great school with great tradition. And with them moving to the Big Ten, It’s definitely a huge move for them and the whole program.”

Such is recruiting. The kids like all of the schools and coaches that are wooing them. Izzo said this a few weeks ago in this rivals.com video:

“Players like Dallas Clark played there. Definitely, big names have played there … I can’t wait to go out there, see the campus, meet the coaches. They’ll definitely be in my top choices in the future.”

Then he added that Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin were starting to show interest, too.

Geoff has covered the Steve Alford saga of 2013, which quickly went from a Mountain West Conference title, to a stunning NCAA tournament loss to Harvard, to the former Iowa coach leaving for UCLA shortly after agreeing to a 10-year extension with New Mexico.

To subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, click here.

“Over the last three years I’ve struggled with recurring muscle injuries in my kicking leg,” Kaeding said. “Since January of this offseason I executed a deliberate and comprehensive training regimen devised to address these muscular deficiencies.

Nate Kaeding accepts congratulations from David Binn after making a game-winning field goal for the San Diego Chargers in 2009 (Reuters)

“However, this past week, as I began kicking again for the first time in preparation for the 2013 season, I suffered yet another injury to my right adductor. After consulting with both medical professionals and personal advisors, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can no longer perform at the level of consistency and durability that is required of me as an athlete in the National Football League.”

After graduating from Iowa City West, Kaeding had a brilliant career at the University of Iowa. He won the Lou Groza Award in 2002, was first-team All-Big Ten in 2002 and 2003, and was on several All-America teams in ’02 before being a consensus All-America the following season. He is Iowa’s all-time leading scorer with 373 points, and was an integral figure in the Hawkeyes’ Big Ten-championship squad of 2002.

All but the last two games of his 115-game professional career were with the San Diego Chargers, who selected him in the third round of the 2004 NFL draft. After getting placed on waivers in midseason last year, he played the final two games with the Miami Dolphins.

A free agent, Kaeding signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a month ago.

Kaeding, 31, made 181 of 210 field goal attempts in the NFL for 86.2 percent, which ranks fourth on the league’s all-time list and is ahead of any active kicker. But a torn ACL in the 2011 season’s first game cost him the rest of that season, and he only played the first three games of last season for the Chargers before succumbing to a groin injury. He had gotten off to a 7-for-7 start in field goals before the injury.

“It’s certainly frustrating,” Kaeding said. “You don’t ever want to end your career in that manner. But I’m also excited for the next chapter, being back home (in Iowa City) with my family. It’s a new day.”

Then-Cyclone Hornacek

Former Iowa State star player Jeff Hornacek is a candidate to become the next head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Sixers have asked the Utah Jazz for permission to interview Hornacek, according to Yahoo! Sports.

Hornacek has been a Utah assistant for three seasons. He played there for several years. He played for the 76ers for two of his 14 seasons after he had a distinguished career at Iowa State for coach Johnny Orr.

Hornacek came to Iowa State as a walk-on. Not many walk-ons were as good. He went on to score 15,659 NBA regular-season points, and another 2,092 in the playoffs.

Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said Wednesday that there “could be a lot” of new bowls in the Big Ten’s next bowl-rotation.

What tells me is that there will be a lot of bowls in the Big Ten’s next bowl-rotation.

Based on previous rumblings, I’m thinking the Holiday and Pinstripe bowls will be two of those. Others would come as a surprise to me, but I hope the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco is considered. That comes as a sportswriter who doesn’t care about the matchups as much as the locations. San Diego, New York and San Francisco would be great adds. Shreveport, Mobile, Boise? Not so much.

Something that kind of was announced without a lot of fanfare happened last November when it was announced the Big Ten has an agreement with the Orange Bowl following the 2014 season.

Add it, Big Ten

The ACC will have a team in the game each year in that time. The second team will be either from the SEC, Big Ten or Notre Dame. The SEC and Big Ten will have a minimum of three appearances. Notre Dame will have a maximum of two, and no minimum.

The Rose Bowl, meanwhile, is one of six bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Fiesta and Peach – the latter was formerly known as the Chick-fil-A Bowl) that will rotate as the two semifinal games for College Football Playoff. So, in two of every three years the highest-available Big Ten team will go somewhere other than the Rose Bowl unless its slotted in the Rose Bowl’s national semifinal.

The Big Ten’s bowl lineup could use a shakeup. I don’t get why the conference has three games that play simultaneously against SEC teams in Florida on Jan. 1. That’s what you had last year with the Capital One, Outback and Gator bowls. I don’t get why the league’s only California bowl is the Rose.

So here’s my ideal Big Ten bowl lineup, keeping in mind you can’t have all the big bowls and can’t avoid a few of the smallest ones. The games are listed in the order in which I’d send teams.

Rose/Orange: Obviously.

Capital One: I’m no fan of Orlando or its stadium, but this game pits a high-powered SEC team against one of the Big Ten’s best, and a lot of tourists actually do enjoy Orlando for reasons that baffle me.

Outback: Good bowl site, good stadium, keep it.

Add it, Big Ten

Holiday: This bowl hasn’t been ponying up in recent years, and fell down the Big 12′s pecking order because of it. But it’s San Diego.

Pinstripe: If the Big Ten wants to be a player out East, and it obviously does, get in this game and send decent teams that will make New York take a little notice.

Buffalo Wild Wings: This isn’t a bad little bowl, as Iowa can attest with two appearances. Keep it.

Kraft Fight Hunger: This is a Pac-12/ACC game. Get serious, San Francisco. Bounce the ACC, add the Big Ten, and have a minor-league Rose Bowl in a major-league city.

Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas: The Big Ten should keep one Texas bowl, and this offers more than the Dallas game played at the old Cotton Bowl.

Add it, Big Ten

Little Caesars Pizza: Most years, the Big Ten doesn’t have enough bowl-eligible teams to make it to this game. Keep the affiliation, knowing you’ll be sending a 6-6 team there every other year at most. It’s the only bowl in Big Ten country (well, it was until New York and Maryland/Washington, D.C. got added), so continue to support it.

That means I’d not only lose the Heart of Dallas Bowl, but the Gator Bowl. Two Big Ten-SEC games in Florida works fine. Three is a mish-mash.

Here is one more bowl I wouldn’t hate: The Las Vegas Bowl. Alas, it’s usually played too close to final exams week for comfort at most Big Ten schools).

It’s May 1, by the way. The Rose Bowl is eight months from today. The first college football Saturday is in four months.

What, I’m going to write about the Cubs?

One is Purdue, which has played Notre Dame every year since 1946 and is scheduled to do so through 2021.

The other is Iowa, and the opponent is Iowa State. There are reasons why no one else in the league has such a game.

Offensive lineman Matt Purdy celebrates a Hawkeye touchdown in Iowa's 1993 win over Iowa State (L.W. Ward/The Gazette)

Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin don’t have another FBS program within their states. Michigan and Michigan State are in the same state and conference, as are Indiana and Purdue, and Illinois and Northwestern. Ohio State and Penn State don’t really have serious state-rivals, as much as Cincinnati and Pittsburgh wish that weren’t so.

When Iowa has had an 8-game Big Ten schedule and 12-game overall slate, it had the flexibility to schedule another team from a BCS conference, and often did.

But the reality of what will happen in 2016 when the schedule tightens up with nine conference games has some wondering if the Iowa-ISU series should go the way of $2-a-gallon gas.

A 9-game league schedule leaves little scheduling wiggle room for Iowa, since the program virtually requires seven home games for financial stability. When Hawkeye fans hear about some of the juicy nonconference games ahead for other Big Ten teams, it may leave them envious.

But Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta and football coach Kirk Ferentz have expressed their desire for the series to continue. Ferentz said so once again on Monday’s “On Iowa Live,” and Barta has said it will continue uninterrupted.

Those in the drop-Iowa State camp suggest it would open up opportunities for Iowa to play name-schools from other BCS conferences. But the Hawkeyes have shown no inkling for doing that. In the 14-year Ferentz era, they have had home-and-away series with Arizona, Arizona State, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, and have another with Pitt, starting next year.

Those are all legitimate programs from BCS leagues, but none was a game that created as much or more buzz than the ISU game.

Wisconsin opens its 2015 season by playing Alabama at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Television accepts that matchup. The Badgers have been going to Rose Bowls.

Jake Knott and Cy celebrate ISU's win at Iowa last year (Cliff Jette/The Gazette-KCRG)

Michigan State will continue to play Notre Dame most years, and has a home-and-away with Alabama in 2016 and 2017. But MSU is in a state with the University of Michigan and pro sports of all sorts. It has little choice but to schedule up, to try to get attention in Detroit and throughout Michigan. Iowa doesn’t have that burden.

Besides, why would you consider halting the ISU-Iowa series if it wasn’t necessary? It’s a competitive series that engages the entire state. What more do you want? There’s no better option that is close to being realistic.

We complain about the trashing of tradition in college sports as conferences have expanded and schools have changed leagues. Great college rivalries like Kansas-Missouri, Texas-Texas A&M and Georgetown-Syracuse have been blunted.

That should never happen to Iowa-Iowa State. Especially since they finally created a Cy-Hawk Trophy that doesn’t make us scream in horror.

This was two Cy-Hawk Trophies ago

Victor Oladipo and Cory Zeller announced they were leaving Indiana with eligibility remaining to turn pro. So did Ohio State’s Deshaun Thomas. Michigan’s Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr., too.

That happens to be the five players who were first-team All-Big Ten as voted on by the league’s coaches.

Those were a lot of dominoes to fall, and open the door for other teams to advance next season. But then the other candidates for an early-entrance to the NBA made their choices. And they all stayed put.

Adreian Payne is fired up to come back to MSU (Reuters)

First, it was freshman guard Gary Harris of Michigan State. Not a surprise. Then came sophomores-to-be Glenn Robinson III and Mitch McGary of Michigan. Many felt Robinson would go pro. He didn’t, and those two automatically give the Wolverines the nucleus of a fine team again next season.

The final question mark gave an answer Sunday when Michigan State power forward Adreian Payne announced he was returning for his senior season. While that’s good for college basketball and fantastic for Tom Izzo’s team, it’s not so good for teams who want to compete with the Spartans for next season’s Big Ten title.

Payne keeps getting better, and he’s pretty formidable right now. He averaged 10.5 points and 7.6 rebounds in the season just ended, and it seems like his game is only getting better. There may not be an interior player in the nation who will have Payne’s combination of talent and experience.

Then you put him in a veteran lineup with three other returning starters including the strong backcourt of Keith Appling and Harris, and well-rounded forward Branden Dawson, and you have the overwhelming preseason pick to win the Big Ten. Especially with Tom Izzo coaching.

Hey, you can’t expect every good team to have its roster torn asunder in the offseason.

In Iowa’s case, though, it’s been interesting to see that few media people in Big Ten Country are hesitating to lift the Hawkeyes into upper-tier expectations. Graham Couch of the Lansing State Journal wrote this Sunday night:

From MSU’s perspective, next year’s team just became elite. Maybe elite, elite. Certainly among the preseason national title contenders and an overwhelming favorite in the Big Ten, over a solid second tier that includes Michigan, Iowa, Ohio State and Purdue (probably in that order).

Aaron Craft goes all out (Reuters)

Iowa, of course, has all sorts of returning contributors. Four were in the starting lineup for the Hawkeyes at the NIT in New York, and everyone who didn’t start that game is coming back, joined by Wisconsin transfer Jarrod Uthoff and incoming freshman Peter Jok.

Even with perhaps the five best players in the league departing, it’s going to be a strong league again next season. Ohio State loses the terrific Thomas, but look at what it returns. Aaron Craft is widely recognized as the league’s best defensive player, and he averaged 10 points and 4.6 assists. Wing player LaQuinton Ross had a breakout performance in the NCAA tourney. Shannon Scott is a terrific passer and defender. Forward Sam Thompson seemingly can touch the top of the backboard with his leaping ability.

Michigan not only has Robinson and McCary (the latter seemed to improve with each passing NCAA tourney contest), but has guard Nic Stauskas, who averaged 11 points and drained 44 percent of his 3-pointers. Reserves Jon Horford and Caris LeVert are Big Ten players. Perhaps the next big thing in Wolverine hoops will be incoming freshman point guard Derrick Walton Jr.

Shouldn't this now be orange?

I’m not going team by team, but … Purdue will be a young team with a nice core of vets in Terone Johnson, A.J. Hammons and Ronnie Johnson, and a well-regarded freshman class. Wisconsin — never to be discounted — has an entire starting frontcourt to replace. But Bo Ryan welcomes back Ben Brust, Traevon Jackson and Sam Dekker, as well as point guard Josh Gasser, who missed last season with a torn ACL after being counted on to start for the Badgers.

Illinois will rebuild, but it will do it in State Farm Center instead of Assembly Hall.

By the way, don’t count me among those saying I can’t wait for next basketball season. We finally got something resembling spring in the Midwest. Next winter can take its sweet time getting here. I’m not convinced this winter is gone yet.

The realignment of the Big Ten Conference’s football divisions (effective in 2014) is good for Iowa’s football program, good for Hawkeye fans, and good for the environment.

It’s one of those too-rare moves by a conference these days that actually is a win-win instead of a win-lose or a win-lose-lose or a lose-lose-lose-lose.

From a competitive standpoint, it would be hard to argue that Iowa being placed in a division opposite both Michigan and Ohio State is a bad thing. One never knows, but it isn’t hard to envision those two programs being the class of the conference in the decade ahead. It doesn’t hurt the Hawkeyes to shed Michigan. Not at all.

For Iowa’s fans who travel, how could they not be pleased with either three or four of the Hawkeyes’ road games being played each year against one of the six-nearest Big Ten schools to Iowa City?

The distance from Iowa City to its future West Division members: Wisconsin, 178 miles. Northwestern 230. Illinois 242. Minnesota 303. Nebraska 303. Purdue 324.

From East Division schools: Indiana, 378 miles. Michigan State 426. Michigan 445. Ohio State 535. Penn State 773. Maryland 904. Rutgers 985.

This year, the average distance from Iowa to its five Legends Division members is 341 miles. But with the move to the West, Iowa’s average distance to division-mates drops to 263 miles. That’s a lot of fossil fuel saved, for the teams and their fans.

Plus, these games will pit teams less than 200 miles apart who were not playing each other every year under the current set-up: Northwestern-Purdue (136 miles), Northwestern-Wisconsin (140).

Purdue and Indiana (109 miles apart) are split up, but will play each other every year. Theirs is the only cross-division rivalry game that will be protected.

Common sense reasons aside, it’s just more fun for Iowa fans to have all the Big Ten teams from Iowa’s border states in the Hawkeyes’ division. You don’t have to think about it, you just know you’re going to play Wisconsin and Illinois every year, like you should have been in the first place. Ditto Nebraska and Minnesota and Northwestern.

For those who assume the East will be better than the West most years, realize that of the first two Big Ten championship games, three of the four teams were future West clubs, and both winners (Wisconsin and Wisconsin) are headed to the West.

Sure, sure, Ohio State was unbeaten last season. But those who have been probation-riddled (Ohio State, Penn State) reside in the East.

The tablets have come down from the Big Ten mountain, and here is the press release:

BIG TEN ANNOUNCES FOOTBALL DIVISION ALIGNMENTS

AND MOVE TO NINE-GAME CONFERENCE SCHEDULES

New division alignments begin in 2014 and nine-game schedules start in 2016

Park Ridge, Ill. – The Big Ten Conference office announced football division alignments set to begin in 2014 and nine-game conference schedules set to start in 2016. The changes were unanimously recommended by conference directors of athletics and supported by the Big Ten Council of Presidents/Chancellors.

“Big Ten directors of athletics concluded four months of study and deliberation with unanimous approval of a future football structure that preserved rivalries and created divisions based on their primary principle of East/West geography,” said Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany. “The directors of athletics also relied on the results of a fan survey commissioned by BTN last December to arrive at their recommendation, which is consistent with the public sentiment expressed in the poll.”

The new 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. All schools in the East Division are in the eastern time zone and all schools in the West Division are in the central time zone with the exception of Purdue. 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.

With the start of the nine-game conference schedule in 2016, teams from the East Division will host five conference home games during even-numbered years, while teams from the West Division will host five conference home games during odd-numbered years. As a result of the nine-game conference schedule and the Big Ten’s schedule rotation, every student-athlete will have the opportunity to play against every other team in the conference at least once during a four-year period. The Big Ten is returning to a nine-game conference schedule for all teams for the first time since the 1983 and 1984 seasons.

“Big Ten directors of athletics met in person or by conference call six times from December to March to discuss a new Big Ten football model,” Delany said. “The level of cooperation and collaboration was reflective of what we’ve come to expect from this group of administrators who have worked extremely well together on a number of complex matters over the past several years. We are all looking forward to ushering in this new era of Big Ten football.”

IOWA CITY — I don’t know if Iowa can flip its 4-8 record of 2012 to an 8-4 this year.

Don’t know if the Hawkeyes have three capable quarterbacks, or one.

Don’t know if the offense will be considerably more vertical than horizontal, something that once was a given. Don’t know how this defense will begin to fend off the likes of run-pass masters Jordan Lynch, Kain Colter and Braxton Miller.

But I know I’m looking forward to seeing what junior defensive tackle Carl Davis can do this fall, starting Aug. 31 against the Lynch-led cagey offense of Northern Illinois.

Davis already had a towering presence at 6-foot-5 and 315 pounds, but he looks ready to shift from potential to production. He pretty much mauled offensive guard Jordan Walsh at Iowa’s spring game Saturday at Kinnick Stadium, and was a constant irritant to each of the three quarterbacks vying to be Iowa’s starter.

Iowa defensive tackle barrels in on quarterback Jake Rudock during Saturday's spring game (Brian Ray/The Gazette-KCRG)

Three sacks and a couple of batted-down passes made Davis the unofficial defensive MVP of the game, a 61-37 win for the offense mainly because of a scoring system tilted its way. Davis played with an enthusiasm and smile that seemed to infect the rest of his defensive teammates.

“I want to be able to do that – three sacks in a game – this fall,” Davis said.

For a team with not a lot expected from its D-line, maybe it just takes Davis to cause disruption up front to start to set off a positive change in the entire unit’s performance. That’s oversimplifying and putting way too much on one guy, of course, especially one who has yet to make a college start. But Hawkeye linebacker Christian Kirksey likes what he has witnessed in front of him on the practice field this spring.

“You can just see that he’s very aggressive,” Kirksey said. “He’s fast for his size. He knows defenses well. So expect big things from him this season.

“I have so much trust in Big Carl, I have so much faith in Big Carl, and I know that he can get the job done.”

Davis doesn’t offer the same salesmanship when the subject is him, but you could have sensed his developing confidence even if he hadn’t offered the following statements:

“I’m comfortable. I know the defense now. … It’s all about work. It started in the winter phase in the weight room and I’m just trying to progress. Hopefully I can take this over to the season.”

What Davis was as a redshirt freshman was hurt. His right kneecap was dislocated in August 2011 and again late in the season. He had surgery after the Insight Bowl. Last year, he was tentative. Thus, he wasn’t really much of a contributor to a defensive line that really could have used contributions.

Davis called returning from injury “a mental block for me. I was nervous getting around piles and stuff like that. Now, I just play.

“I just had to get over it. I feel like I’ve overcome it. I don’t have any braces any more. I’m just running around now.”

Three days earlier, Iowa defensive line coach Reese Morgan didn’t downplay what he’s seen from Davis this spring.

Davis celebrates one of his three sacks (Brian Ray/The Gazette-KCRG)

“Carl has really some special abilities,” Morgan said, “and I tell you what’s really nice is, he’s really buying into things. He’s working harder.

“He’s improving more, but it doesn’t come consistently. When you have a bigger guy that’s working and we are going up against uptempo offenses and we tell them, when the ball takes off, you run; all of the things we are asking him to do are a little bit out of his comfort zone.”

But … “I think he’s really going to be an excellent player for us, I really do.”

Yes, it was just a spring game, and spring-game stardom fades faster than a sunset. But Davis’ combination of sacks and bat-downs Saturday suggested he has an honest-to-goodness skill set.

“I know when some people look at me they see me as a big player and they think usually big plug guys,” he said. “I can do that, and I feel like I’m quick on my feet and I can make pass-rush moves and do anything a 260-pound end would do.”

There’s probably something about an NFL Draft weekend that puts some bounce in the step of a collegiate upperclassman, too. Davis already has the NFL size. If he attaches some good game film to it, well …

“I’m confident I can get there,” he said. “But you’ve got to take the necessary steps right now.

“I’ve got to work. I talk to guys like (former Hawkeye/current Green Bay Packer defensive end) Mike Daniels. Before this spring started he was just telling me ‘You’ve got to work for it. Nothing comes to you.’ That’s a guy I keep in touch with, and he helps me out mentally.”

Iowa, like virtually any football team, has only been a winner when it got standout defensive play up front. If D-line players don’t emerge this fall, it’s another long season. If Davis and/or others do, the conversation can start to change.

Not a typical Kinnick Stadium score

“Carl really hasn’t played that many snaps from the line of scrimmage,” said Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz. “He clearly has taken steps this spring. He’s a big guy who’s capable. He’s got a great attitude. He’s starting to develop the confidence it takes to play successfully. There’s nobody to hand a player that. They’ve got to go out and earn that.”

“I love coming to practice,” Davis said. “I can’t say I was like that my freshman and sophomore years. This spring, it was great.”

I was a bit surprised to learn Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford is considering having his league play some football and basketball games in Europe.

Isn’t that the wrong side of the Atlantic, Commish? I don’t see a market for Virginia-Syracuse in Paris or Rome. Maybe Miami or Boston College would play well there, since many a European enjoys a winter vacation in Miami Beach or has relatives in Boston. You don’t have to explain “Miami” to Euros. “Wake Forest” or “Clemson” would be a whole different deal.

It would be like having Atletico de Madrid or Bayern Munich play their brand of football in Blacksburg or Tallahassee. But …

“We need to think big,” Swofford said.

All this, and the ACC, too?

The Big Ten doesn’t like to be outmaneuvered, but the advice here is to let the ACC go on its transatlantic journeys. You don’t want to follow that conference to Europe, because it just makes you look like a copycat. And no other continent doesn’t seem like a good option. They’re not that into American football in South America. Or Asia. Or Australia. Or Africa. Or Antarctica. Or Europe, for that matter.

As for basketball, those land masses are all a long way to travel just to play a 3-hour game. It takes three hours just to go through customs in some places.

So, as someone always happy to give the Big Ten sound advice, I say stay home. Have schools play their home games at … home. It’s an old-fashioned concept, but many leading financial planners suggest it’s a top option. It saves money, time, and explaining why in the world you would send your teams overseas to play games in the middle of the school year.

Unavailable for college football at this time

Now, if the Big Ten wants to move its conference basketball tournament to Las Vegas, a la the Pacific-12, Mountain West, West Coast Conference and Western Athletic Conference, I’m OK with it as long as I get to cover it. I’d even go to the games. Some of them, anyway. Well, the ones I was required to attend. All right, I swear I would at least watch them from the sports book of the Bellagio.

And if the league wants to leave the indoor comfort of Indianapolis’ stadium and move its football championship to Miami or San Diego, I’m OK with that, too. Big Ten football is meant to be played outdoors. Unless it’s in December, and in Big Ten country.

But if the conference thinks it’s a good idea to have Iowa play Purdue in Sao Paulo or Singapore, it is sadly mistaken. Even if some Hawkeye fans now wish the last football game between the two had been held at least that far from Iowa City.

A footnote: It isn’t as if there hasn’t been a Big Ten football game of importance played in Asia. Click here to read more about it.

One of the many beaten-to-death phrases people like to use is “It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”

Every time it’s said, the person who says it thinks it’s a hoot. It isn’t.

But being a member of the selection committee of College Football Playoff will truly be a dirty job. Somebody’s gotta do it. And I volunteer.

My kindred spirit

The reason: It will give me the publicity that will lead to kind of page-view traffic that will make me viable in this brave, new digital world. Everything else about it, however, would stink.

College football fans tend to be, well, passionate. Passion makes people behave irrationally. Far more has gone badly because of passionate people than those who aren’t particularly interested in things. Passionate fans are of the opinion the rest of the country doesn’t respect their team, neglects their team, or flat-out hates their team. So they will see fatal flaws in virtually each member of the committee that will determine the four playoff teams. Every real and perceived negative about committee members will be circulated around the world, and then around the world again. And one more time just to be safe.

That won’t be pleasant.

So it will take a rare, special kind of person to be on the committee. A person who just doesn’t care. About anything. Other than picking the four most-deserving teams, assuming that’s actually possible, which it probably won’t be in many years. I mean, will No. 4 really be more-deserving than No. 5, or even, dare I say it,  No. 6?

Last year, Florida was No. 3 in the final BCS standings. Then it got handled by Louisville in the Sugar Bowl. Louisville was No. 21 in the final BCS standings. What the heck, BCS?

Rankings are always chock full o’ questionable slottings. So those who make these College Football Playoff  rankings must be people of conviction. They must be people who don’t pay attention to any voices except for the ones in their heads. That’s me! Just ask my wife, my boss, people who have been in cars behind mine at stoplights waiting for me to react to the light turning green. Ask the people sitting in front of me in movie theaters who wish I’d stop blurting out “I’ll never go to that!” during the previews before the feature film begins.

As for criticism of the committee members on national sports shows on radio, television and digital platforms? Gimme, gimme. Just pronounce my name right and plug my website, mikehlas.com. I don’t own that URL, by the way. I would rather own collegefootbalplayoff.com. 

Him, too

I was a voter on Associated Press’ Top 25 football poll the last few years. I didn’t show regional bias or a conference bias. I voted for the best teams. That was the assignment, and I heeded it. I was a credit to sports, fairness, and humanity.

Alabama was my preseason No. 1 as well as my postseason No. 1 last season. I have no love for Alabama football, folks. To me, it’s like rooting for BP or Exxon Mobil. Or Donald Trump.

If anything, I’d like to see Vanderbilt beat the Crimson Tide by 49 points the next time they meet. But I voted for the best teams, and Alabama was the best of the best. If the nine Supreme Court justices were as fair-minded, this nation would be on the road to Utopia. How did I get so fair? It’s some sort of miracle.

Also, there does need to be someone from the media on this panel to spill the beans about everyone else on the committee. You need an insider to inform you about their prejudices, their vanities, and the suspicious ways they act. Don’t leave all the heavy lifting to TMZ.com.

I, however, cannot be bought. They say everyone has a price, but I most certainly do not. If you would like me to prove that to you, contact me to set up a private interview. A warning, however: It will cost you.

One more thing: Should Iowa or Iowa State be in the mix for the College Football Playoff’s “Final Four,” I will most certainly will not recuse myself from the committee.  My home state comes first, and it would be my responsibility as an Iowan to represent the people I live among and get everything I can get for them.

Some call it pork. People can be so cynical.

IOWA CITY — New features are almost surely coming Kinnick Stadium’s way.

A big-boy video screen, and one of the ribbons you see at so many stadiums and arenas now.

Click on the artist’s renditions to make them larger. Repeat: Artist’s renditions.

Offensive lineman Riley Reiff of Iowa was the first Big Ten player selected in the 2012 NFL draft. (Or NFL Draft, depending how religious you are about this great and grand event.) He was the 23rd player selected overall.

It was sort of jarring to see the league wait so long to take a Big Ten guy. But the league would be delighted to have someone go that early tonight in the first-round of the ’13 draft (or Draft).

Most mock drafts have no one from the conference going in the first round. If that’s how it plays out, it would be the first time the league was blanked in Round 1 since 1953, when the NFL had 13 teams. By the way, the first pick of the second round that year and 14th player overall was Bernie Flowers of Purdue.

Eric Fisher: Not a Big Ten player

t’s highly possible that the only 2013 first-round pick Iowa faced in its 12 games last year was from Central Michigan. That’s offensive tackle Eric Fisher, who is in everybody’s top seven picks. Maybe CMU’s 32-31 win at Iowa last Sept. 22 wasn’t the upset we all thought it was. The Chippewas finished the season 7-6 after a win over Western Kentucky in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.

Iowa has had first-rounders in each of the previous three drafts, which is saying something. It was offensive lineman Bryan Bulaga in 2010, defensive lineman Adrian Clayborn in ’11, and Reiff. This year, defensive back Micah Hyde may be the only Hawkeye drafted. You can cut the blame for that 4-8 record of 2012 in a lot of slices, but not having a junior or senior in the Bulaga/Clayborn/Reiff category is one of the bigger ones.

The quick and easy answer is that these things are cyclical. But the cycle has been pointing down for the Big Ten for a while now. The league hasn’t had a player taken in the first 10 picks of any NFL draft since 2008. None.

From 2009 to 2012, only four conferences have produced top-10 draftees: The SEC had 15, the Big 12 had 13, the ACC had 6, and the Pac-10/Pac-12 had 6. In 2010, the Big 12 had the first four players taken. In 2011, the SEC had five of the first six.

The breakdown of tonight’s first-round from the mock draft of Sports Illustrated’s Peter King:

SEC  11 players

Big 12   6

Pac-12  5

ACC  5

Notre Dame  2

Sun Belt  1

MAC  1

BYU  1

But Big Ten men’s basketball was way better than the SEC’s this year.

By the way, CBSsports.com says Michigan’s Taylor Lewan is the No. 2 offensive tackle prospect for the 2014 draft. So there’s that.

Well, you can vote at collegefootballplayoff.com. Or you can do the right thing, and vote here where your ballot carries far more weight.

I’ll tell you I favor No. 2 by default. No. 1 looks too militaristic. No. 4 looks like a logo at a ferry terminal. No. 3 looks like a ribbon you would wear to honor the dear, soon-to-be-departed BCS.

Here are the candidates. The ballot is below them.