Iowa’s first taste of the Big Ten’s newbies will come Oct. 18, 2014 when the Hawkeyes travel to Maryland. The Big Ten released its conference schedules in the last few minutes. There were murmurs of “parity-based” scheduling at the Big Ten meetings earlier this week and, in Iowa’s case, that seemed to hit home. Iowa’s [...]

  – Big Ten athletics directors and commissioner Jim Delany were unanimous in their desire to make 7-5 the minimum record for bowl teams, but with so many bowls, they conceded that isn’t possible and accept that 6-6 teams will be bowl eligible in the Big Ten. “We were hoping the 6-6 would go to [...]

  CHICAGO — The buzzwords you hear on the Big Ten’s new bowl lineup are “national,” “diverse” and “recruiting.” The conference has seemingly achieved national with bowl deals from the Holiday Bowl in San Diego to the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in New York. The diversity stems from the less sexy word, “fatigue.” Many [...]

CHICAGO – These Big Ten May meetings took on a life of their own in 2010 when the conference was in the midst of expansion. The meetings are still going strong as far as news cycles go, with the B1G’s bowl lineup and future schedules being among the topics on Tuesday. Expansion wasn’t a topic. [...]

CHICAGO — Five things that have happened since the last time Iowa and Illinois met on a football field (Nov. 1, 2008): 1) Barack Obama was elected. 2) The Chicago Blackhawks ended a 49-year Stanley Cup drought. 3) Craft beer became a thing. 4) A TV show called “Jersey Shore” came and went. 5) Justin [...]

CHICAGO — You see Wisconsin and Alabama. You see Minnesota and TCU. You see Michigan State and Oregon. And you wonder why you see Iowa and Northern Illinois. Iowa athletics director Gary Barta discussed the parameters for future football schedules during Tuesday’s Big Ten Conference meetings. The Big Ten will release football schedules for the [...]

CHICAGO – That Big Ten bowl shuffle has so far yielded…not great stuff. According to ESPN.com’s Brett McMurphy, the conference will share tie-ins with the Gator Bowl and Music City Bowl with the ACC during a six-year agreement, so three Big Ten teams would go to Jacksonville and three to Nashville in the span. They’ll face [...]

Football scheduling will rule the Latitudes today. First, CBSsports.com broke this morning that Iowa and Northern Illinois will play at Kinnick Stadium in 2018 and 2020. CBS’ Jeremy Fowler also reports the sides have discussed playing three straight games during that span. So far, NIU has elected to keep 2019 open. So, for now, that [...]

Iowa athletics director Gary Barta was on ESPN’s College Football Live on Thursday to discuss FCS-level schools on the Hawkeyes future schedules. Monday, The Gazette reported that Iowa was in a wait-and-see mode in regards to future games with Northern Iowa (2014 and 2018), Illinois State (2015) and North Dakota State (2016). Iowa will play [...]

Less than two weeks after the project was approved by the State Board of Regents, the new video board and sound project is underway at Kinnick Stadium. The video board/sound upgrades will be up and going this fall. UI athletics director Gary Barta admitted that it will be a tight timeline, but the plan is [...]