Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

From the “strange football statistics” department: Northern Iowa and Iowa State both made 49-yard field goals today.

Caught at the bottom of this L.A. Times piece about Notre Dame being* in the ACC is this bit:

Are these rankings for football teams or truck stops? Ken Massey’s early season Bowl Championship Series algorithms are always good for a few laughs. His top five this week: Louisiana Monroe, Iowa State, Arkansas, Iowa and Tulsa. Yes, Massey’s rankings are used in the BCS formula, but it’s still way too early to call the cops.

Iowa State beat Iowa and Tulsa. Arkansas just lost to ULM. My guess is, Massey’s algorithms take strength of schedule and “opponents’ opponents” into account.

*Is there a philosophical/religious sense of “being” that encompasses “except only 5/8-and-bowl-game in football”?

Notre Dame going to the ACC in everything but football (SB Nation). More from ESPN.

ND to the Big 12 was a fool’s hope anyway. But a $50 million exit fee(!) means that Florida State won’t be thinking about it either.

As the first linked post says, the Irish get to have their cake and eat it too. Out of the discombobulated mess that is college sports in the 2010s, the brass ring has kept itself out of everyone’s grasp.

To refresh: Iowa State is one of 10 BCS teams after this year that Notre Dame has never played. (Wake Forest is scheduled for this year.) Virginia Tech will fall off that list eventually as the ACC mandate in Notre Dame’s schedule is phased in.

EDIT: The first ND-Wake game was last year. They also play this year.

This has “bad idea” written all over it.

Which is better: Being a relatively big fish in a medium-sized pond or a guppy in the ocean?

UNI gave Wisconsin a game. It will likely give Iowa a game. But moving up means much, much more time doing that in higher-risk body-bag games. Western Kentucky, for example, played at Nebraska last year and at Alabama this year.

Iowa is already the third-smallest state with two BCS conference teams. Iowa State’s support on that level is precarious even now, especially outside of TV revenue. It was an open question as to whether this state would continue supporting two programs in the top level of football.

UNI barely meets some requirements for being considered eligible for an upgrade. The NCAA requires an average home attendance of 15,000 two years in a row; the UNI-Dome holds 16,324. In other words, UNI needs near-sellouts just to reach the bare minimum. What happens when losses grow in the next level?

UNI wouldn’t be able to get away with repeatedly having Iowa and Iowa State on the schedule. (Three of those wins of that 9-22 record of the past quarter-century are against ISU, by the way.) We’re talking the potential for fan-base-demoralizing losses.

I think UNI needs to concentrate on doing what it does best: Competing in I-AA and preparing for the occasional giant-killing. Given the Board of Regents’ disdain for state support, I don’t fault UNI for looking. I just don’t see it as being a positive change down the road.

Many Iowa media outlets have agreed on using the Twitter hashtag “iahsfb” when covering Friday night games live. By using this tag, one can follow updates on games across the state. (Following football games like this is one of the few redeeming features of Twitter.)

However, there are at least two prominent dissenters. KWWL is using its own tag “#kwwlfnf“, which is where many of the North Tama vs. Aplington-Parkersburg tweets ended up, while KCRG is using “#kcrgfnl“.

I know the two TV stations may not like using a tag that isn’t “theirs”, but it would make following games in Iowa easier if they joined the party. In addition, it would increase the prominence of the “#iahsfb” tag.

This is David Ubben’s third season of covering the Big 12 Conference for ESPN.

He has never been to Ames.

Ultimately, we still cover the most nationally relevant games in the Big 12 each week. Iowa State likes to pull upsets, but we don’t usually cover games with spreads of 20 points or more. If Iowa State’s winning ways grow and they become more relevant in the league title race, you’ll see me in Ames. So far, that hasn’t happened, but I’ll be more than happy to make my way over when it does.

I understand his argument, but completely disagree. I think that someone tabbed to cover a conference should make an effort to visit every site in that conference on a semi-regular basis. While visiting the “big games” may make sense at first, there comes a time when it’s just time to come over. By the way, last year’s spread against Iowa was 6½.

In fact, he seems to be going out of his way to justify his indifference, like in this note for the bowl projections: “Iowa State’s knocking on the door, but three Big 12 wins won’t be easy. Long way to go still for the Clones, but a nice win on Saturday.” This may be true, but then, why is Texas Tech getting the benefit of the doubt right now?

As we wait for Saturday’s game, there is something Iowa State needs to be reminded of: Many, many Iowa fans take ISU’s mere existence on the schedule as an insult.

Read this from last year, right before the game, when Conferencepocalypse II was threatening to become much, much bigger.

For whatever reason — perhaps the 40-year break, more likely the 16 15 straight years of Hayden Fry triumphs over the Cyclones, or just ISU’s historical badness — Hawks get really upset at being told to play with Little Brother.

But, to end on a happy note, here’s a 7-minute recap of last year’s game.

EDIT 9/8: Corrected number in win streak.