Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The University of Idaho football team moved up from I-AA with Boise State in 1996, but since then their fortunes have wildly diverged. Now Boise State is wedging its way into the BCS (just as it ceases to exist) while Idaho is in real danger of having no alternative than going back down to I-AA.

The Vandals are in the middle of a WAC-tastrophe. Idaho’s home conference has been pillaged by the Mountain West (again) and the Sun Belt, leaving it holding the bag with New Mexico State.

With just about nothing to lose, the university’s president, Duane Nellis, took a shot at the 800-pound television network in the room: “As you well know TV networks like ESPN are now running major college athletic affiliations not the NCAA.” His whole letter is at the link.

It’s not the first time someone has openly said that. Remember when Boston College’s athletics director said the ACC added Pittsburgh and Syracuse because “ESPN told us what to do” and then had to retract the statement?

I’m in the middle of reading Those Guys Have All the Fun, a history of ESPN with interviews from the people who were there. In 30 years, the network has gone from begging the NCAA to let it carry basketball games to determining structural components of college athletics. It is, to be blunt, a little scary how much power it wields.

Why am I bringing up a quote from the president of the University of Idaho on a website concerned about Iowa? It should be pretty obvious:  Iowa State has been in practically the same boat two years in a row. “The key variable for adding new teams is immediate media market,” Nellis wrote. That won’t change if and when Conferencepocalypse III rears its ugly head.

The Des Moines Register:

In the CIML, football teams are leaving grass for greener pastures — all-weather artificial surfaces.

Indianola, which shares its field with Simpson College, installed a $750,000 surface in 2001.

West Des Moines Valley opened an $8 million stadium a decade ago with a $700,000 field. The field was replaced in 2010.

The article is about more than football though — artificial tracks and weight room upgrades are also part of it.

(Title is in reference to the post below. If it seems excessively snarky, it’s because I’m still kind of upset about the remarks.)

Not the University of Iowa, not the universities or our D-III college conference, but football in Iowa, period.

Last week, a Cyclone fan wrote to Big 12 blogger David Ubben about all the current head coaches who had links to both Iowa and Iowa State. Ubben replied (third Q&A):

Iowa doesn’t have the greatest reputation when it comes to football culture, but that’s a staggering amount of connections for a state with just two major programs within its borders. 

The original e-mail did not mention “football culture” at all. The response angered an Iowa fan (!) enough to write about the Hayden Fry coaching tree and Nile Kinnick. Ubben didn’t budge.

Hey, I’m not talking about historical accomplishments or coaching trees. I’m talking purely cultural. Iowa’s isn’t bad, but do you really believe it compares to some of the great ones around the nation? Are the multimillion-dollar, 10-20,000-seat high school stadiums all over the place? Do people really obsess over the game? I’d say Texas and Oklahoma’s football “culture” are markedly better than Iowa’s. It’s not to say Iowa’s is poor, just that it doesn’t compare with the best nationally.

You know why we don’t have 10-20,000-seat high school stadiums “all over the place,” Mr. Ubben? Because only a third of our counties have more than 20,000 people. Then the middle-population-tier counties are divided among multiple school districts.

If you come to any of the individual games, especially on the small end of the scale, we may not have 10,000 seats, but the percentage of people from the surrounding area at the game is significant. It’s also easier to get thousands of fans to show up when they don’t have to worry about gametime temperatures in the 40s and/or biting wind chills.

Do we obsess over the game? We have a statewide radio network that does a scoreboard show for hours every Friday, and it’s carried on TV even though it’s just a couple of guys with headphones reading scores.

Do we obsess about it as much as Oklahoma and Texas? I will admit that is not likely the case. But have you seen some of the stuff they post on TexAgs? I submit that not being as obsessive as Oklahoma and Texas is a good thing. Plus, Iowans are more “polytheistic” when it comes to sports.

I hope Ubben has heard about Ed Thomas. There’s also Curt Bladt and Duane Twait. They and hundreds of other coaches across the state, in the past and today, along with parents and fans, make Iowa football culture pretty darn good. The state of Iowa may not be the state of Texas, but it holds its own against just about anywhere else.