College Football Military flyover was less than 200 feet

Last November a low flyover at an Iowa-Ohio State football game caused internet headlines for a few days, now new information has come out. Continue reading →

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April 15, 2011, 12:30 am

BCS 2012 National Championship Odds

Odds to win the 2012 BCS National Championship

Oklahoma                                 7/2

Alabama                                   15/2

Florida State                              10/1

Boise State                               12/1

LSU                                          12/1

Oregon                                      14/1

Florida                                      15/1

Where is your school listed? CLICK HERE for the rest of the 2012 BCS National Championship odds

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January 13, 2011, 6:16 pm

Duke, Ohio State lead NCAA Men’s Hoops odds

Odds to Win the 2010-11 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship
Duke                             11/4
Ohio State                     11/2
Kansas                         7/1
Michigan State              12/1
Pittsburgh                     18/1
Kansas State                20/1
Kentucky                      20/1
Syracuse                      20/1
Continue reading →

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December 16, 2010, 8:47 pm

Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz not a fan of playing after Thanksgiving

Kirk Ferentz long ago went on record as saying how much he detests the idea of the Big Ten football season extending beyond Thanksgiving. The Iowa coach liked the old schedule that called for the last game to be played before the holiday, allowing coaches and players to kick back and spend time with their families and gorge themselves on turkey while waiting to see what bowl game they played in. He doesn’t cherish the idea of practicing on Thanksgiving. “Now that we’re doing it, I love it,” Ferentz said Tuesday. “I love whatever I’m told to do.” He’s being facetious, of course. He still hates it. But the schedule calls for his Hawkeyes to play on the road at Minnesota on Saturday, and he plans to show up with a fully prepared team, ready to go all out in quest of its eighth win of the season. “This is a week where normally everybody gets out of Dodge for a week and they just get away from campus, get away from football,”Ferentz said. “Get a chance to really, truly recharge and regenerate a little bit. I think being with family is still an American value. This kind of makes it a little bit tougher for a lot of guys. We’ll have a lot of guys displaced on Thursday. — Quad City Times

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November 24, 2010, 8:52 am

Six NCAA schools have only played on Saturdays since 2000

The Big Ten has played by far the fewest non-Saturday games of any conference (30) since 2000, while the Mid-American Conference has played the most (282). Six schools have played exclusively on Saturdays since 2000: Notre Dame, Iowa, Michigan State, Florida, Georgia and Duke. — Wall Street Journal

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November 23, 2010, 3:52 am

College football coach is Iowa’s best-paid state employee

Coaches remain Iowa’s best-paid state employees, again led by University of Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz’s nearly $3.3 million, according to 2010 data released Monday by the Iowa Department of Administrative Services. Ferentz’s salary for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010, was $3.295 million, which breaks down to almost $275,000 a month. Ferentz’s pay, which does not include endorsements or money he makes from other commitments, is nearly 88 times higher than the average working Iowan’s $37,452 annual salary, according to statistics from Iowa Workforce Development. His salary has increased by 19 percent in three years. Money generated by the athletics department pays for Ferentz’s contract. — Des Moines Register

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November 2, 2010, 8:34 am

College Football’s Fun Facts

23 Things to know heading into College Football’s 4th Saturday

  1. Alabama has reeled off 27 consecutive regular-season victories. The Tide is also a perfect 16-0 in SEC play over the last two years, becoming just the second team (Florida – 1995 & 1996) in conference history to post back-to-back undefeated 8-0 records since the league split into a divisional format in 1992.

  2. Arkansas has played the defending national champions nine times in the last 14 years, including each of the last three seasons. In 2008, Bobby Petrino became the first Razorback head coach to earn an on-field victory over the defending national champions in his first season with a 31-30 victory over LSU.

  3. Greg McElroy’s 17-0 start to his career ranks as the second-longest streak of consecutive wins by a starting quarterback in school history. Jay Barker won the first 22 games of his career from 1991-93.

  4. Last week, Mark Ingram became the first FBS player since 2008 to rush for more than 150 yards on less than 10 carries.

  5. Ohio State has won 56 straight regular-season non-conference games against teams not ranked in the AP Top 25. The last unranked non-conference team to beat Ohio State was Pittsburgh in 1988. Ohio State’s last six non-conference losses were all to teams ranked in the AP Top 3.

  6. Ohio State did not commit a penalty last week against Ohio. It was the first time since 1988 that Ohio State went an entire game without a penalty. Ohio State has only committed two penalties over its last two games and has committed the fifth-fewest penalties among FBS schools this season.

  7. The Buckeyes are 19-1 in games in which Terrell Pryor throws at least one touchdown pass and 13-1 in games in which Pryor rushes for at least one touchdown.

  8. Oregon State receiver/returner James Rodgers leads the nation in all-purpose yards per game with 226.5, over 25 yards more than second-place Kendall Hunter of Oklahoma. Rodgers is second among active players with 5,530 career all-purpose yards.

  9. Texas is currently on a 16-game home winning streak, which is the sixth-longest streak on UT record and is the fifth-longest active streak in the nation behind Oklahoma (33), Boise St. (26), Utah (19) and Houston (17).

  10. The Oregon Ducks lead the nation in total offense (611.7), scoring offense (63.0), total defense (193.3), scoring defense (4.3) and pass efficiency defense (61.20).

  11. Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez leads the nation in rushing touchdowns with 8, but has only one passing touchdown so far. Martinez has also run for more yards (421) than he has thrown (392).

  12. The Florida Gators lead the nation with 10 interceptions this season – two more than any other team. Four different Gators have multiple interceptions this season.

  13. Florida QB John Brantley has gone 140 straight pass attempts without an interception. He has opened the 2010 season with an active streak of 79. Brantley’s only career pick — against 15 career touchdowns — came in 2008 at Vanderbilt.

  14. The Oklahoma Sooners are now exactly 500 games above .500 in school history, going 802-302-53 over their 115 seasons of football.

  15. Oklahoma Head Coach Bob Stoops returns to coach in his home state for the first time since he left Kent State for Kansas State after the 1988 season. Stoops is a native of Youngstown, which is 274 miles northeast of Cincinnati.

  16. Wisconsin is 30-4 under Bret Bielema when it scores first, including wins in nine of the last 10 games in which it has put the first points on the board.

  17. LSU’s current nation-leading non-conference regular season winning streak of 30 games is on the line against West Virginia. The streak dates back to 2002. LSU has also won 28 straight non-conference games at Tiger Stadium, dating back to 2000.

  18. Utah has scored 72% (87/121) of their points in the second and third quarter. Utah has only scored 10 first-quarter points this season despite averaging just over 40 points per game.

  19. Cal running back Shane Vereen is the only FBS player with at least five rushing and two receiving touchdowns so far this season.

  20. Iowa is 45-2 when scoring 30 points of more under head coach Kirk Ferentz, who is in his 12th season as head coach at Iowa.

  21. Penn State is the only team NOT to not allow a sack this season. The Nittany Lions’ offensive line entered the season with only one returning starter playing the same position he finished last season.

  22. Michigan QB Denard Robinson, with 671 passing yards and 559 rushing yards this season, is the only FBS player with at least 500 passing and 400 rushing yards this season. He also is one of only two players (Colin Kaepernick, Nevada) with at least four passing and four rushing touchdowns this season.

  23. UCLA is ranked 118th in passing offense, averaging just 100 yards per game. Only Georgia Tech and Army are worse.
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September 24, 2010, 10:00 pm

Iowa’s Stanzi has won 14 straight games

Ricky Stanzi has an interesting theory about why recruiters didn’t think he deserved to play in the Big Ten. “I wasn’t good enough, probably,” he said. The quarterback at Lake Catholic High School in Mentor, Ohio, planned on going to Miami (Ohio). Other Mid-American Conference schools checked in, too – Akron, Toledo, Bowling Green – as well as other small-conference schools. It wasn’t until after Thanksgiving of his senior year – a period usually reserved for the recruiting dregs – that Iowa offered him a scholarship. “Fortunately for me, Iowa saw something they thought they could build on,” he said. The finished product is stunning – entering Saturday night’s game at Arizona Stadium, Stanzi is one of the nation’s most successful football players. Iowa’s senior quarterback is 20-4 as a starter. He hasn’t lost a game he started and finished since Nov. 1, 2008, a span of 14 straight wins. — Arizona Daily Star

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September 16, 2010, 5:39 am

Iowa’s Ferentz has earned new contract

Even though I wasn’t at his news conference Monday, it seems obvious that Iowa State football coach Paul Rhoads was providing some levity in preparation for Saturday’s intrastate showdown when he told reporters that he sent Kirk Ferentz a text message asking for some spending money. Rhoads made the comment in reaction to Ferentz being given a new contract extension that runs through the 2020 season and makes Ferentz the highest paid coach in the Big Ten at $3,675,000 annually. The fact that Rhoads made the comment proves how out of whack college football coaching salaries have become, considering he makes more than $1 million annually. Rhoads got a laugh out it, and so did Ferentz when he responded to the comment Tuesday during his weekly news conference. “He should have sent it to my wife, that simple,” Ferentz said. “I’m like everybody else. You’re asking the wrong guy on that one. “I’m up to $20 a week now. That’s my allowance. That’s pretty good.”– Press-Citizen

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September 8, 2010, 6:35 am

Iowa A.D. is happy to get season-ending game with Nebraska

It’s a new era for the Big Ten and the Iowa football program. On Wednesday, the Big Ten announced how the league would align into two divisions beginning in 2011 when Nebraska joins the league. Iowa will enter a division with Minnesota and Nebraska, along with Northwestern, Michigan and Michigan State. The Hawkeyes will play those five schools annually — plus Purdue as a cross-divisional rival — each year. The opposite division consists of Wisconsin, Illinois, Penn State, Ohio State, Indiana and Purdue. In 2011, the league will play its first title game. Playing Nebraska each year excites Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta, and the Big Ten shifted Iowa’s traditional end-of-season rivalry game from Minnesota to Nebraska. Iowa will play Nebraska on Thanksgiving weekend in 2011 and 2012. The Hawkeyes had ended their league season with Minnesota in 25 of the past 27 years. — World-Herald

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September 2, 2010, 4:24 am

Sheriff: University of Iowa tailgating rules to burden jail

Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek does not have fond memories of the 2006 night home football game against Ohio State, and it had nothing to do with the turnout of the game, which Iowa lost. “The jail got to some dangerous levels of inmates,” Pulkrabek said. Now, Pulkrabek has similar concerns about gameday jail capacity in light of University of Iowa officials’ announcement this week they would be taking a stricter approach with tailgaters this season. The heightened approach to law breaking could mean more inmates at the jail on Saturdays, something officials never bothered to discuss with Pulkrabek, he said. “I’m not real thrilled with it,” Pulkrabek said Thursday. “The university appears to be a little narrow sighted on it.” — Iowa City Press-Citizen

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August 20, 2010, 7:43 am

Michigan State LB darkhorse Heisman Trophy candidate?

If another defensive player is to be invited to New York in December, Sports Illustrated said Michigan State linebacker Greg Jones would have to be considered. J. Darin Darst wrote: “Jones is a beast, but the problem with linebackers and the Heisman race is too many players have great tackle numbers. Still, keep an eye on Jones, especially when he faces Wisconsin (Oct. 2), Iowa (Oct. 30) and Penn State (Nov. 27).” The other seven defensive players SI mentioned for the Heisman were Adrian Clayborn (Iowa), Jared Crick (Nebraska), Von Miller (Texas A&M), Greg Romeus (Pittsburgh), Patrick Peterson (Louisiana State), Rahim Moore (UCLA) and Greg Reid (Florida State). — Detroit Free Press

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July 20, 2010, 9:03 am