Here are a few things to look forward to while we wait for the football season to start.
The 37th Annual Iowa Shrine Bowl Game - July 25 (7:00 PM)
The Shrine Bowl Game pits the best recent high school graduates from Iowa against each other before the kids go off to college. If you are dying to see some live football, tickets are only $10 and the money goes to a good cause. If you can't make it out to Jack Trice Stadium on Saturday, the Mediacom Connections Channel (22) is showing the game on tape delay Sunday at 4:00 PM. It'll be a good opportunity to see some of the incoming freshman in action. The list of future Hawkeyes include: Drew Clark, Wyatt Suess, Brett Van Sloten, Dominic Alvis, Jordan Cotton, Matt Murphy, and Marcus Kloos.
2009 Big Ten Media Days - July 27 - 28
After the long off season we'll finally get the chance to hear from some coaches and players. It'll be a lot of coach-speak and inconsequential questions and answer sessions, but it means football is almost here. Representing Iowa will be Pat Angerer, A.J. Edds, and Tony Moeaki. If you want to follow the media days, there will be plenty of coverage provided by the Big Ten Network and of course I'll post any of my thoughts here.
First Practice and Media Day - August 7
Though the free lunch has been cut from the media day activities I’m still hopefull that we'll get some solid stories from the attendees on August 7. The official site usually does a good job covering the event posting quotes, pictures, and sometimes audio and video. The worst though, are those atrocious posed pictures (remember the jumping o-linemen?). The day also marks the first day of practice and the start of the 2009 football season. It's really less than 3 weeks away, then just a month after that until the season kicks off against UNI.
The Iowa State Fair - August 13 - 23
So the state fair isn't exactly Iowa Football related, but you can at least go and pick up your 2009 schedule poster to hang in your cubicle at work. You can also see Kelly Clarkson, participate in the mullet contest, see the butter cow (no MJ though…), and sample on 45 different food items on-a-stick.