Two 11 AM games announced
Both the Nebraska game on November 25 and homecoming against Indiana on October 22 will kick off at 11:00 AM. The Nebraska game will be nationally televised on ABC. The TV for the Indiana game was not announced (though I'd bet on ESPN2 or BTN).At 11 on ABC, the Nebraska game should be the only show in town early on Black Friday (there are 11 other games that day, but half are MAC and the others will likely be later in the day). I imagine that game will have more eyes on it than any other Iowa game this year, especially if the two teams are playing for a spot in B1G title game.
I am a little surprised that this game didn't get a 2:30 kick, but ABC already had decided to do Miami vs. BC.
A shortage of season tickets
Despite the lower expectations and a rather unexciting home schedule, the vast majority of season ticket holders (95-97%) have chosen to renew their seats. That means that there only around 2,500 open spots. Between new request from mini-pack holders (those of us who go rejected last year), season ticket holder who want additional seats, and completely new applicants, there were about 7,000 tickets requested. To determine who gets the few open spots, the priority point system will be used (supposedly...there were contrary reports last year of people with no points getting tickets, while others with points only got the mini-pack).The good news for me is that the university is awarding anyone who took the mini-pack last year 3 points as if they actually had season tickets. Hopefully that'll be enough (combined with my alumni points) to land some tickets this year. If it's not, prepare yourself for another long ranting post about how the system is unfair.
Quick Hits
- James Ferentz is on the spring watch list for the Rimington Trophy which is annually awards to the best center in the nation. This is cool and all, but there are 42 players on the list...so it's pretty much any returning starting center.
- The latest round of APR scores came out on Tuesday. Iowa is sitting just fine at 947, though that's 8th in the B1G.
- Kirk Ferentz was at the Tama I-Club event last not and downplayed the difficulty of the past season. He also compared this year's team to 2003 and 2008 (which sounds pretty good to me).
- Matt Engelbert, who had previously won an award in the B1G for video editing, has been named the Collegiate Sports Video Association’s 2011 Bob Matey National Video Coordinator of the Year.