Home Sweet Home

The Hawkeyes are doing their best to introduce Lickliter to the Iowa faithful during the preconference basketball schedule.

The Hawkeyes play in a two game tournament at South Padre, so that would be neutral field. Other than that, they will not be leaving the state until the Big Ten gets started in January. Of those games in Iowa, only two are on the road (Northern Iowa and Iowa State).

The good news is that the Hawkeyes should have plenty of wins by the time they open the Big Ten at home against Indiana. The early wins should help build confidence and team unity.

The bad news is that the first out of state road games are at Wisconsin on January 5th followed by at Ohio State on January 9th. When they get to that stretch of games, they will probably wish they had scheduled a couple real road games to get used to the noise and get some experience playing on the road.

Former Hawkeyes - Scott Chandler

While checking on Nate Kaeding’s preseason stats, I noticed that Scott Chandler is doing pretty well for himself so far.

6 catches for 59 yards and 1 touchdown in the first two preseason games. He didn’t have any receiving stats for the third game so I’m not sure if he played or not.

The Chargers have to be thrilled to be developing another threat for the linebackers to have to pay attention to which will only help LaDainian Tomlinson continue compiling the yards and touchdowns.

If Chandler can prove to be a capable blocker and get rid of the random moments where he drops an easy pass, he might just find himself getting a lot of playing time for one of the best places to be a TE in the NFL and with Antonio Gates leading team in receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns, they clearly know how to make use of a TE that can catch the ball.

Bob Sanders Ready To Play Again

I really don’t follow pro football all that much. I decided to check in and noticed that Bob Sanders is recovering from a shoulder surgery.

The article I read starts off with this line. “The Super Bowl champions finally have their top defensive playmaker back on the field.”

It does my heart good to hear such amazing things said about a former Hawkeye. Especially one that nobody really expected to amount to anything in college. Even after his accomplishments in college, people seemed to think that he was too small to play in the pros.

Sanders is definitely able to be a big playmaker in the pros, but there might be something to the thought that he is too small. He does seem to end up on the injured list more often then I’m sure the Colts would like.

When he is on the field, he seems to always be making the big play. But he only played four regular season games last season and only 6 games his rookie season. I don’t think he started right away with the colts, but I am pretty certain that he did miss a fair amount of games from injury that year, too.

Hopefully the shoulder surgery will fix him up and he will be able to stay on the field for the rest of his career. When he is healthy, he makes quite an impact for a man too small to play in the NFL.

Hawkeye Storytime

My wife found this book called Hello Herky! online so we picked up a copy for Christmas.

I happened to pick up this little cheerleader megaphone during a stop in the Quad Cities after one of the football games last fall.

Now about once a week, the kids make us read this story to them before bed.

We break out the megaphone and follow Herky as he wakes up and goes through a football morning. He walks across campus greeting fans and athletes who frequently shout out “Hello Herky!” and ends up at the football game. I won’t give away the ending.

The kids take turns with the megaphone reading that line. It’s pretty hysterical.

If you decide to pick up a copy, you be prepared to cross out Alford’s name and write in Lickliter’s. I try to correct it on the fly when I read the book now, but the kids always correct me.

Playing Football At Soldier Field

I’ve lived closer to Chicago the Iowa City for most of my life now but I’ve never been to Soldier Field. On a personal level, I’m very excited that the game with Northern Illinois got scheduled there instead of at Iowa or Northern.

But, what do the Hawkeyes get out of the game?

The first big glaring benefit is recruiting. Iowa has been doing very well in the Chicago suburbs over the last few years. With Zook starting to gain some kind of momentum at Illinois, it is going to be much tougher to get those Illinois kids out of the state. Playing a game in their back yard provides an easy way to invite those kids to a local game to watch the Hawks and talk to the coaches. But, they could do that at Northern just as easily.

But Soldier Field is a pro stadium. You put High School athletes in a pro stadium and they start thinking about playing football on Sunday and they might start to think that Iowa is just the program to put them there.

Plus, it has to be fun for the current Hawkeyes to play in a pro stadium for the same kind of reasons. I still get tingly walking into the United Center because of my dreams of playing pro basketball in high school. There is a certain excitement just being in the pro facilities.

Another way the game at Soldier Field will benefit the Hawks is that a ton of Alumni live in Chicago and the suburbs. It seems like the governor of Iowa is in Chicago every year trying to talk the ex-Iowans into moving back. Fans that may not be willing or able to make the 4 hour commute to Kinnick will happily make the 30-60 minute trip to Soldier Field. And that means t-shirts, concessions, and maybe they’ll remember how much fun the games are and come back home for a game or two next year.

This is also a home game for Northern. Or at least a road game for Iowa. Since every Iowa/Northern Illinois game that I can remember has been at Iowa, it was probably time to head to DeKalb. TV and press coverage for a game in Chicago is going to be a lot stronger than a game in DeKalb.

What do you think about the neutral field location? Would you rather stay in a college stadium on a real college campus?

There goes the experienced wide receivers

I just wrote about how I felt comfortable about the Hawkeyes chances of having a good passing game because they had experienced receivers that should ease Christensen’s learning curve.

But now it looks like some of that experience might be in trouble. Apparently Dominique Douglas and Anthony Bowman are going to be suspended indefinitely after getting for unauthorized use of a credit card.

While I don’t expect either of them to get the max penalty of five years in jail, I don’t really expect them to be on the playing field anytime soon either. Since Douglas was slotted to be the go to receiver this year, that means that not only will the Hawks be breaking in a new QB this year but they are also going to be scrambling to reorganize the receiving core at the last second.

Next man in, I guess.

Let’s all hope the running game is as good as everybody seems to think it could be.

Inexperienced QB or Wide Receivers

Last year, the Hawkeyes had an experienced quarterback but newbie wide receivers. This year, the QB will be green and the receivers should know what they are doing from day one.

Conventional wisdom would seem to say that having an experienced QB is one of the most important things in football, but if the receivers don’t know how to run their routes, break out of a jam, or fight to get back to the ball, the QB will not have anybody to throw to.

It seems like having a talented but inexperienced QB shouldn’t be a huge deal for the Hawkeyes this year.

Both of the running backs have a ton of experience. Between the receiving core, Moeaki, and Busch, Jake Christensen should have plenty of people that know how to get open. Everybody expects him to be good enough to throw the ball to them. If he can keep from throwing interceptions, everything should be fine for the offense.

Introducing The Kids To The Hawkeyes

Since I have season tickets, I very rarely watch a Hawkeye football game on TV. This year, I’m only going to two games so I’m planning on making more of an effort to catch the games on the tube.

Here is my plan to get them to enjoy the games. For the record, they are 4 1/2 years old right now.

• Food - There has to be some food. Stuff like nachos is good. They know I eat hot dogs at the game so those will definitely be available. Since a lot of the Big Ten games start at 11′ish, it is easy to build food into the game time routine since lunch will naturally fall during the game time.
• T-Shirts - I’m going to be going to the first two games. At one of them, I will pick up special Hawkeye game day t-shirts that the three of us will wear for the games.
• Explain the colors - They need to know which team is the Hawkeyes so they know who to be excited about.
• Narrate the game - They don’t understand the rules at all, but they understand stuff like “Great play” “Touchdown” “Oh no!” “Go Hawks” “HERKY!” We’ll build from there.
• Bring on the toys - I’ll bring some of their favorite toys in the room, that way they have something to distract them during instant replay reviews.
• Let them leave - They will probably get bored before the game is over. I have trouble making it through the games these days with all of the TV timeouts. When they get bored, they can go wander away for a while.
• Let them come back - Unlike the crappy NCAA, if they leave the area to catch some fresh air, they will be allowed back into the game room. That policy will stay in effect until there is an actualy terrorist attack in my living room.

I’m expecting basketball season to be more popular because the general pace of the game is faster, but I’m hoping that we can find a way to make the football games enjoyable this season so that they are excited when I take them to the stadium for the first time in 2008.

What Exactly Is The Big Ten

I picked up the Athlon Sport Big Ten edition of their preseason guide.

When I got home, I noticed a big blurb on the cover saying “Irish Still Pack A Punch.” When did Notre Dame join the Big Ten. I know they cover some other regional stuff like the MAC, but if the cover says Big Ten in gigantic letters on the cover, can we stick to putting pictures of the Big Ten players on the cover.

Notre Dame is not in the Big Ten. If they want to be on the cover of one of the conference magazines, they should join a conference. Preferably one that all of their other sports teams already seem to be participating in.

Infant Hawkeye Clothes

We’re going to be giving birth to another Hawkeye fan this fall (October 19th is the due date).

We have always had trouble finding good Hawkeye clothes for the kids but now that they are in size 6 this year, it should get much easier.

I decided that I should start scouring the internet for some infant gear and found something on Amazon that I might have to find the credit card for.

It’s a nice little gold and black onesie (with a matching bib).

The onesie only comes in size 6-9, but she’ll probably be able to fit in it by the end of basketball season and we can make her look ridiculous in the oversized outfit during the late part of the football season.

Anybody know any good places online or in the Quad Cities to find infant gear? We live a few hours away so I don’t get much time to window shop for Hawkeye clothes when we come up for game day.