2005 Redux?

Beings that Iowa has no beaches or beautiful women walking around in bikinis every day, it is a lot tougher to recruit to Iowa City than it is at a lot of other Universities. Granted that the only year in recent memory that the Hawks had success getting the high star recruits was 2005 and we all know how that class has panned out. It seems that Iowa has better success with getting the players that have a chip on their shoulder because they weren't recruited by the major programs in the nation and turning them into great players. The 2010 recruiting class is shaping up to be a repeat of the 2005 class. There are a lot of top level talent that are looking at Iowa for a college destination. Now there is a lot of time before signing day, but the list of players is pretty impressive. Scout.com recently came out with their top 300 prospects for 2010. Of those 300 prospects 20 listed Iowa as a school of interest. The breakdown goes as follows, 1 quarterback, 4 RB, 5 WR, 1 TE, 3 OL, 1 DL, 2 LB, and 3 DB. Now there is no way that Iowa gets all 20 of these players, but the fact that Iowa is mentioned is a move in the right direction. Every time that I read something about a recruit, they say that Iowa is recruiting them the hardest and that they think Kirk Ferentz is one of the most genuine coaches in the country. As the old adage goes, "In Kirk we Trust!"

Kinnick Stadium Turf

Here is a bird's eye view of the turf that is in place at Kinnick Stadium. I really like it, the color differences are very subtle and the black endzones look sweet. The fifty still looks bare without something out there, but that is what we have seen for years at Kinnick, so we shouldn't be expecting anything different. At first I thought they should have two tigerhawks in the endzone to balance it out, but the way they have it looks good.

Field Turf

So the field turf that will soon be covering historic Kinnick Stadium's playing surface has been delivered and is starting to be laid. The jury is still out on how it will look until everything is done with it, but I think it will look 100% better than the old Astro Turf of the 80's!

Keenan Davis

If you had any doubt about Davis' athletic ability, check out this video at the 37 second mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypzxh2jjWF4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmarcmwm%2Ewordpress%2Ecom%2F2009%2F04%2F10%2F37%2Dseconds%2Dthats%2Dkeenan%2Ddavis%2F&feature=player_embedded

Night Games

In a recent interview with ESPN.com Kirk Ferentz let it out that Iowa will have three night Big Ten games this year, the only problem is that two of those will be away. Their first contest underneath the lights will be on September 26th at Happy Valley against the Penn State Nittany Lions. They then have a home night game against Michigan on October 10th. The final night Big Ten contest of the season will be in East Lansing against Michigan State. There is also a possibility that the Arizona home game on September 19th will be at the very least an afternoon game as they probably won't make Arizona start a game at 9 AM their time. Stay tuned for more details about night games played by the Hawks. Also don't look for the matchup against Ohio State to be a true night game as there is a rule in the Big Ten that doesn't allow night games in November. The latest that game could start is 2:30, but that probably depends on how both teams start the season.