Ready for Autmun

Kurt, the big dog, and Joyce stopped by my house this week on their way out to California to move to Napa Valley.  It is wonderful to have relatives in Napa Valley; we visit for Thanksgiving or Christmas and get a wine-tasting vacation out of it.  Not to mention the totally sweet inside info Kurt will be passing along to me on which winery clubs to join. 

But I digress.  Kurt's visit and the recent weather have me thinking about only one thing: football.

As did the Northeast and the Southwest, Iowa had been mired in an awful heat wave this month.  Although summer in Iowa can be miserable on occasion, August is usually pleasant.  But this month's heat indexes of 110+ on a daily basis began to wear on my soul.  The skillet-like searing heat from my leather car seats sucked my will to live.  Then suddenly, on Tuesday, August 17th, the air cooled, rain fell, and the sunlight vanished.  And it was wonderful.  I slept comfortably for the first time in weeks,  Despite the rain, every one's mood improved.  Why?  Two reasons: 1) People were not miserably hot for once and 2) It reminded everyone of a cozy Saturday at Kinnick stadium with 70,000 of your closest friends.

The gentle warmth of summer sunshine is wonderful, but the oppressive Midwestern humidity is miserable.  Give me the warm afternoons and cool evenings of autumn anytime.  As my friend at work says, "hoodie sweatshirt weather is the best!"  I walked my dogs last night after sunset under a bright full moon, with the cicadas humming in the trees, deafening vuvuzelas of nature, calling the end of summer and the start of the great season.

Amid the fading summer, Kurt and Joyce came to visit.  Eager to show them the best flavors of Iowa, we greeted them with classic Chicago style deep dish pizza, a heavenly pie an inch deep in cheese.  The resulting atherosclerosis is completely worth it.  For lunch the next day, we cooked up five dollars of Iowan gold: a baker's dozen ears of corn.  The best method is to remove the silk, wet the ears, and then throw them on the grill in the husks and all.  About 10 minutes and one turn later, and the moisture in the husks has steamed the corn perfectly.  Add butter, butter, and more butter and you're ready to pack on more coronary clot started from the pizza the night before.  For dinner, we completed the culinary extravaganza with some Iowa pork.  Yes, most pig eaten in this country comes from Iowa, but we keep the good stuff for ourselves.  Washing it down with a 2004 Stag's Leap Cabernet didn't hurt either. 
Naturally, talk at dinner centered around football.  Mostly, the many possible arrangements for the new Big-10 divisions (see my plan below) and the future promise of Pac-12 road trips to Colorado and Utah.  We shared tales of college football traditions, or underdog pool lore, and plans for road trips this year.  We sent Kurt and Joyce driving off into the the sunset, headed for South Dakota, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and, of course, Wall Drug.  Sated by the final summer meal, comforted by the cooling weather, and tempted by anticipation of another great season.

7 more days.  I can't wait.  And Sophie gets her first football game on September 4th.

Fight On,

Hans

PS:  The current talk in the Big-10 offices centers on trying to "game" the divisions so that Michigan and Ohio State can meet in the championship game.  Yes, they are two most common league winners, but I think this manufacturing of a title game is a mistake.  What happens if one of the two (say, just for argument's sake, Michigan) goes through a long dry spell?  And clearly, they need to play each year.  Hence this idea of a "one guaranteed crossover game".  Weird.  Works for Michigan and Ohio State, but Iowa has two rivals, Minnesota and Wisconsin.  With the addition of Nebraska, we have a third.  And yes, you have to pair Nebraska - Iowa.  I can not emphasize enough how stoked the pig and corn farmers are about that game.  To best preserve rivalries and ease of travel to games, I would split the conference by time zones: if your school is in the Central time zone, you play in the central division.  If your school is in the eastern time zone, you play in the Eastern division.  The league would be split like this, with pairs of rivals:

Central

• Iowa - Nebraska
• Minnesota - Wisconsin
• Northwestern - Illinois

Eastern

• Ohio St - Michigan
• Michigan St- Penn State
• Indiana - Purdue

I know what you're thinking: that's crazy, the eastern division is way too loaded.  Yes, but so is the Big 12 south!  Actually, if you look at the last 20 years, it turns out that Eastern members have won or tied for the title 22 times, yet Central teams have won or tied 17 times (counting the 5 times that Nebraska played for the Big 12 title).  That's not too bad.