It's Not Plagiarism If You Link To It Is Invading The Second City (Again)

(H/T to the Gazoo's KJ Pilcher)

The good?  Metcalf trying to dismember Lance Palmer, Dan Gable doing a shimmy shake, and, oh yeah, Tom Brands massacring the competition on his way to a gold medal at the Olympics in 1996.  The, uh, not-as-good?  Well, the background track could be better, unless you dig stuff that sounds like it came from an Evanescence cover band.

FINALLY!  The Hawkeyes have returned to... Chicago?  The Iowa Football 2010 Spring Prospectus is out and buried within the stats and player profiles is the 2012 schedule, which contains the news that Iowa is apparently opening the 2012 season against Northern Illinois in Chicago.  Presumably, if the game is in Chicago it'll be at Soldier Field, as it was when Iowa played Northern Illinois in Chicago three years ago.  Some media folks are saying that it's not locked down yet, which means the Iowa Sports Information Department is either wrong or just jumping the gun.  Considering what a big hit the previous trip to Chicago was and the fact that Barta has mentioned a desire to do it again (especially if he could do it without compromising the 7-home game portion of the scheduling strategy, and the 2012 schedule fits that ideal perfectly), we're betting on the latter.  And, sure, technically Iowa returns to Chicago this fall, when they make their first trip to Evanston since 2007.  But downtown Chicago and Soldier Field versus the burbs and Ryan Field?  There's really no comparison there.

Incidentally, the 2012 schedule is sure to be Bret Bielema-approved, since it contains a I-AA foe, not one but two MAC opponents, and Iowa State, who continue to deny their destiny as the westernmost outpost of the MAC for reasons beyond our understanding.  Bill Snyder thinks it's a little bold to be playing another BCS-level opponent and wonders if maybe you couldn't just squeeze in another I-AA team instead. 

(EDIT: And confirmation comes this morning, via the worldwide leader.)

A moment of silence, please.  Apparently the formal end of the Lil John era is at hand; the littlest Lickliter is taking his mad skillz to Marian University, a Division III school in Indianapolis.  Pour out a 40 in his honor, homies.  At least we'll always have the memories.

Fran is the man with the plan, but won't you give him a han(d)?  In-between conducting more media interviews in one week than Todd Lickliter conducted in three years and exhorting Iowa fans to "get MAD," new hoops coach Fran McCaffery has apparently been hard at work on assembling a coaching staff.  Andrew Francis, one of Fran's assistants at Siena, is apparently a lock for one of the spots.  The only interwebs confirmation we can spy comes from message boards, but Friends of the Pants Scott Dochterman confirms the likely truthiness of the rumor on this week's podcast (CHEAP PLUG), which is good enough for us.  The best rumor, if by "best" you mean "most bugfuck insane rumor guaranteed to lead to a 13-page thread on CycloneFanatic"?  Wayne Morgan!  Frankly, we don't know why he'd want to leave his cushy job as the president of a satellite TV distributor.  He gets to live in Ames and everything!  

Rebuilding's for suckas.  Andy Hamilton chimes in with another way-too-early look-ahead at next year's wrestling team; there's not too much in that that we didn't hit last week (two key returning starters, lots of other talented but unproven guys), but it's a nice refresher.  But the money quote comes from Minnesota's J Robinson, of all people: 

"They're going to be in the hunt," Minnesota coach J Robinson said. "The problem, and I say this to a lot of people, is that people dislike Iowa so much that they discount what they do. It's kind of like anybody who wins in any sport. Instead of saying, 'What are they doing right? What are the lessons we can learn?' People discount it, which isn't a very healthy thing to do. Part of the deal as a soldier is know your enemy, know what they're capable of.

Keep on hatin', haters.  We'll just keep collecting the trophies.

QUICK HITTERZ

• Rivals says Adrian Clayborn is one of the 12 scariest defenders in college football; Josh Nesbitt and Iowa City taxi drivers fervently agree.
• Rough start to the Big Ten season for the Iowa baseball team; they lost to Michigan State 26-11 on Sunday.  It could've been worse, too -- they were down 26-2 before the ninth inning.  For reference's sake, the Sparty football team has only scored more than that once against Iowa since 2001 and they needed OT to do it (27 in 2007).
• Mock draftin': McShay has Bulaga going #5 to the Chiefs; Kiper has him going #9 to the Bills ($$).  
• Thread counts are serious business.  (NSFW)