The waiting is the hardest part.
We spent Monday waiting for the other shoe to drop, as rumors swirled around the Hawkeye football program. At its best, it was nothing we didn't already know. At its worst, it was apocalypse now. We were told answers were forthcoming in a 3:00 press release, and yet 3:00 (and 4:00, and 5:00) came and went without an announcement. The announcement finally came at around 5:15, and it was unimpressive: Jewel Hampton is leaving the team, and Adam Robinson is suspended for the Insight Bowl on December 28. By itself, there is nothing in the press release that we didn't already suspect; we'd gotten a heads up on Hampton's departure from Hampton himself, and Robinson had missed a previous start against Ohio State because of academic issues. It was an anticlimactic end to a day filled with nervous gossip.
There's still a lot of smoke here, though. The two-plus hour delay in distributing the press release isn't a copy machine problem; it's exactly the kind of thing you'd expect when the distributor can't decide what news to include. There is one thing of note that was included in the release: A press conference today at 10:00 with Kirk Ferentz and Gary Barta. The fact that Barta will be there is telling; a transfer and a suspension would usually garner little more than passing mention from Ferentz, who typically holds press conferences on Tuesday. Something is happening, maybe this morning. What that something might be is subject to the same speculation as yesterday's press release.
We'll be here at 9:45 to liveblog the press conference. In the meantime, the thread is open for venting and idle rumormongering. Keep holding your breath.