It's finally arrived: Game Day for the 2012 Iowa Hawkeyes...

Win - lose - draw... It's Great to be a Hawkeye...

This is always a great time of the year.  The opening of another College Football season and the fIrst Game Day Saturday.  The Big Ten is off to a 2-0 start, thanks to fellow Legends division rivals, Minnesota and #12 Michigan State, with wins respectively on Thursday and Friday night.

Saturday, September 1st from Soldier Field in Chicago, with a 2:30 p.m. kickoff on ESPNU, Iowa vs. Northern Illinois. Game on!

Iowa has an excellent opportunity and foundation heading into the season. How will the pigskin bounce in 2012?  We shall soon see.

- Kirk Ferentz enters his 14th season as head coach at Iowa.
- Iowa will have two new coordinators with extensive experience in coaching. One outside Iowa and the Big Ten and another from within Iowa and the Big Ten.
- Iowa welcomes two brand new assistant coaches who were both former players for the University of Iowa.  Both bring NFL experiences and youth to the coaching staff.
- Iowa's remaining coaching assistants have lengthy experience wIth the program, though new roles are part of the duties and assignments of many in 2012.
- The 2012 team is young, but there appears to be a good mix of senior and junior leadership mixed in with three promising recruiting classes for Iowa. We shall soon see if the parts fall into place this season.
- Game captains will be part of the 2012 leadership team, lead by senior QB James Vandenberg, senior C James Ferentz, senior CB/PR Micah Hyde and junior MLB James Morris.
- In 1981, Iowa head coach J Hayden Fry at the time, hired a young coach to take over the O-Line duties before the start of Fry's third season. Kirk Ferentz was a young grad assistant out of Pitt, who became a part of an Iowa team that finished 8-4, won the Big Ten title and represented the Big Ten in the 1982 Rose Bowl, the first invite under Fry and the first trip to Pasadena for Iowa, since 1959.
- 21 years later before the kickoff of the 2012 season, another young O-Line coach has been hired at Iowa by the name of Ferentz, as Brian joins hIs father at Iowa with experience as an assistant in the NFL and as a former Iowa player under his Dad.

Iowa has been forecasted by many to finish 8-4 this season. Unlike 1982, that exact record may be tough to capture a Big Ten title today, but the schedule this season provides an opportunity for Iowa, despite the many hurdles along the way.  The biggest hurdles appear to be at the end of the season, as Iowa closes the season in 2012 at Michigan and vs. new rival Nebraska.

The first hurdle begins in Chicago vs. Northern Illinois.  Our game prediction: IOWA 27, Northern Illinois 15.

Saturday, September 1st is a special day,  wIth the birthday of Iowa radio color analyst Ed Podolak, my wife's birthday and the kickoff of another football season for the Hawkeyes, Cornhuskers, Panthers and Cyclones.  It's even the kickoff for Badgers and Wolverines, oh my ...

peace