Chanse Creekmur...Or His Dad...Might Want To Commit To Something Somewhere and Stick With It. Plus, More On the 1957 Hawkeyes Labeled As Quitters

Mark Robinson of Iowa City writes about Chanse Creekmur, the gifted football and football player from Marshalltown who came up second-best to A. J. Derby of City High of Iowa City in the Little Hawks' 42-14 victory in the class 4-A championship game:

Hello, Ron:

"Chanse Creekmur wasn't given much time to do much of anything in Friday night's championship game. It appeared that his coaches wanted him to throw the ball deep even though Iowa City High continued to throw the kitchen sink at him on every play.

"A little dink and dunk might have helped the Bobcat team keep the City High offense off the field. It wasn't much of a game after the first quarter.

"I was more intrigued by a sideline interview with Creekmur's father at that point. As you know, Chanse accepted an offer from Iowa to play basketball, then he backed off and committed to Santa Clara.

"Apparently, he has backed out of that committment and now is looking to play quarterback for Iowa State. This seemed to be pretty well confirmed by daddyo during that sideline interview.

"After Friday night's game, Chanse...or his dad....might want to commit to something somewhere and stick with it. He may not have all that many opportunities left.

"Keep writing,"

Mark Robinson
Iowa City

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Mark, you're right about the Chanse Creekmur [pictured at the right] situation. I also think the dad seems far too involved with his son's collegiate athletic career. What I'm not sure of is which sport -- Division I football or Division I basketball -- the kid wants to pursue. That's the big question. If Iowa State is giving him a full-ride and he wants to play football, then that's where he should go. But if the kid thinks he's a Division I basketball player, he'd better have a great senior season and pursue that. Anyway, for the sake of those thousands of fans from Marshalltown, I was disappointed the Bobcats didn't play City High a little tougher. Marshalltown seemed to have things figured out early, but City High adjusted and wound up thrashing them the way they've been thrashing teams all season. In the final analysis, City High had some gifted athletes -- many more than Marshalltown had -- and the Little Hawks deserved to win. By the way, Derby -- like Creekmur -- is also an outstanding basketball player, but he has already committed to Iowa as a football player. As a Hawkeye, he wants to play quarterback, even though it appears to me he can play a number of positions.]

*

Al Schallau writes more about the 1957 Hawkeye football team that Time magazine called "The Team That Quit:"

"Ron,

"My good friend Randy Duncan is accurate in his memory of the 1957 Iowa vs. Michigan game at Ann Arbor; and he is brutally accurate about the magazine headline the next week that labeled the Hawkeyes as "The Team That Quit."

"Forest Evashevski and I discussed the 1957 Michigan game twice during our many phone conversations. Evy's reasoning for accepting a tie in the Michigan game went like this:

""When we started any football season, our number one objective was to win the Big Ten championship. I wanted to position the Iowa Hawkeyes to do that by beating Ohio State in our last conference game. I thought we could beat Ohio State, but we lost, 17-13. Bob White ran the ball down our throats in the fourth quarter. If we had won the Ohio State game, we would have won the Big Ten championship outright."

FACTUAL HISTORY CONCERNING 1957 BIG TEN FOOTBALL SEASON

"Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State all had awesome teams in 1957 and all four expected to win the Big Ten championship. Evy figured that if Iowa finished the season with one tie and no losses, all the other teams would have at least one loss, and Iowa would be outright champion.

"In October, the other teams started suffering their one loss that Evy envisioned. On October 12, 1957, Michigan lost to Michigan State. On Oct. 19, 1957, Michigan State lost to Purdue. So that left only Iowa and Ohio State unbeaten in Big Ten games.

"Iowa played Michigan at Ann Arbor on Nov. 2, 1957. It was a muddy, rainy day. Michigan got ahead, 21-7, and it looked like Iowa would go home with one loss. Iowa scored two second half touchdowns and tied the game at 21-21. Yes, Evy decided to have his quarterback sit on the ball in the last two minutes because he did not want to risk a fumble on the wet field. Evy wanted to get out of Ann Arbor WITHOUT A LOSS. He was willing to accept a tie.

"Two weeks later, on Nov. 16, 1957, Iowa played Ohio State at Columbus. Iowa was ahead, 13-10, in the fourth quarter, until Bob White and the Buckeyes' offensive line took the ball down the field for the winning touchdown.

"I just got off the phone with Jim Gibbons, who was an all-American on the 1957 Hawkeye team. Among other things, he said:

"'In the Michigan game, we all knew that a tie didn't hurt us at all. We would win the Big Ten championship if we beat Ohio State. So on the trip back to Iowa City from Ann Arbor, we were perfectly happy to get out of the Michigan game with a tie.'

"So Evy's decision to accept a tie in the Michigan game was part of a profound strategy designed to win the Big Ten championship outright. Except for Bob White, his strategy would have worked.

"Best, AL SCHALLAU"

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: All of this rewinding to a football game that was played 52 years ago, of course, is because of what happened in the final minute of regulation time in the Iowa-Ohio State game a week ago. Hawkeye coach Kirk Ferentz told quarterback James Vandenberg [No. 16 pictured at the left] and the Iowa offense to sit on the ball in the last 52 seconds so the teams would be tied, 24-24, heading into overtime. The Hawkeyes lost, 27-24, in a game that decided which Big Ten team would go to the Rose bowl. Schallau and plenty of other Hawkeye fans disagreed with Ferentz's decision. At the time, Iowa had Ohio State back on its heels, and it appeared a few well-placed passes in the last 52 seconds could have put the Hawkeyes into position for a winning field goal].

'Walter' Calls This Iowa's Worst Basketball Team In History; But There's No Assurance Keno Davis Would Leave Providence To Coach the Hawkeyes

Sometimes a guy hears the darnedest things when he sits at the press table in a collegiate basketball arena.

The talkative man sitting next to me had just introduced himself the other night at the Drake-Iowa State game in the Knapp Center.

Then he suddenly said, "Well, I guess the bloggers have Keno Davis being the next Iowa basketball coach."

I hope the guy wasn't talking about this blogger.

I've never written that I thought Keno [pictured at the right], who had a 28-5 record at Drake in 2007-2008 and was the consensus national coach of the year -- his only season as the university's coach -- would be succeeding Todd Lickliter [pictured at the left] anytime soon as the Hawkeyes' coach.

I know things aren't going well for Lickliter. I know he hasn't had a .500 record yet and I know his team has started the 2009-2010 season with an 0-2 record.

This is the first time since 1931-32 that Iowa has lost its first two home openers.

Not good, my friends.

Another thing that's not good is that Carver-Hawkeye Arena has been less than half-full for the first two games.

As Larry Eustachy told me once when he was at Iowa State, "Athletic directors look at those attendance figures when they're thinking about firing basketball coaches."

But I haven't heard from anyone in authority at Iowa that Lickliter's job is in trouble.

And there's certainly no assurance Keno Davis would be the next coach if and when Lickliter were fired.

Keno opened some eyes with a 19-14 record in his first season at Providence, and he's off to a 3-0 start this season. The Friars play in the tough Big East Conference.

Moving from Providence to Iowa would be a lateral coaching move at best. Someone would need to do some very hard work to restore the Hawkeye program to where it was when Bucky O'Connor, Ralph Miller and Lute Olson were in charge of it.

In those days, Iowa not only had strong teams, but attendance went through the roof of Iowa Fieldhouse and Carver-Hawkeye Arena. There were capacity crowds consistently.

Keno, a 1995 graduate of Iowa and the son of Tom Davis -- the winningest coach in Iowa basketball history -- might have to take a pay cut to move from Providence to the Hawkeye job.

And there's no certainty he would be interested in the Iowa job anyway. That's because of the hard feelings that were generated when his father didn't get a contract extension in 1999, and was replaced by Steve Alford, who turned out to be awful.

*

On the subject of Lickliter, Walter from Woodward, not his real name, sent this letter to basketball guru Van Coleman:

"Van,

"It is obvious that we are now witnessing the worst Iowa basketball team in history. The only remaining players from the Alford era, Gatens and Cole, are their best players. The players that transferred last Spring were Alford recruits. The players recruited by Todd Lickliter are at best qualified for the Missouri Valley Conference.

"You met with Lickliter shortly after his hire and informed him that he had to hire an experienced recruiter that had contacts with at some of the following groups (AAU, shoe companies, NBA agents, street pimps, junior colleges). Todd declined and brought in two young men that played for him at Butler. They knew no one. The contacts used are from the last hire, who came from that basketball powerhouse, Loras College.

"The last Iowa basketball coach known for recruiting, George Raveling, was a master of 'creative' recruiting. Todd Lickliter's 'Ivory tower' approach to recruiting is his downfall. His recruiting extends only as far as Wells Fargo Arena.

"Gary Barta gave Lick a 7-year contract. How do we get out of this mess? Is Reggie Theus still available?"

Walter from Woodward

[RON MALY'S COMMENT: You've got to have the horses to win in major college basketball, and I don't see many in the stable at Iowa City].

*

An e-mail from Clyde In Clutier, not his real name:

"The fact that the Hawkeyes did not even get their foot in the door with Harrison Barnes speaks volumes about the sorry state of the Iowa basketball program. Can you imagine this happening had Lute Olson or George Raveling been coaching the Hawkeyes?

Clyde In Clutier

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Harrison Barnes of Ames, rated the nation's best high school player, is signed, sealed and almost delivered to defending national champion North Carolina. Clyde In Clutier is right, Iowa didn't to first base with Barnes. Iowa State was one of Barnes' six finalists, but only because the university is in his hometown. Barnes was ticketed for North Carolina or Duke from the start].

Jane Burns and That Front-Page Stuff

I wrote the other day from Santa Fe, N M., about how we were among those evacuated from the downtown Hilton Hotel because of a fire scare there, then wound up being part of a front-page story in the Santa Fe New Mexican the next morning.

That was the second time I've been among hotel guests evacuated from a hotel. The other time was the night before an Iowa State-Colorado football game in Boulder, Colo.

My friend Jane Burns [pictured at the right], who was a longtime Des Moines Register columnist, reporter, sports news editor and sports copy editor, movie and stage play reviewer, and now works for the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, read what I wrote and told me about her experiences with [almost] being on the front page:

"I was almost on the front page of the Des Moines Register. Some crazy stalker evil guy had been hounding and terrorizing women in my Kingman Boulevard neighborhood, me among them. After appearing in court the day he made a plea bargain, I didn't know until I saw the story being pasted onto the page that the case they made the plea on was mine, which meant there was my name and address right on the front page of the paper. I didn't much care for that, but as it turned out the story was too long anyway. So the composing room guy (I believe it was Don Garrett) said, 'Well, we'll just trim you out of there, Janie.'

"Then, a couple weeks later, on the front page was a story charting Iowa's worst drivers. (With my all-time favorite headline, penned by Kurt Helland:'I have trouble with turns,' says Iowa's worst driver").

"Yea, the No. 1 worst Iowa driver had just hit me, and there he was on the front page. 'You have to quit showing up on the front page of the paper,' Don Garrett said, even though my name wasn't in that story."

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Jane Burns worked in the sports and features departments, and maybe even a few other departments, at the Des Moines Register. While in Des Moines, she became a nationally-recognized authority on women's basketball and a world traveler. Indeed, she still is. She went from Des Moines to the Minneapolis Star Tribune before joining the newspapers in Madison, Wis. Her bio on Twitter reads: "Reporter for Wisconsin State Journal. Covering retail, small biz, restaurants, airport. Film buff, history geek, tea snob. Writing a book on women's basketball." I'm looking forward to the book, Jane].

For Greg McDermott, This Team Could Be a Job-Saver

I've been showing up at Drake-Iowa State basketball games for a long time.

I mean, I rememeber when the universities in Des Moines and Ames played twice in the same season.

I go back to when Iowa State played its games in the Armory, a noisy old place that always seemed to provide the Cyclones with a big home-court advantage.

I go back to when Drake coach Maury John used to have coffee with a bunch of his fans at the Blue Willow restaurant near the campus.

I remember Maury's Bulldogs clobbering Glen Anderson's Cyclones one year, and the Drake fans outnumbered the Iowa State fans in the Armory.

They serenaded Anderson with the chant, "Hang it up, Andy! Hang it up!"

Little did those fans know then that Maury John would be the coach who replaced Anderson when Iowa State opened Hilton Coliseum in 1971.

I remember Maury telling all of us that he thought the Armory was worth 15 points to Iowa State every time it played a game there.

We laughed a lot about that one. Sometimes Maury could be funny.

Now Maury John is gone and so is the Blue Willow.

After Maury -- the best coach Drake ever had -- the university turned the coaching job over to such men as Howard Stacey, Bob Ortegel, Gary Garner, Tom Abatemarco, Rudy Washington, Kurt Kanaskie, Tom Davis, Keno Davis and now Mark Phelps.

Some were better than others.

All of them experienced the Drake-Iowa State rivalry.

After Maury John's time at Drake, which, sadly, was shortened because of cancer, came the likes of Ken Trickey, Lynn Nance, Johnny Orr, Tim Floyd, Larry Eustachy and, now, Greg McDermott [who is pictured at the right].

Again, some were better than others.

I was thinking about some of that last night as I watched Iowa State demolish Drake, 90-70, before 6,157 [1,000 or so below capacity] fans at the Knapp Center.

As Lucca Staiger, an Iowa State player from Germany, kept pouring in three-point basket after three-point basket [he finished with a Knapp Center record of 10], the Cyclones built a 19-point halftime lead.

I thought the Cyclones might score 100 points or more before it was all over. Fortunately, Greg McDermott didn't let that happen.

I recalled the Drake-Iowa State game two seasons ago when McDermott brought his team to the Knapp Center for a game.

The Bulldogs then were coached by Keno Davis, and he had 'em ready to play. Keno stuck it to Iowa State by 35 points, and we all knew then that the first-year head coach had something big.

Keno went on to have a 28-5 record.

Goodbye, Drake. Hello, Providence.

But this isn't about Keno Davis. It's about Iowa State and Greg McDermott.

By the looks of things, McDermott has the makings of a very good team this season at Iowa State.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the Cyclones are going to win a title in the very tough Big 12 Conference, and I'm not saying they're going to world-beaters because they hammered Drake.

After all, the Bulldogs have a number of players who are barely out of high school, they've got a senior guard, Josh Young, who's hurt a lot, and they don't play very good defense yet.

Still, I like what I saw from Iowa State as I sat in the Knapp Center last night.

This is McDermott's fourth season at Iowa State, and he hasn't yet had a winning record.

But this could be when it changes.

Indeed, this could be a job-saver.

McDermott has one guy, Craig Brackins [pictured at the left], who is good enough to play in the NBA.

I don't know why he didn't make himself available for the professional draft last spring, but I'm sure he had his reasons.

Without a doubt, he'll be playing for pay -- and I mean big pay -- at this time next season.

McDermott also has Staiger, who can shoot the lights out of any arena anywhere -- in Ames, Des Moines, everywhere else in the U.S., in Europe, in Asia, in the North and South Poles.

He has Marquis Gilstrap and many other weapons.

Iowa State will be a fun team to watch this winter when the Big 12 season starts. It's a fun team to watch right now.

'The Team That Quit:' In 1957, Evashevski Told Iowa Quarterback Randy Duncan To Sit On the Ball and Take a 20-20 Tie' In a Game Against Michigan

When Randy Duncan of Des Moines [pictured at the right] was a Hawkeye football player in the 1950s, he was a consensus all-America quarterback, second in the Heisman Trophy voting and the first player picked in the 1958 NFL draft.

He also was told by Forest Evashevski [pictured at the left], the man who would go on to a Hall of Fame coaching career at Iowa, to "sit on the ball and take a tie" against Michigan.

Settling for a tie in the entire game wasn't exactly what Kirk Ferentz, Iowa's present coach, wanted freshman quarterback James Vandenberg to do last week in a Rose Bowl showdown at Ohio State.

He just didn't want to risk having something bad happen to his team in the final 52 seconds of regulation time. Obviously, Ferentz wanted to win the game in overtime.

What Ferentz did last week is worth comparing to what Evashevski did in a 1957 game against Michigan.

In yesterday's column, longtime Iowa follower Al Schallau took Ferentz and Iowa offensive coordinator Ken O'Keefe to task for shutting down their offense in the final 52 seconds of regulation time.

Schallau isn't the only Hawkeye fan who thinks Ferentz and O'Keefe made a poor decision.

Iowa and Ohio State were tied, 24-24, when they went into overtime. The Buckeyes won the game, 27-24, in overtime and will represent the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl.

Duncan read Schallau's comments, then told him in an e-mail:

"Al, before condemning Ferentz too much, let me remind you of the Iowa-Michigan game in 1957. With the score tied at 20-20 coach Evashevski sent in word to me to sit on the ball and take a tie. Every one in the huddle wanted to go for the win. Later that week Time magazine had a banner headline calling the Hawkeyes the 'team that quit.' Having reminded you of this, I would have tried to score in the OSU game. Regards, Randy."

*

Speaking of bad decisions, or dumb decisions, the Des Moines Register can sure make 'em.

The hard-hitting [just kidding, of course] In the Loop segment of the Sunday sports section tried to be cutesy again, and did a tired, old "thumbs up, thumbs down" thing.

It did a "thumbs down" to Iowa's sports information department "before the Northwestern game, asking the media to get the facts straight on Iowa football."

The e-mail sports information director Phil Haddy sent to me and others is printed on the right side of this page.

I found nothing wrong with it. Bryce Miller, the Register's sports editor, writes most of, and edits, the paper's In the Loop.

Miller didn't know there was anything wrong with what Haddy wrote until he read what the Los Angeles Times wrote about it.

I guess bigtime reasoning like that is what results in the Register losing thousands of readers every time a circulation audit is made.

My question is, who the hell cares what the Los Angeles Times thinks? Nobody cares in Los Angeles. The Times' circulation is in a freefall, too.

Frankly, I'm glad Haddy and his department got people thinking in sports departments around the country.

If you want to know the truth, the idea for the publicity department advising reporters to "get the facts straight on Iowa football" probably began with someone in the Hawkeye football office.

And, by the way, no organization is more of a cheerleader for the Hawkeye football program than the Des Moines Register.

Preseason special sections, pre-bowl game special sections, embarrassing pregame "chats" from the press box with sportswriters, embarrassing "chats" from the Register office on Fridays, stories on where to buy bowl tickets...you name it, the Register is trying to make money off of Hawkeye football.

Just one problem. Circulation still plummets.

Thumbs down to the Register.

Again.

*

From Mark Robinson of Iowa City:

"Hi, Ron;

"The Iowa City Press-Citizen's story about Sunday night's basketball game between the Hawkeyes and UT-San Antonio was written by the Register's Rick Brown.

"It was accompanied by a photo from a Press-Citizen staffer.

"It seems odd that Gannett West would send a reporter over 200 miles round-trip to cover a game that was played in Gannett East's backyard.

"Perhaps Mr. Brown just tuned into ESPNU from his living room somewhere in the Des Moines area. In fact, that would make more sense given the state of the newspaper buisness nowadays.

"Keep writing,

Mark Robinson
Iowa City

[RON MALY'S COMMENT: One of the more amusing things this winter will be watching how the two Gannett Co. newspapers in this state cover a bad Hawskeye basketball team].

After the Hawkeyes' Near-Miss At Ohio State, Longtime Fan Al Schallau Asks the Question: 'When will Ken O'Keefe Put In the Flea Flicker Play?'

The second-guessing is still going on among Iowa's football fans in the wake of the Hawkeyes' 27-24 loss to Ohio State in an overtime game that decided which Big Ten team would be playing in the Rose Bowl.

Here's what longtime Hawkeye follower Al Schallau [pictured at the right] wrote to me in an e-mail:

"Iowa vs. Ohio State: Game tied, 24-24; 52 seconds left, and Iowa had one timeout. Iowa had the ball at their own 33-yard line. What a perfect place for Iowa to call a 'flea flicker' play.

"James Vandenberg can throw the ball 70 yards in the air. Marvin McNutt is the perfect pass receiver for a flea flicker play. A completed flea flicker pass would have put the Hawkeyes into field goal range, or might have gone for a touchdown.

"Instead of going for the win, coaches Kirk Ferentz and Ken O'Keefe chose to sit on the ball and let the final 52 seconds run off the clock without even trying to get into field goal range. The Hawkeye coaches chose to shut down their efforts to win the Big Ten championship, 52 seconds before the game was over. I cannot accept that -- not today, not next month, not ever. Ohio State's coaches, players, and fans must have chortled with delight at Iowa's decision to give up the fight during regulation time.

"The rulesmakers gave the Hawkeyes 60 minutes of playing time to try to win the Big Ten championship. The Iowa coaches chose to use only 59 minutes and 8 seconds of that time. Presumably, coaches Ferentz and O'Keefe tell their players to 'put out 100 percent effort every second that you are on the field.' But the Hawkeye coaches chose to put out NO EFFORT AT ALL during the last 52 seconds.

"When I think of the flea flicker play, I think of a Terry Bradshaw touchdown pass to Bennie Cunningham in the Steelers' first overtime possession in a game against the Cleveland Browns. They executed the flea flicker play perfectly.

"James Vandenberg and Marvin McNutt could have done that. But the Hawkeye coaches never game them that chance. That is terrible.

"Best, AL SCHALLAU"

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: This, of course, isn't the first time Iowa has been accused of having an unimaginative playbook. And it's not the first time offensive coordinator Ken O'Keefe [pictured at the left] has been second-guessed. It's a shame a season that began with nine consecutive victories has now been reduced to fans wondering why the Hawkeyes sat on the ball for the final 52 seconds of regulation time in the biggest game of the season. Here are some follow-up comments by Schallau: "Ron, my nephew, Jeff Lantz, suggests that Iowa could have tried the famous Boise State 'hook and ladder' play during those final 52 seconds. Boise State put the Fiesta Bowl game against Oklahoma into overtime by using that play on fourth down. Then Boise State won the game with a 'Statue of Liberty' play on the two-point conversion in overtime. Michigan State ran a perfect 'hook and ladder' play against Iowa. Ken O'Keefe was there in East Lansing that Saturday night. He definitely saw the Spartans execute that play to perfection. But those plays are completely over Ken O'Keefe's head. Instead, he and coach Ferentz chose to sit on the ball for the last 52 seconds." Ironically, it's entirely possible that Boise State could be matched up against Iowa in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 4. So maybe the Hawkeyes and their coaches will get a close-up look at the "hook and ladder" and "Statue of Liberty" plays then. Thanks for writing, Al].

*

It turned out to be a difficult weekend for Hawkeye men's athletics.

For those wondering if Iowa might have another Dick Schultz on its hands in the basketball program, the answer is starting to sound like yes.

Schultz was probably the worst basketball coach the Hawkeyes ever had. He had a 41-55 record from 1971-1974. I had to watch his teams a lot.

Todd Lickliter is in his third season as Iowa's coach, and he appears to be in over his head, just like Schultz.

Lickliter had records of 13-19 and 15-17, then four of his players quit the program after the 2008-2009 season. In addition, Chanse Creekmur, a 6-7 high school player from Marshalltown, changed his mind about accepting an Iowa scholarship and said he was going to Santa Clara.

It could be that the players who left the program saw what was ahead in the 2009-2010 season. Iowa lost its opener yesterday to Texas-San Antonio, 62-50, before a Carver-Hawkeye Arena that was less than half-full of fans. It was the Hawkeyes' first defeat in a season opener in 32 years.

To say the least, things don't look promising for Lickliter and his team.

*

It looks like the Gannett Co. is serious about not having staffers from the Iowa City Press-Citizen and Des Moines Register both cover Hawkeye basketball games in the same arena.

Rick Brown's story [or at least a bylined version of it] that appeared in the Register was also on the Press-Citizen's website today.

Evidently, Gannett didn't want to pay the mileage for a Press-Citizen sportswriter to drive from the office to Carver-Hawkeye Arena to cover the game.

Like I said, it's going to be a long season.

Too Many Dropped Passes In 27 -24 Overtime Loss To Ohio State, So No Rose Bowl for Iowa, Enjoy It Now, Buckeyes, You Won't Be Winning At Pasadena

I want to say right now that Oregon, Stanford or whatever other team the Pac-10 Conference might send to the Rose Bowl will win it.

Ohio State won't.

Those people like Lou Holtz [he's the ex-coach who now is an ESPN commentator] who say the Big Ten is not a very good conference, are right.

I watched the Buckeyes win a game today they shouldn't have won. The trouble is, they'll be going to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl instead of Iowa.

The Hawkeyes wouldn't have won the Rose Bowl either [too bad they couldn't be playing a Stanford team coached by ex-Iowa athletic director Bob Bowlsby], but they gave it a battle at The Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio, before losing.

Ohio State won, 27-24, when Devin Barclay, a 26-year-old former professional soccer player participating in what some say is the amateur sport of collegiate football, kicked a 39-yard field goal in overtime.

*

Although the Hawkeyes lost, they're certainly a good enough team to represent the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way this season. Coach Kirk Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa, but what he hasn't accomplished is getting his team to Pasadena -- and winning the game. Iowa hasn't won in Pasadena since Forest Evashevski's 1958 team [the best the university has had] succeeded there. Hayden Fry's squads lost three times in the Rose Bowl.

*

For a long time as I watched the game on ABC-TV, I wasn't sure if the Vandenberg on Iowa's team was James, the redshirt freshman quarterback from Keokuk, or his mother, Ann.

Ann almost got more TV time than James, her son.

I'd say the network showed Ann [pictured on the right in the photo at the right] a half-dozen times.

Ann wore a stick-on tigerhawk on her right cheek [well, the cheek on her face, that is] and jumped up and down as she sat among the more than 105,000 fans at Ohio Stadium.

I think Ann knew she was on TV.

"Dancing With the Stars" might be next.

Watch out, Shawn Johnson.

Ann Vandenberg had a good time being a fan of her son and the Hawkeyes.

Good for her.

*

It would be nice to see how Iowa could've done if the receivers would have caught more of Vandenberg's passes, and the Hawkeyes hadn't strangely sat on the ball in the final seconds of regulation time--as ordered by Ferentz. Had his receivers not been so fumble-fingered, Vandenberg and the team would've fared much better. The ABC-TV announcers even went so far as wondering if the injured Ricky Stanzi would get his starting job back. It was, of course, Vandenberg's first start. My guess is that Stanzi will be the starter in Iowa's bowl game, and hopefully the offense won't be laid-back then.

*

Iowa State beat Colorado, 17-10, and is eligible to play in a bowl game for the first time since 1995. Good for the Cyclones and good for coach Paul Rhoads. Johnny Majors would be proud of you..

*

Drake lost its opening first basketball game of the season to something, or some team, called IUPUI, 88-82, today at the Knapp Center. The Bulldogs played without standout guard Josh Young, who was sidelined with a hip pointer. I said to someone I wasn't going to the game because IUPUI sounded like a disease, and I don't like to get sick. "We struggled on defense in the second half and weren't able to get shots," Drake coach Mark Phelps told Mike Mahon and others after the game. "That was the difference. Clearly we have a lot of issues to address defensively."

It's obvious Drake isn't going to beat many teams without Young. With Iowa State coming to town Tuesday night to play the Bulldogs, that's not good news.

*

Dayton ended Drake's six-game football winning streak with a 23-6 victory today at the stadium. That wasn't good news either.

*

Longtime Drake follower Jay Davidson e-mailed me after the dust had settled and the lights were dimmed at the arena and the stadium. In response, I said, "Thanks for the e-mail, Jay. I'm already depressed. The cagers losing to something called IUPUI, 88-82, in the season opener does not bode well. And the announced crowd of 3,344 does not encourage me either. To say nothing of the 23-6 loss to Dayton in football before a throng of 2,541. Oh, my.

*

Photo of Janet Hurt [left] and Ann Vandenberg [right] courtesy of the Keokuk Daily Gate City; photo of Ohio State postgame celebration courtesy of AP.

El Foldo Acts & Other Things

I see Dowling of West Des Moines pulled another of its el foldo [aka el choko] acts in the state class 4-A high school football playoffs, but before getting to that, I want to say something about Marshalltown.

Dowling is the team Marshalltown rallied to beat in the final seconds last night, 28-25, at Cedar Falls.

And the quarterback on that Marshalltown team is Chanse Creekmur, the 6-7 senior who -- until this fall -- was known better as a promising collegiate basketball player than a football standout.

I first saw how good Creekmur was as a football quarterback when he helped rally the Bobcats to a last-minute victory over Valley early in the season.

It was in that game that I could see several things: 1) Creekmur was a promising quarterback; 2) Marshalltown had a chance to be a promising team; 3) Valley wasn't very good.

Now here's Marshalltown with a 13-0 record, having a chance to win the 4-A championship in the game against No. 1-ranked City High of Iowa City.

*

Despite what happened last night, I've got to think City High will win the title. The only thing that might stop the Little Hawks is Dan Sabers, their coach. He's no stranger to blowing big games, but if he blows this one they should give him a urine test afterward.

Sabers has enough talent on his roster to beat some college teams. So we'll see what happens in the 4-A title game.

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Speaking of blowing games, Dowling did it again last night.

The Maroons spent most of the season pummeling one opponent after another until they ran into Marshalltown.

You can't tell me that Marshalltown has better players than Dowling. I saw both teams play earlier, and it was clear that Dowling was the best team in central Iowa.

But, like Jim Williams' teams in the 1970s had a habit of doing, the Maroons collapsed in a big game.

Dowling was the state runnerup in 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1987, 1995 and 1998 before finally winning championships in 2000 and 2001.

Now the Maroons are back to being the state's 4-A bridesmaid champion.

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It's good to see that Marshalltown's Chanse Creekmur is getting some looks now as a collegiate football quarterback.

For a year or so, the kid was involved in one of the strangest two-sport situations I've seen.

He had agreed to accept a basketball scholarship at Iowa, but changed his mind at the same time four players were leaving Todd Lickliter's Hawkeye basketball program at the end of last season.

He then said he would play basketball at Santa Clara, of all places.

However, as far as I can tell, no one has bothered to ask Creekmur exactly why he turned down the Iowa basketball scholarship. I mean, most kids from the state of Iowa would consider it a dream-come-true to be offered a basketball scholarship at Iowa or any other Division I university. And evidently no reporter bothered to ask Creekmur if any Division I university was interested in him as a football player.

Now Division I football coaches have suddenly noticed that he can play quarterback. So it could be that's where his future is. But some enterprising reporter needs to sit down with him and ask him these questions.

So far that enterprising reporter has not been found.

I thought I was retired, and I'm trying to stay that way. But maybe I'll have to make some calls or drive to Marshalltown one of these days to get to the bottom of all of this.

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I see the Des Moines Register called Creekmur an instant legend this morning.

Give me a break.

Send that reporter to the farm department.

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I somehow wound up on Charles Grassley's mailing list, but I want absolutely nothing to do with his plea for Barack Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The only way I would change my mind on sending someone from the U.S. to Afghanistan is if Grassley would go there.

In uniform, of course. Armed with a beebee gun.

I think Grassley would look good over there.

And I would hope he'd stay there forever.

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I think some Iowa State fans actually thought Harrison Barnes was thinking of enrolling at that university to play basketball.

However, those people are very naive.

Barnes is an intelligent young man, and he also evidently got some good advice from people he knows.

The only reason Barnes listed Iowa State as one of his six finalists during the basketball recruiting process was to appease people in Ames.

Had he not grown up in the shadow of Iowa State, he'd have never told anyone he was giving any thought to going there.

It's my feeling that the only finalists were North Carolina and Duke. I think Duke was a distant second. The NBA is Barnes' goal, and joining the poor program at Iowa State was not going to get him there.

Signing with North Carolina was the best thing for him, and I think he knew for quite some time that's where he was going. He was fooling gullible reporters by telling them it was going to be a last-minute decision.