Iowa in the Foster Farms Bowl? Just a bit premature

It's 11 miles from Stanford University to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

That couldn't have hurt Stanford in preparations for its Foster Farms Bowl game against Maryland last December, and the Cardinal won easily, 45-21.

Well, Associated Press college football writer Ralph D. Russo has issued his 2015-16 bowl projections, and he has Stanford in the Foster Farms Bowl for a second-straight year. This year, the opponent is ... Iowa.

I will now pause here to assure you I know bowl projections are baloney, whether they're in June or mid-November. But they're catnip on sports websites. Slap up bowl projections, and people flock to them.

So I thought some of you in Hawkeyeland would enjoy knowing your team is going to northern California for the first time in the program's history.

If you thought playing Tennessee in Jacksonville, Fla., was a virtual home game for the Volunteers in the TaxSlayer Bowl (Tennessee had six, seven, eight times as many fans as the Hawkeyes), wait until you play Stanford in Santa Clara.

I take that back. The crowd at the TaxSlayer Bowl was 56,310. The crowd at the Foster Farms Bowl was only 34,780, and you would have to figure a second-straight appearance in that game would be of less appeal to Stanford people.

In fact, it's hard to imagine that bowl having Stanford again anytime soon. You don't fill hotels and restaurants when most of the fans are driving to the stadium from their homes on the day of the game.

Russo does a fine job for AP, but like any set of bowl projections made by anyone in June, this is a fatal flaw. If I posted bowl projections today, someone somewhere would explain to me how unlikely and impractical some of my scenarios would be.

As for Iowa going to the San Francisco Bay Area, that would probably mean the Hawkeyes had another 7-5 season. Given there won't be any more than two (Wisconsin and Nebraska) teams on Iowa's schedule that are in the preseason Top 25, that would mean the season would have been humdrum. Where the Hawkeyes are going in the postseason would probably be the least of the team's storylines in early December.

Since there's a fair chance I'd cover Iowa's bowl game, I like some of the Big Ten's lower-tier bowls as opposed to some of their higher-regarded bowls. Give me San Francisco or New York (Pinstripe Bowl) or Nashville (Music City Bowl) rather than Florida, Florida, Florida. Been there, done that a thousand times.

Unless it's the Orange Bowl. I'm kind of a South Beach kind of guy, as you all know. Nightclubs, boutiques, art deco, the beautiful people. And thousands of Hawkeye fans storming it in their black-and-yellow attire, looking for beer and totally messing with the vibe without a shred of compassion for those pretentious posers.

Now if you'll excuse me, something hinky is going on with my laptop computer, and I'm thinking the St. Louis Cardinals could be responsible.

Comments: mike.hlas@thegazette.com