Rivalry rivalry rivalry rivalry rivalry

IOWA CITY - Every year when it's time for Iowa and Iowa State to do their football thing, players from outside of the state are asked if they can grasp the magnitude of this particular rivalry.

Of course, they can.

It's acute this week. Iowa (1-0) and Iowa State (1-0) are the big dogs in our state. They play on big TV networks. They play for the Cy-Hawk Trophy. The moods of the fan bases, however, might be the biggest prize on the line Saturday at Jack Trice Stadium.

You'll fly the colors going in, the winner will wear them all next week, at the very least.

It's an awfully big football world out there. Every football player from everywhere grew up in the throes for some sort of neighborly grunt fest. Rivalries are the spine of the game. They radiate with you, and you know they heat up the players.

Before he was Iowa's quarterback, C.J. Beathard led Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tenn. Beathard's Battle Ground head coach during his first seasons made the jump to Montgomery Bell Academy his senior year. So yeah, instant rivals.

'I would have to say them, and we ended up beating them my senior year,” Beathard said.

Running back Jordan Canzeri is from Troy, N.Y., and attended Troy High School. La Salle Institute, an all-male private Catholic college preparatory school, was just a couple of minutes away.

'The atmospheres of both schools and the communities around them, when you see a rivalry like that, it gets people a little more amped up and juiced up for the game to come,” Canzeri said, 'so we definitely hear that now from both communities, the media and everything.

'It's going to be a great game, we know that. They'll play great against us. We know it's a trophy game, but we're going to play the same way. We're going to play as hard as possible.”

Canzeri said more about Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz doing a good job keeping the hype in check. And then . . . wait for it . . .

Good or bad memories against La Salle?

'My senior year, when it matter, my last year, we beat them,” Canzeri said. 'That's obviously a good memory.”

South of San Antonio, Texas, the towns of Somerset and Lytle sit nine miles apart. As you might imagine, the districts for both schools wind through each other. One house is a Somerset house and then the next is Lytle.

That's was the backdrop for wide receiver Jacob Hillyer's days at Somerset High School.

'They were the closest town to us,” he said. 'We had a big mix of students going back and forth, a lot of houses along the edge. This (Iowa-Iowa State) is kind of similar, big D-1 school the closest to us.”

And . . .

'Good memories,” Hillyer said. 'I was undefeated (in all sports) against them just about every year.”

Linebacker Travis Perry is from the Des Moines area and went to high school at Urbandale. Barely a second after you ask who the J-Hawks' biggest rival is, Perry blurts, 'Johnston.”

Perry was injured his senior year and couldn't play against the Dragons, but his junior year . . .

'We beat them,” he said. 'It goes back and forth, same in basketball. It's a lot of fun. Anytime there's a rivalry game, the crowd is amped up and ready to go. It's a good time.”

Being from Iowa, Perry has never gotten the 'what is the Iowa-Iowa State rivalry like” question. After answering a question about his prep rival, he said all of his teammates have experienced the storm and thunder of rivalries in their corners of the world.

'Everyone knows what a rivalry is like and on top of that, there's a trophy to be played for,” he said. 'The second you step foot in Ames, you know it's a rivalry whether you knew it or not.”

Junior cornerback Greg Mabin played at Cavalry Christian Academy in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He wanted to beat Westminster Academy, just 5 miles and a 12-minute drive apart. Linebacker Cole Fisher is from Omaha, Neb., and went to Millard North High School. There's a Millard South, Millard West and Millard Prep, so he's had rivalry games up to his eye brows.

The game Fisher jumped to was the 2010 matchup with South, when North ended its 16-game losing streak. Later that season, North also topped South in the state championship.

'That's not a bad memory at all,” he said.

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz isn't immune. He played high school football at Upper St. Clair (Pa.), UConn and coached with the Cleveland Browns/Baltimore Ravens organization in the NFL.

The rival in high school was Mount Lebanon. You don't even have to 'wait for it,” Ferentz gets right to the memory.

'My junior year we had them like 24 to whatever it was, 7,” Ferentz said. '. . . They ended up beating us, and boy, that was really disappointing.

'That was a hard one. We were trying to catch them. They were the elite school, if you will, or the power in Western PA and all that stuff.”

Ferentz was linebacker at the University of Connecticut in the late '70s. These were not the glory years for UConn.

'I think I set a record as a player for playing in the most homecoming games in the history of football, college football,” Ferentz said. 'Teams loved it when they saw us coming.”

And with the Ravens?

'When you walk in that building, it's about beating the Steelers,” he said.

Poor defensive end Drew Ott. He admitted that his Giltner (Neb.) High School team's biggest rival was Howells-Dodge, which happens to be the alma mater of Hawkeyes sophomore defensive tackle Nathan Bazata. Giltner lost three times to Howells-Dodge in the state 8-man playoffs, including the 2009 state finals.

Ott and Bazata are linemates and roommates in Iowa City. There's no trash talk, but the memories linger.

And, this week, they carry a little more relevance.

'It's kind of the same thing (as the Iowa-Iowa State rivalry),” Ott said. 'You kind of have that little hate for that team. You're just trying to prove a point and you really want that victory.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com