On Iowa Daily Briefing -- 5.10.12

HEADLONG HAWKEYE (AND CYCLONE)

It kind of flew under my radar because I've been in and out of town the last few weeks. There is a new Cy-Hawk football trophy and it's not bad.

Obviously, it's the one on the top.

It's fine. It's not the grotesque stereotype the "Family of the Corn" was. The whole "larger concept" than just a football game rang extremely hollow statewide.

Huge credit to Iowa Corn Growers Association CEO Craig Floss who took the temperature of the reaction and came back with singed eyebrows to pull the plug on the Family of the Corn after sinking $40,000 into it. That took fortitude, a completely unheralded Iowa quality. The schools were entered into the endorsement. The trophy could've been pig testicles and they would've been cool with it.

Once the wheels are in motion on something like this, it never seems to stop. No one at Coca-Cola said, wait a minute, New Coke? Get outta here. No one tranq'd George Lucas when he was putting out three unnecessary Star Wars (desecration). Jim Belushi still gets gigs.

So, for Craig Floss to stand up and drastically change streams in the midst of a PR disaster, well done, sir.

Now, the new one? It's nice. It's OK. It's a trophy with some design to it. It doesn't look like, as Kirk Ferentz called the old old Cy-Hawk, a soap box racer project. This trophy will become outdated quickly when Iowa State changes logos again. I State will cave to something at some point. ISU logos are made to be broken. But hey, that's a quick fix.

I would've liked to have seen a nod to Nile Kinnick and Jack Trice. They do, after all, have their names on the stadiums. The football that Cy and Herky will be holding is slated to be big and bronze.

OK.

I still like my idea for the football.

The schools' Army ROTC programs have been running the game ball from Ames to Iowa City as part of a tradition that started in 1986. I would've loved to have seen a a bronzed corn scene cradle the ROTC game ball.

Winning team runs out and grabs the big, bronze trophy. Later, when it goes into the school's trophy case, the team and coaches sign the ROTC game ball and place it in the bronze corn cradle. Maybe emblazon the football with “ROTC” in the school's colors.

On the Monday of the next season's game week, take the autographed ball and auction it off. Proceeds go to a food shelter somewhere in Iowa.

That's a higher concept. But hey, the Family of the Corn is sitting in someone's office or den somewhere and it's a helluva conversation piece.

Recruiting note -- According to Rivals.com, West Des Moines Valley OL Jake Campos has committed to Missouri, which, as you know, is now in the SEC.

So, strike one for Iowa on the West Des Moines Big Three. Iowa remains in the hunt for West Des Moines Valley's Sam Raridon, a 6-2, 256-pound D-lineman with an Iowa offer and interest from Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Also, Dowling Catholic tight end Jon Wisnieski has offers from Iowa, Nebraska, Purdue, and Iowa State with Oklahoma showing strong interest. At the end of last month, he didn't appear close to a decision.

DIEZ DE MAYO LINKS

-- Did former Iowa/current New England Patriots offensive lineman Robert Gallery get a haircut? For the first time in a decade, maybe, you can see his ears.

Here is the link to his question-and-answer audio with New England media on Thursday.

-- The road from undrafted free agent to making an NFL team is a hard one, but rookie punter Eric Guthrie of Iowa has survived the first obstacle: Getting a contract after participating in last weekend's rookie minicamp on a tryout basis.

The team, by the way, is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

-- Former star Hawkeye defensive tackle Andre Tippett is entering the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame Saturday. He is a Birmingham native.

Tippett entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2008. He was inducted into the National Iowa Varsity Club Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007.

-- Kirk Ferentz is Big Ten football's youngest elder statesman since Hayden Fry in 1985.

-- Purdue has had a bit of a drought when it comes to winning Big Ten baseball titles. The last one came in 1909.

“The Titanic sank after we won our last Big Ten championship,” Purdue second baseman Eric Charles said. “You'd think we could have squeaked one out in all that time.”

At 14-4, the Boilermakers have a 3-game lead with six conference games remaining. The final three are at Iowa May 17-19.

The last time the Hawkeyes had the Big Ten's best regular-season league record was 1990. The last time they got a piece of the conference's championship was 1974.

That's a drought, too. It doesn't bring the Titanic to mind, but it's a drought.

-- It isn't every day when you hear a commissioner of a major conference say "It's probably time for a commercialized kind of perspective. Clearly the collegiate model is dead."

Make that ex-commissioner of a major conference. John Marinatto resigned as the Big East's commissioner on Monday.

And what does this have to do with new Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby? Let's ask Pete Thamel of the New York Times. He wrote:

The Big East is a bit like the game Jenga, a stack of wooden blocks haphazardly arranged atop one another. The most likely piece to be removed is Louisville. It is not a matter of whether it wants to go to the Big 12 as much as if it will be invited. If the Big 12, which has 10 teams, decides to expand to 12, would it invite Cincinnati to go with Louisville?

-- The lead paragraph of this Charlotte News & Observer story says plenty:

Football and basketball players accounted for nearly four out of every 10 students enrolled in 54 classes at the heart of an academic fraud investigation at UNC-Chapel Hill, according to figures released Monday.

Don't get too mock-y toward North Carolina. This 2011 story by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that several university football programs -- at some excellent universities -- have players who tend to congregate in the same fields of study.

Lost Letterman is a pretty good college football/basketball site. It just listed its 10 football coaches on the proverbial hot seat, and none work in the Big Ten.

Of course, Ron Zook went from hot seat to ejection button last year at Illinois, and Purdue's Danny Hope got his chair cooled down by leading the Boilermakers to a bowl win, even if it was the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.