Prep, Hawkeye, Cyclone football coverage in full gear

Footballs are flying through the air again in Eastern Iowa. If you care – and many of you do – you will be able to catch in The Gazette our regular Saturday morning prep coverage, which kicks into full gear this weekend.

Next is college football. Iowa State University kicks off its season Thursday night, Sept. 2, in Ames and the University of Iowa plays Saturday, Sept. 4.

That means the return on Saturday, the 4th, of Game Day in The Gazette. Game Day is a special sports section with features, rosters and prognostications about the games the UI and ISU play on that day. It wraps around the regular sports section.

The UI gets particular focus because it is in our Linn-Johnson County Corridor. We hear from ISU fans and alumni about that but ISU is important, too, in our coverage plans. Our correspondent, Eric Petersen, keeps fans up to date on what is going on with the Cyclones.

Returning for full game Hawkeye coverage are

Marc Morehouse,

Mike Hlas and

Scott Dochterman. Hlas and Dochterman take the field with national honors this year. Hlas has won the

Society of Professional Journalists' best sports columnist writing award this year for newspapers with circulations of 50,001-100,000. The Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) gave Dochterman its

first-place award earlier this year for breaking news reporting in 2009 by newspapers with circulations of 40,000-100,000. The APSE also named The Gazette one of the nation's 10 best papers with that circulation.