Ed Podolak is at the Orange Bowl, and that's a good thing for Hawkeye fans everywhere

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- As far as I'm concerned, don't bother having an Iowa Hawkeyes football season without Ed Podolak doing the commentary on the Hawkeye Radio Network broadcasts of the games.

The tumult of last winter has faded. The university told Podolak what it wanted from him behavior-wise after someone with a cell phone took photos of him in an apparently intoxicated state while in Tampa for the Outback Bowl. The photos were posted on the Internet.

At first, Podolak balked. He retired from broadcasting Iowa games in January. But the door was kept ajar by both sides, and on April 11 the former Hawkeye star running back said he was coming back. He even held a press conference at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“I was not pleased with what I saw. I was overusing and abusing alcohol. It is what led to the riotous incident in Tampa,” he said. “Rust never sleeps, and I was getting rusty, and alcohol was a good part of what was to blame for it."

Podolak, 62, looked and sounded great all this season. He showed up at the Iowa portion of an Orange Bowl press conference at the Harbor Beach Marriott here Saturday morning, ready for football Tuesday night, and an appearance at the Hawkeye Huddle in Miami Beach on Monday afternoon.

In between, Podolak is staying on a motor yacht with friends in Fort Lauderdale.

"Even though I grew up on a pig farm in Atlantic, Iowa," he said, "it doesn't mean I can't sleep on a boat."

While here, Podolak will have a reunion with old friend Jimmy Buffett.

 "We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About" is a 1983 song Buffett said he wrote about Podolak, but Buffett's mother said she wasn't fooled, and that the song was really about her son.

Coincidentally, the Orange Bowl will be played in Land Shark Stadium. Land Shark is made by Buffett's Margaritaville Brewing Company.

Buffett will be in Tahiti during the Orange Bowl because "He didn't think the Hawkeyes would be playing in it," Podolak said.

OK, let's have Podolak talk about this Orange Bowl and Iowa football season.

"I thought this season was terrific," he said. "My feeling is this was one of the best group of team-leaders that Coach Ferentz has had in a while. Because when you look at those tight games and pressure situations, if you end up on the winning side it has a lot to do with your off-the-field leaders. I think it's a special group, and it's not all seniors. They span the globe.

"You can prepare a team all week and get them ready for those tight spots, but it's still the guys on the field that make it work. That's why I think it's been very rewarding for all of us to watch it"

About Iowa's defense dealing with Georgia Tech's triple option:

"I would say the triple option doesn't concern me as much as it would if you were playing a team during the season, because we've had the time to prepare for it.

"Obviously (Iowa defensive coordinator) Norm Parker has seen it come and go a couple times in his career. And we have really good-tackling secondary people, which is really critical to stopping the triple option. Our safeties and cornerbacks have to be good tacklers, and ours make me more confident against that type of offense."

Georgia Tech's last two opponents each rushed for over 300 yards against the Yellow Jackets, but

 Podolak cautioned against assuming a great Iowa rushing performance is automatic.

"There are always injuries and people are playing injured late in the season," he said. "It's a long season for a limited number of scholarship athletes."

You Iowa fans know this, but I'll say it anyhow. If you watch the Orange Bowl at home, turn down the sound of the always over-produced, over-talky Fox telecast, and turn on your radio. Podolak will dissect what you're seeing and what to look for, and he'll do it with spirit and passion.

One shudders to think of the void that would have been felt had Podolak not been on the air during this wildly interesting Hawkeyes season.

"I only stayed retired in my mind for a short period of time," he said. "It was obvious my association with Iowa football was a very, very important part of my life and I wasn't ready to retire."

Until the Hawkeye Huddle, the son of Atlantic, Iowa will be on a yacht near the Atlantic Ocean.

"Laying low," he said. "Out of the range of cell phones."