Hlas column: A game-week, yes. But Thankgiving is still a holiday for Hawkeyes.

IOWA CITY - I like to have my turkey and eat it, too.

I like having football available to watch on television on Thanksgiving, on Black Friday, and the day after that. I particularly have enjoyed being able to watch games from the West and the South and wherever else, watching some of the teams and Heisman Trophy candidates I can't see much of when I'm covering games in the Midwest.

But the Big Ten, ceding to those who said it ceded interest to the other major conferences by ending its football season before Thanksgiving, is now playing a full slate of league games this Saturday.

Which means 10 of its teams stay on campus this week while the rest of the students are back home for the holiday break, reconnecting with hometown friends and reminding their parents that college kids don't keep regular hours.

Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz was a proponent for keeping this week free for his players. It's been a chance to get away from both school and football.

“This is a week where normally everybody gets out of Dodge for a week and they just get away from campus, get away from football,” Ferentz said. “Get a chance to really, truly recharge and regenerate a little bit.

“I think being with family is still an American value.”

Ferentz says Thanksgiving is the best holiday, and he's absolutely right in my opinion. But the world keeps changing. Certain supermarkets and drugstores are open all day Thursday. The Christmas shopping season begins (officially, I guess) at midnight Friday.

The Big Ten is all about commerce, too. It has its own television network into which it must continually pump product.

It's not like the Hawkeyes are stuck in a foreign country this week. They will be done with Thursday's practice in time for the players to have dinner with their families or someone else's.

“We should be off the field 12:30, 12:45, somewhere in that ballpark,” Ferentz said. “So that will give everybody a chance to get out of here without, hopefully, driving 90 miles an hour on two wheels.

“Hopefully they'll take a sane approach, get home safely and travel back here safely. Friday morning they'll have ample time to get here. We're not flying out until the afternoon, so we have comfortable room at both ends to get where they're getting.”

Defensive lineman Christian Ballard of St. Louis will go to Des Moines for dinner at his girlfriend's home. Quarterback Ricky Stanzi is among those going with receiver Colin Sandeman to his Bettendorf home.

Safety Tyler Sash of Oskaloosa, meanwhile, will host teammates in Iowa City. Maybe several teammates.

“I've got to look out for my guys on defense first,” Sash said. But anyone that doesn't have a place to go, they can come over.

“I live with (linebacker) Troy Johnson and (defensive back) Tommy Donatell,” Sash said. “They're from Florida and Georgia. My family's coming up and my mom's cooking for everybody. She's been texting me trying to get a rough estimate of how many people will be there.”

The players, Ferentz said, will “do something they normally wouldn't do, which is share some fellowship with someone else, and that's not bad.”

Plus, they can watch the Saints-Cowboys and Bengals-Jets games after dinner. Because football on Thanksgiving is great when you aren't the ones playing it.