Fans Becoming Tired of Negative News From the Hawkeyes

Looking around Iowa City it's easy to see Hawkeye Football isn't where it was one year ago.  The buzz that usually fills the campus town of Iowa City seemingly has shifted to other places.  If there is any talk about football, it all seems to focus around things that have happened off of the field. 

"It definitely was a disappointment, this was supposed to be our year," said Hawkeye fan Keith Volden, "National Championship, Rose Bowl hopes, but 7-5 just wasn't expected at all."

Volden said he had considered going to the Insight Bowl on December 28th, but after this weeks announcement that Adam Robinson wont be joining the team, he has decided against it.

"All our big players are going ineligible, it's not fun to see, it's definitely making me not look forward to this game," he said.

Volden certainly isn't the only one frustrated with this years Hawkeye team.  Other Hawk fans admit they've had about as much as they can handle this year, and they're ready for 2011.

"It's disappointing to see all these players drop, I mean there's supposed to be held to a high standard," said Iowa student Anthony Palcheck.

The frustrations of fans appears to be bubbling over to local merchants who sell Hawkeye apparel.  Last season Imprint Sports Wear printed more than 1,000 Orange Bowl T-shirts.  This year, they're printing zero bowl shirts.

"We evaluated how many we can print and want to print, and decided that we cannot meet the requirements (Insight Bowl royalties) so we're going to go with a national distributor," said David Hansen the companies General Manager.

Hansen said with the cost of royalties mixed with the uncertain factor of whether fans even want the t-shirt makes printing Insight Bowl shirts unpractical.

"Last year with the Orange Bowl we could print print print, but this year we really have no idea how many we would sell," he said.

Hansen said he estimates that inquiries to his business about printing bowl shirts is at about 10 percent of what it was last year.