Iowa and Minnesota could play on a Friday next year

Iowa and Minnesota's football teams could meet in their own version of “Black Friday” next November.

Officials from Iowa and Minnesota have discussed shifting the team's season-ending game - slated for Nov. 27, 2010 in Minneapolis - up one day to accommodate a national television audience. Minnesota Associate Athletics Director Marc Ryan classified his talks with Iowa officials as “casual.”

“This is new territory for us as the Big Ten,” Ryan said. “It's the first year we'll play conference games after Thanksgiving. Certainly as you look around the country, there are other schools and other leagues that have traditional games on Friday. So it's certainly something that we've talked about casually, but it's something that we'll have to have more discussion moving forward.”

The Big Ten moved its conference football season back one week beginning next year to accommodate an annual bye week into the league schedule. Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta said he hasn't seriously discussed changing next year's game date.

“We haven't had any of those conversations,” Barta said. “If those occur, I'm sure they would occur after January.”

Iowa has ended its Big Ten campaign against Minnesota 25 of the last 27 seasons.