Iowa-Minnesota football headed for Friday showdown?

In 2010, Iowa's football team is scheduled to play at Minnesota on the final Saturday in November. However school officials have discussed moving the game to another date, such as the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Minnesota Associate Athletics Director Marc Ryan classified his talks with Iowa officials as "casual."

"Certainly you would have to discuss it, not only with Iowa, but certainly with the Big Ten Conference in much more detail as we move forward," Ryan said.

The Big Ten moved its conference football season back one week beginning next year to accommodate an annual bye week into the league schedule. The NCAA allowed schools to schedule a 12th game annually beginning in 2006. Big Ten tradition had schools ending their conference season the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

This year, nine Big Ten schools played 12 games 12 straight weeks, which a majority of coaches and administrators considered too grinding for student-athletes.

"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."

Thanksgiving itself is one potential road block. The visiting team would travel the day before the game, meaning Iowa would either fly or bus to Minneapolis on the national holiday.

"If you're looking at Friday, one of the things to consider is if you're playing on the road, you're traveling on Thanksgiving and that may be a challenge for some folks," Ryan said. "There are a lot of things to be considered."

Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said two weeks ago he'd considered moving the Iowa-Minnesota game to the first Saturday in December to allow his players to take time off for Thanksgiving.

"I have not heard that but those may be discussions that I haven't been a part of," Ryan said. "I don't know if the ADs have talked about that in any great lengths."

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