Kirk Cousins and Denard Robinson are two great Big Ten quarterbacks who haven't beaten Iowa as starters

CHICAGO – I was walking around Friday in one of the ballrooms of McCormick Place, which is roughly the size O'Hare International Airport, listening to snippets of conversations Big Ten football players and coaches were having with reporters.

As I passed by Michigan State senior quarterback Kirk Cousins, I heard this from him:

“We need to beat Michigan. I've said that every year.”

OK, obvious. State rival. It's all Michigan, Michigan, Michigan in Michigan, and the Spartans feel compelled to shut people up. Which they have three straight years, for the first time since 1965-67.

But if you were Cousins, you might feel compelled to say “We need to beat Iowa.”

Two years ago, the Hawkeyes beat MSU in East Lansing on a last-second touchdown pass from Ricky Stanzi to Marvin McNutt. Last year in Iowa City, Iowa shelled the Spartans, 37-6, intercepting Cousins three times.

The Michigan comment was with no disrespect intended toward Iowa. If anything, Cousins lathered the Hawkeyes with praise. Michigan State returns to Iowa City this fall. Since Iowa gave the Spartans their only regular-season loss last year and in humbling fashion, Cousins was only complimentary about Iowa.

“With what happened last year,” he said, “there will be a sense of purpose at Iowa this year for a chance to make amends.

“But I know Iowa, and they're going to be feeling the same way, that they need to get the job done when they play us.

“Iowa's a tremendous program, a tremendous team. A lot of the philosophies of Kirk Ferentz in terms of physical, downhill running and offensive line play, that's what we're trying to establish at Michigan State. There are some similarities there. We have a lot of respect for what Iowa does on both sides of the ball.”

Cousins said he had never met Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson. The two were about 30 feet apart in the ballroom when he said it.

Like Cousins, Robinson didn't have his best statistical game against of the season against Iowa last year. Not that he wasn't awfully good, since he rushed for 143 yards in Iowa's 38-28 win at Ann Arbor.

But Robinson, 20th in the nation in pass efficiency in 2010, completed 13 of 18 passes with one interception for a paltry 96 yards. So his total offense was 239 yards, a far cry from the two games in which he had both 200 yards rushing and 200 yards passing.

He was fourth in the nation in rushing, and had 4,272 yards of total offense.

“That doesn't suck,” someone (not me) inelegantly suggested to him.

“No, that doesnn't suck,” he replied.

Robinson, however, didn't have much bragging in him Friday when I heard him speak. He had high praise for Cousins.

About the Heroes Game, which is what Iowa and Nebraska have decided to call their annual football confrontation …

I've said what I had to say about traveling trophies earlier in the week in this column, and that was before I heard the Hawkeyes and Cornhuskers cooked up this deal with Hy-Vee.

You can't fight it. Hy-Vee is giving the two schools money and getting a lot of publicity in exchange. At least the American Red Cross is receiving something out of the deal so this isn't a purely commercial enterprise. I hope it's more than what the schools will get, but wouldn't bet on it.

As for the name … it fits right in with the Big Ten. Legends, Leaders, Heroes. Look, the league wants to give itself an image of being special, being above the fray. It's kind of pompous and a little silly, but it's harmless.

Clearly, the two schools don't mind the yucks “Heroes Game” will provide the outside world, much like “Legends” and “Leaders” have and will. Hey, we all could stand to be able to be laughed at, and to laugh at ourselves once in a while.

But I've already heard three references to comic books, and they just announced the name this morning. That probably isn't good.