Mike Hlas

Washington played in the national championship game last year. That isn’t one of the Fun Facts, because either you knew it or you don’t follow college football and came to this post by mistake.

Times and television networks for Iowa’s 2024-25 men’s basketball schedule have been announced.

Frank “Fritz” Waskowitz of Washington and Iowa’s Nile Kinnick had glorious college football careers. They played against each other in 1937, then died as World War II military pilots a few years later.

Iowa may not be a surefire Big Ten title contender, but it will be closer to that than 16th place. The team has some dudes.

Iowa State’s 43-21 win over Baylor got the Cyclones to 5-0 for the first time in 44 years, and was done with a passel of plays over 20 yards.

Is anything duller than the way Ohio State has trampled those with lesser football resources over the years, er, decades?

Hawkeye forward Payton Sandfort was terrific last season in many ways. He wants to bow out at Iowa with a big senior season and “a ton of wins” before turning toward pro basketball.

Fun Facts about Saturday’s Iowa football game at Ohio State. Iowa is bigger. The state, that is. Ohio is more stuffed with humans, many of whom are good football players.

Only Caitlin Clark and USC’s JuJu Watkins outscored Iowa’s Lucy Olsen last season when Olsen was in her third season of pouring in points at Villanova.

Juju Watkins, second to Iowa’s Caitlin Clark last year in NCAA scoring, is the sophomore sensation who will lead Big Ten preseason favorite USC in its first year in the conference.

Iowa’s Payton Sandfort is on the preseason All-Big Ten men’s basketball team. The 6-foot-8 senior forward averaged 16.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists last season.

Johnson didn’t get a scholarship offer from Ohio State, but he had plenty of other opportunities. He took one from Iowa after de-committing from Cal, and his high school coach says “The rest is history.”

Caitlin Clark’s rookie-season impact on the WNBA was phenomenal in multiple ways, and she’s only just begun.

At the one-third pole of the season, Hawkeye running back Kaleb Johnson would be considered a darkhorse at the very least .

It wasn’t this way with 11 or 12 or 14, but now that the Big Ten has 18 football teams I find all my waking thoughts are about the conference. USC is a punting paradise so far this season, while Illinois is throwing a bunch of touchdown passes.