3 and Out

1. Why some of you won't be here Saturday

- The Weather Channel has decided to name this winter storm 'Bella.” Thanks, but no thanks. We Midwesterners refer to this as 'winter.” We don't name it, we shovel it.

Anyway, this isn't a weather rant. This is an explanation - at least through my eyes, putting on my glasses of infallible logic (kidding) - for why Iowa's home crowds this season haven't responded like at all to the 10-0 run this team is on.

As of Thursday afternoon, only 63,000 tickets had been sold for the Hawkeyes' Kinnick Stadium season finale against Purdue. The Boilermakers do serve as an easy microcosm for part of what's plagued Kinnick attendance.

Purdue is 2-8 and 1-5 in the Big Ten. Anything can happen in college football and Iowa the football team certainly prepared for that this week. That's its job. You're not Iowa the football team. You're a fan and paying customer. There's a pretty good chance that a 2-8 Purdue is going to raise your eyebrows.

Purdue on the top of a potential of nine inches of snow on top of the 11 a.m. kickoff, you're probably not inclined to fire up the RV and the propane grill and the lawn chairs for a drive on snowy roads from wherever your Iowa outpost is into Ice Station Zebra, the code name for Eastern Iowa this weekend.

You argue for the schedule that Iowa is judged on every week by the College Football Playoff committee. You hold up Iowa's wins over Wisconsin and Northwestern. And you say, judge these, committee and Kirk Herbstreit and et al. And, of course, you know those wins came on the road.

As far as Kinnick games go this year, the Pitt game was cool. There were 63,636 of you there for Marshall Koehn's 57-yard game-winner under the lights. You enjoyed homecoming and Iowa's 29-20 win over Illinois, punctuated by RB Jordan Canzeri's school-record 43 carries and 256 yards. That crowd was 66,693.

Last week, on a beautiful 60-degree night that you swear got warmer as the game went along, you filled the place to capacity 70,585 for the first time since Iowa State in 2014, a span of nine home games. It was another 7 p.m. kickoff. Iowa wore an alternative uniform. There was a wrestling meet in Kinnick that afternoon. It was Hawkeye-pa-looza and you were in on it big time.

The rest of Iowa's home schedule? It just didn't conduct any heat. It started with Illinois State, a very good FCS school but still an FCS school. Just 56,041 fans saw Iowa's 62-16 rout of North Texas, a Conference USA school. That was the smallest home crowd since 2003 (54,471 against Buffalo).

Iowa doesn't pick its Big Ten home games. It did schedule Pitt, giving it two Power 5 schools on the non-conference schedule, which is good and, really, admirable. Not every Power 5 school does that (built-in rivalry with Iowa State helps, of course, and with the Big Ten going to nine conference games next season, you'll probably never see it again, so there's that part of it, too).

Let's say the Kinnick crowd sticks at 63,000. That would give Iowa an average season attendance at Kinnick of 63,166 (89.4 percent capacity). In its media guide, Iowa lists average home attendance back to 1995. With five seasons of 70,585 (2005-07, 2010-11), the 63,166 would fall 16th out of 17 seasons, with only 61,123 in 2000 behind it (that was coming off a 1-10 1999 in Kirk Ferentz's first season).

Home schedule isn't the only reason. The 2014 season ended bitterly. We've been over that. Iowa fell in overtime to Nebraska at Kinnick. Ferentz said 'That's football” in the postgame (he said a lot of other things, but he said that and that's what a lot of you heard).

I heard from a ton of you. A ton of you said you weren't buying season tickets. A ton of you followed through on that. Iowa experienced a 17-percent drop in season ticket sales this season, with 32,656 season tickets sold to the general public (that figure was as of June 19) compared to 39,364 in 2014,

So, lackluster home schedule and lingering bitterness over 2014 were huge factors. Maybe the Kinnick reseating before the 2014 season was somewhat of a factor. That gave paying fans a chance to stop and realize how big the check they were writing actually was.

The explanations are logical. Business decisions were made going into the 2015 season. Obviously, no one saw 10-0 on the horizon. Who knows? Maybe there's some cognitive dissonance out there now. Maybe there's still a 'wait and see” crowd. We won't know until next August if Kinnick gets a bump in 2016.

In one of Iowa's best seasons under Ferentz, the average attendance will rank among the worst in his 17 seasons as head coach.

There's logic to it, there's emotion to it. There's really no accounting for it.

2. That cellphone thing

- OK, enough about what Kinnick hasn't been this season. How cool was the impromptu cellphone light show last week?

Sometime in the second half of last week's Minnesota game, there was a timeout and the Kinnick Stadium PA (I've heard fewer complaints about that as the season has gone on, by the way) blasted Notorious B.I.G.'s 'Hypnotize.” I know this because I asked, not because I know the song (my pop cult game needs a transfusion).

I think it started in the student section and soon Kinnick was ablaze in cellphone lights (pretty sure it's the flash for cameras, you can turn them on and leave them on - again, I asked). I haven't asked if this is something that B.I.G.'s song usually gets out of people. Is it? Hit me on Twitter if you know.

This was a 'card trick” without cards. An organic event sprung out of music and out of young people in the student section. Iowa O-line coach Brian Ferentz tweeted about the Kinnick Stadium experience and how it was lacking in 2013. Kirk Ferentz said he knew it was up to the team to provide the electricity.

That was it, last Saturday night. That was it. Running back Jordan Canzeri is a fifth-year senior who's seen a lot. He said this week the cellphone stunt was one of his favorite moments.

'When I was in the huddle and everyone started doing the thing with their phones, turning on the flashlights,” Canzeri said, 'I was like, ‘Wow, just looking around, this is so surreal.' Even C.J. said, ‘Guys, it doesn't get better than this.' It was great to be able to be a part of something like that, with great fans and a great community.”

(That word 'community,” I like that. It's not players and fans and coaches. It's community. Sure, there has to be a president and final decision-maker, but respect the community and the community will grow and we won't have posts about how many tickets aren't sold.)

Yes, quarterback C.J. Beathard did tell the huddle to check out the moment.

'It was an awesome moment,” he said. 'I was in the huddle talking to the guys. I looked up, and I was like, ‘Man, look around. It doesn't get better than this. It was a great moment. It was awesome to see. It was really cool. I've never been a part of anything like that.

'I've seen it in concerts, but never at a football game. That was really cool.”

Community, that's a concept I've never thought of with Kinnick. It's important if you think about it. Everyone has a role.

3. Big Ten nerd game of the week

- Lots of heavyweight matchups in the Big Ten. You have Michigan State at Ohio State, Michigan at Penn State, Northwestern at Wisconsin and Purdue at Iowa (kidding, but, no, I didn't have this one circled for nerd game).

If you love the Big Ten, you'll spend at least a quarter this week watching Indiana (4-6, 0-6) at Maryland 2-8, 0-6). The Hoosiers just aren't as bad as the record says. They pushed Michigan into OT last week and lost to six TD passes from Jake Rudock. The offense is fun. Kevin Wilson is a good, solid coach. They just don't play defense.

On the other end, you need to watch Maryland just to see an offense that seems to be hypnotized into believing the ball is made out of hot lava. The Terrapins have a turnover margin of minus-19, that's 127th in the country, two margin points ahead of Hawaii, which is only behind Maryland because it has two fewer takeaways.

Maryland leads the nation with 28 interceptions. Maryland leads the nation in total turnovers lost (35). You have to watch just to see new and creative ways in how to turn over the ball. It's your duty as a Big Ten nerd.

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com