Iowa, Michigan State smell the Big Ten championship

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Big Ten officials spent 10 to 15 minutes Friday trying to decide where to place the conference championship trophy in relation to the helmets and the lectern.

There was some serious geometry going on up on a platform that might be eight feet high. The microphone had a B1G logo on the front. The backdrop repeated with maybe a hundred little B1G logos.

Mind you, this is the pregame news conference for Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz and Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio. Of course, the storm and the stress begins with trophy optics.

Is this the biggest game in Iowa football history? That was a question this week. The answer is a debate wrapped in a discussion and covered by dialogue.

This isn't a time for reflection. The Big Ten started painting the field on Thursday for Saturday night's Big Ten championship game between the No. 4 Hawkeyes (12-0) and No. 5 Michigan State (11-1). A spot in the College Football Playoffs final four is on the line.

Is Saturday bigger than the 1986 Rose Bowl? Walk that one off. In the here and now, Saturday night is the heavyweight champion of the Hawkeyes world.

'We're really excited about this opportunity,' Iowa quarterback C.J. Beathard said. 'You can't get too excited. You can't get too big of a head. You can't get too caught up in all of the lights and all of the glamour and everything that comes with a championship game. It's just the next game on your schedule. We've got something to prove right now.'

This the Hawkeyes' first appearance in the Big Ten title game at Lucas Oil Stadium. Michigan State now has been in three of the five. No, Dantonio doesn't get his mail here, but he's said all week that's advantage Spartans.

'That can only help us,' Dantonio said. 'Our players can talk to the other people and give them that experience, what the stadium is like, what's this like, what's the climate like, the atmosphere like. It's a sellout (67,000). It should be very exciting for them. 'GameDay' is there again, so this will be the fourth time we play on 'Game Day' I guess, or had 'Game Day' there, so that will be exciting as well.'

When Dantonio said the Spartans have played four times with ESPN's GameDay crew in or around their stadium he meant four times this season. For Iowa, this will be the sixth time . . . ever (the Hawkeyes are 1-4 with GameDay in the house, by the way).

Here's what Dantonio means by advantage.

'I was just speaking with the freshmen and telling them how different it is,' MSU defensive end Shilique Calhoun said. 'The lights, they shine brighter, it smells amazing — it smells like the game of football, and above all else, you just love that turf field. When you first walk out there, you feel like the world is on your shoulders and right now you're Superman.'

Oh. Superman. OK. Maybe this is advantage Michigan State.

When told Calhoun said Lucas Oil Stadium smells like football, the Hawkeyes kind of nodded their heads.

'He knows a lot more than I do,' Iowa wide receiver Tevaun Smith said. 'I've never been there. I'd say this is an advantage for them. It's not out of their comfort zone. They're comfortable being there. We can use that to our advantage if they get too comfortable.'

College kids aren't exactly down with 'scrapbooking,' but they do keep millions of photos on their computer phones. The first time Michigan State played here Peyton Manning was still a Colt.

'I remember everybody was taking pictures next to Peyton Manning's locker,' Michigan State center Jack Allen said. 'I remember that. I was two lockers away, so no big deal.'

On the flip side, Big Ten officials expect Lucas Oil to be full of Hawkeyes fans Saturday night. Maybe as many as 35,000. One indicator is requests for RV spots. The Big Ten opened up 85 spots for recreational vehicles at Lucas Oil and those sold out almost immediately. The league opened 100 more at a spot a little ways from the stadium. On Friday, there was a waiting list for those.

During the College GameDay media opportunity Friday, studio analysts Kirk Herbstreit and David Pollack were swarmed by media that included at least half of a dozen TV stations from Iowa.

Ferentz was asked during his weekly press conference if he planned to measure the Lucas Oil goalposts a la the scene in the movie 'Hoosiers,' when Gene Hackman measured the basketball hoops as his underdog Hickory team readies for the state championship in Indianapolis' Hinkle Fieldhouse.

Ferentz didn't bite, didn't pause and went into the spiel about keeping the game the same as the last game and the one before that.

'Probably not,' Ferentz said. 'We're excited about it, but we've gone to some really good bowl games, and I'd probably draw a parallel to that.

'I told them it was a safe bet we'd be underdogs. We've been underdogs in 11 out of 12 bowls, so I figured we'd be underdogs again. But we've been in that environment. We've played a lot of big games historically, and this team has played in big games this year.'

The Hawkeyes declined an opportunity for a walk through in Lucas Oil on Friday afternoon. Ferentz said Iowa hasn't done walk throughs on the road for several years. It's a photo op and maybe a time for specialists to catch a punt or two, but really that's all.

'It's really not that big of a deal in our minds,' Ferentz said. 'We want to stay in our routine and do what we do.'

The subject is 'the stage.'

Beathard was a ballboy for the Washington Redskins when his grandfather, Bobby, served as the team's general manager. That comes with a minor stage, no? His father, Casey, is a successful country music songwriter and performer in their hometown Nashville.

C.J.'s brother, Tucker, has made waves in country music and was recently featured in Billboard Magazine. The same week, coincidentally, that Sports Illustrated had the Hawkeyes on a regional cover.

'My parents (Casey and Susan) don't consider it a good week because that happened,' Beathard said with a laugh. 'There's more to life, but it's cool, exciting.'

The bright lights are blazing. The place smells like football. This is the measure the Hawkeyes want, the measure a serious team needs and craves.

This moment is as brilliant as the silver molded into the Big Ten championship trophy and the Hawkeyes are in that moment.

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