Finale has Iowa out in the cold

MINNEAPOLIS — The Big Ten's choice to play football on the last Saturday in November was a concept that made total sense.

Why should the conference have its affairs wrapped up and its teams hidden from sight until bowl season while every other league is still playing, attracting attention and making money?

But the reality is, we're in cold country. Nov. 27? Outdoors? Minnesota? Is that a good thing?

“It's really not bad for coaches and players,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “I've never understood why fans go. Coaches and players are working. It's not that big a deal. Would I go to one of those games? I don't think so.”

The Metrodome wasn't great for the University of Minnesota's needs. Schools should have their own stadiums whenever possible, and on campus. The Dome was never really home for the Gophers. Especially when Iowa (or Wisconsin, or one of the Dakotas) showed up.

So Minnesota got its open-air TCF Bank Stadium built, and it's happy. It's a great deal when the weather isn't Minnesota-winterish, which means it's nice in September and October.

This Iowa-Minnesota thing Saturday was supposed to be an event for the team from the south, a possible capper to a big Hawkeye regular season. Without again belaboring it, it didn't happen. So we're left with a game that has no implications for Iowa other than trying to stave off the embarrassment of losing to a team that is 2-9.

I can't imagine any Iowa players look at Saturday's game and think: “We need this to go to the Outback Bowl instead of the Gator Bowl.” They know both games are the same thing, places for a conference also-ran to play another also-ran and help Florida business people pay for their fourth sports car or third divorce.

The juniors and seniors have been to the Outback, done the Outback. They know winning the Outback doesn't get any kind of buzz similar to, say, winning the Orange Bowl.

If you're an Iowa fan, you hope your team plays for the one and only reason it really has: pride.

Minnesota, meanwhile, has done the nearly impossible. It has seen interest in its football program wane in the second year of showcasing a shiny new stadium. It is 0-6 at home, including an early defeat to a South Dakota team that beat only three other teams on its 11-game schedule.

The Gophers fired coach Glen Mason after Minnesota blew a huge lead against Texas Tech in the 2006 Insight Bowl. Mason was competent, but was perceived as arrogant. Oh, how competent and arrogant would look good again here as opposed to dreadful and dull.

Did you know Minnesota won 10 games and scored 503 points under Mason in 2003? It beat Penn State and Wisconsin that year. Good times.

The Gophers did return to two Insight Bowls under Mason's successor, Tim Brewster. It lost both, including last year against Iowa State. Not-so-good times.

The last bowl win for Minnesota was the 2004 Music City Bowl against Alabama, proving even superpowers like 'Bama have an occasional slippage. To correct that, it helps to spend megabucks on a proven, driven, successful coach as Alabama did with Nick Saban.

Four years ago, Gophers Athletics Director Joel Maturi didn't do that when he hired Brewster, who had never been a head coach or a coordinator for a major college program or NFL team. Maturi still has his job, though. Ain't that America?

This stadium Minnesota has is a nice place to visit. But you wouldn't want to live there.

Hlas is a columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette.