Sports Then and Now

The Iowa Hawkeyes are proving to be Zultan’s Achilles heel this season.

For the past two Saturdays, the Z’s only misses have come because the All-Seeing One misread the signs concerning the Hawkeye’s success on the gridiron.

Zultan picked them to lose against Michigan State on the road and win over Penn State at home. Needless to say, that did not work out to the Pigskin Prognosticator’s advantage.

Those picks doomed Zultan keeping him from achieving perfection two weeks in a row.

With the Iowa miss, Zultan went 9-1 in Week 8. Unsettled forces troubled the gridiron, however, causing very close matches with several instances of heart-stopping heroics winning the day. The BCS loomed large in the background.

Still a win is a win.

For the year, Zultan comes in at 34-6 or 85 percent. But Week 9 will be the proverbial turning point in the Big Ten as well as in a number of the top conferences. The “Big Z” senses trouble afoot.

Therefore, this could well be your week to outguess him. Time to make your own picks and be saluted by Zultan in next week’s column—since so few of you have managed to outshine Zultan so far. In fact none this past week.

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Penn State won in Week 6.

Zultan is sad to report that after the Iowa Hawkeyes self-destructed in Happy Valley on Saturday, Mom had to be carted off the premises by the guys in the white coats.

Now in rehab, Mom sings the Iowa Fight song from sun up to dusk.  The only thing that can possibly restore her sanity is a win this week over the ever-ruinous Northwestern Wildcats.
After all, Zultan needs Mom to cook his meals.  Come on black birds—win one for the old lady!

The All-Seeing Seer is also forced to report that the “Show-Me” state showed little in the way of winning last Saturday as Missouri failed to upend the Kansas State Wildcats in a Big Z upset. Okay Bill Snyder, you “showed” up the mighty Zultan in Week No. 6.

The ultimate lesson came from Northwestern and their newly refurbished quarterback who showed all the right signs to upset the Michigan Wolverines making their first road trip—but sadly, Persa failed to deliver and Zultan was saddled with three—count them, three losses.

Still – it was better than four from the previous week.  The dozens of you who outguessed the mighty Zultan will be applauded at the end of this article and given your due respect by the All-Seeing magnanimous one.

It is now time to turn our focus to the crystal ball and week seven.  At the conclusion of this weekend of action, the BCS will unload their ranking for the first time this season.  We are already halfway through the 2011 season.

Click here to enter your picks for this week’s slate of ten games and see if you can surpass the mighty Zultan this week. Zultan feels mighty lucky but that could be from a lack of Mom’s Goodwill brownies.

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October 1, 2011

Headline: The mighty Zultan finally escaped captivity just in time to forecast the results of the first Big Ten conference games of the 2011 season.

The all-seeing seer was being held against his will in a cornfield outside of Lincoln where the gridiron guru was forced to time Taylor Martinez trying to out zigzag Jared Crick down 500 rows of corn…brutal stuff.

Eventually, however, without ever giving in to the Cornhusker demand to be picked as the winner in their opener over Wisconsin, the mighty Zultan vamoosed down Interstate 80, the most boring stretch of road in existence linking many Legends and Leaders alike.

Back in Mom’s garage, the most proficient football prognosticator plugged in at long last, ready to surge ahead picking winners as conference rivalries simmered, ready to boil.

But something was terribly wrong, the all-seeing one noted as his turban burst into flames.

After the pain subsided from short circuiting during his initial trace, Zultan realized that all hades had broken loose in his absence as football teams abandoned traditional conference alliances to bolt to other, greener conference pastures half a continent away.

The shifting landscape pulled all the wires loose—so much for geographical proximity and cultural similarities.

As Zultan predicts winners of college football contests this Saturday, you need to be aware that the economy has stricken the prognosticator, leaving him poverty stricken. There will be no prizes for this contest, just the satisfaction of besting the mighty Zultan.

So do you feel lucky?  If so, click here, and enter the contest for this week.  If you do better than Zultan, I will list your name in the next contest.

Be brave—what have you got to lose?

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Hayden Fry began his coaching dynasty at Iowa in 1979.

Iowa has been skirmishing with Nebraska since 1891—mostly on the gridiron.

For the time being, we will forget about the Iowa-Nebraska legal border battles over land left in dispute by the meandering Missouri River. That is another whole story.

Since the two schools began competing, Nebraska has built a double-digit lead over Iowa (26-12-3). It is especially galling to the Iowa faithful that the Hawkeyes have defeated the Cornhuskers only once since 1946.

Fans feel their Iowa football team has played the role of punching bag way too often in this rivalry.

At least there were long periods of time when the Hawkeyes did not have to play their Missouri River border rivals. But that will all change very soon as Nebraska joins Iowa in the Big Ten Conference as a member of the “Legends” Division—more on those unfortunate division monikers later.

The first 10 games played between Iowa and Nebraska were held in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area, with Iowa winning four outright and tying the Huskers twice.

Iowa and Nebraska, along with Kansas and Missouri, were members of the Western Interstate University Football Association from 1892-1897. Iowa’s conference associations varied until it joined the Big Ten Conference in 1899.

Since Iowa lost to Nebraska in its first home contest held in Iowa City in 1903, the wins against the Cornhuskers have been pitifully few. Playing intermittently, the Hawkeyes scored victories in 1918, 1919, 1930, 1942, 1943 and 1946 as non-conference opponents.

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The Big Ten Conference is sending 8 teams to Bowl Games after the 2010 season.

The Big Ten has an opportunity to shed their “also-ran” or more appropriately their “barely-ran” mantle compiled in recent bowl game appearances.

This year they could actually make their way into the top tier of bowl-winning conferences like – dare we say it – the SEC?

As Bowl Season gets underway this coming weekend, the Big Ten will send eight teams bowling while the SEC lines up ten.

Last year the Big Ten managed to record a winning record of 4-3 in bowl game appearances as Iowa, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin won their contests – with Iowa and Ohio State in BCS Bowls.

Michigan State, Northwestern and Minnesota came close but no cigars.  All in all, it was a great bowl year for the Big Ten.

Great, when you consider that after the 2008 football season the Big Ten went 1-6 with only Iowa winning that year over SEC opponent South Carolina.

Following the 2007 football campaign, the Big Ten amassed a paltry 3-5 record.  We might also point out that in 2006 and 2007, the Ohio State Buckeyes played for the National Championship, losing both times to SEC opponents, Florida and LSU respectively.

In the past three years the SEC has compiled a 19-8 bowl record while the Big Ten skidded to an 8-14 record.  It cannot be overlooked that the SEC has won the last four BCS Championship games.

Indeed, the SEC is an impressive conference and going forward, the Big Ten hopes to catch and pass them as the newly realigned Big Ten begins a new era in Conference play with great expectations.  Welcome you Corn Huskers!!

With eight teams vying for victory, can the Big Ten score a strike?

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