Peacock is waiting in the wings for Iowa football fans

The college football season starts Saturday. They call this Week Zero.

Tell me how a week can be Week Zero. While you’re at it, explain how the Big Ten can have 18 members and the Pacific-12 can have four. OK, I understand the ruthless greed part of it. The math, not so much.

Then, explain college football’s targeting rule.

Then, explain why I would rather watch what is shown by a webcam at a water hole in a Namibia desert than Saturday night’s Massachusetts-New Mexico State game on ESPN.

Iowa has two of its football games scheduled on the Peacock streaming subscription service, at home against Michigan State Sept. 30 and in Chicago’s Wrigley Field against Northwestern Nov. 4.

This is a get-used-to-it deal, but we all know a lot of people won’t get used to it right away. The confusion and hard feelings will be painful for those who live outside the world of Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime.

For those who don’t already have Peacock, I strongly recommend you not only stay the course, but take it a step further and stop watching television and streaming services altogether.

Buy a motorcycle. Take up drumming. Raise chickens. Unless you’re my neighbors. Then please do none of those things and continue watching TV. Subscribe to Peacock for all I care.

It didn’t seem charitable last week when Stugotz of the Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz said the ‘I’ in ‘Iowa’ stands for “I have a gambling problem.”

If Iowa put as much effort into pulling books from school libraries as it does chasing down college athletes who wager — never mind, it does.

It’s being called a record-breaking women’s basketball crowd, but will the 40,000 or more who attend the Oct. 15 DePaul-Iowa scrimmage at Kinnick Stadium (weather permitting) count as a record when it isn’t an actual game?

What I really want to know is this: What if it’s really windy that afternoon?

DePaul played before 29,464 fans last season in Chicagoland. Of course, that included 15 home games, one at Loyola, and one at Northwestern.

On Aug. 30, Nebraska will play Omaha in volleyball before over 91,000 fans in the Huskers’ Memorial Stadium. The tickets for adults sold for $25.

Women’s college athletics are trending up, wouldn’t you say?

In more ticket sales news, Iowa football will be sold out this season and Kentucky sold out its 40,200 season tickets and 6,500 student season tickets. That’s the phenomenon known as the Music City Bowl bounce.

Iowa had an NCAA-champion wrestler in 1987 named Rico Chiapparelli. He flipped a lot of people to avoid predicaments.

New Wisconsin starting quarterback Tanner Mordecai passed for nine touchdowns and rushed for another last year when his SMU team beat Houston, 77-63.

Houston QB Clayton Tune threw for seven TDs and 527 yards in that game, and rushed for 111 yards and a score.

Now you know why every Big Ten West team but Minnesota added a quarterback out of the transfer portal this offseason. Iowa brought in two, and Wisconsin grabbed three.

Iowa’s football team has some great names in its two-deeps. Almost the best: Diante Vines, Gennings Dunker, Yahya Black, Sebastian Castro, Xavier Nwankpa, Rusty Feth.

The best, of course, is senior fullback Hayden Large. That he transferred from Dordt University only makes it better.

It was good to see HBO’s “Hard Knocks” acknowledge other New York Jets besides Aaron Rodgers last week. One was rookie defensive end Will McDonald IV of Iowa State. To say he looked good in practice and a recent preseason game is understating things.

Another rookie, Detroit Lions linebacker Jack Campbell of Iowa, looks equally ready for the NFL. In consecutive plays of Detroit’s preseason opener, Campbell was in on both tackles when the Lions stopped the New York Giants on third-and-1 and fourth-and-1.

McDonald and Campbell went 15th and 18th in the 2023 draft, respectively, higher than most expected. Both might have been steals.

Hawaii plays Vanderbilt Saturday night. I’ll stick to watching that water hole in Namibia.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com