ESPN Rittenberg's mailbag response to no Iowa Prime Time game

[HawkinGoferLand]

Danny O. from Chicago writes: Frankly, I am astonished that Iowa has no prime time or night games. As if a guaranteed sell out crowd of some of the most rabid fans in the B1G and every hawkeye fan in the world tuning in wasn't enough, the black and gold striped stadium and/or american flag display, the recently added pyro-technics and fighter jet fly-overs that is put on for those games should put us over the top for ATLEAST one prime time game a year. I guess the cameras would rather pick up massive gaps in the stands at Minnesota, Northwestern, Indiana, Illinois, and Purdue. Can you please provide some kind of justification for this decision?

Adam Rittenberg: Danny, I look forward to chatting with Iowa athletic director Gary Barta about this at next week's meetings in Chicago. You're right that Iowa has great fans who show up in force for night games. Kinnick Stadium provides a tremendous atmosphere for college football. It's one of my favorites. Iowa also had a bad, boring football team in 2012 and might be similar on the field this season. TV certainly wants fans in the stands, but it also wants exciting football on the field. Northwestern has been a major hit with TV the last decade or so because of its dynamic offense and the number of crazy, back-and-forth games it plays. The other component here is the schedule itself. Like many, I thought the Northern Illinois-Iowa opener would be a good choice for a Big Ten Network prime-time game, but BTN went with Wyoming-Nebraska instead.

Iowa's Big Ten home schedule isn't bad, but BTN seemed to want to front-load its prime-time schedule this year, so games like Northwestern-Iowa and Wisconsin-Iowa didn't make the cut. How willing was Iowa to schedule a home night game? How much did Barta fight for one? I hope to find out next week. I know athletic directors like Northwestern's Jim Phillips and Indiana's Fred Glass make no secret about their desire to schedule night games. Purdue only got a night game because of its opponent (Notre Dame), and one of Illinois' night games is a neutral-site affair against a good Pac-12 team (Washington). Bottom line: there are a lot of factors involved in the prime-time decisions, and it didn't work out this year for Iowa.

 

[NCHawker]

"Iowa also had a bad, boring football team in 2012 and might be similar on the field this season."


says it all

anyone want to sweep that one under the rug?

 

[GoHawks24]

Look on the bright side- we don't have to worry about all of the old geezers getting home too late.

 

[Sooby]

"Iowa also had a bad, boring football team in 2012 and might be similar on the field this season."


says it all

anyone want to sweep that one under the rug?

Exactly, bad and boring is a no-go combination for TV.
The myopians will say that "we just need to clean a few things up."
"We were "x" number of points away from beating CMU, Purdue, etc."

 

[LASBUR]

Everyone can watch us on NY day

 

[HawkeyeMHA]

We weren't deserving. We have had a boring dog crap product that last couple years and this is what happens. You want respect and big stages, gotta earn it through wins.

 

[HawkinGoferLand]

I'll be curious to hear Barta's response to questions on this next week...

 

[Hawkfnntn]

Once a reputation is set it's hard to shake it. At least the criteria is set. It sure tells you something when playing style trumps fans in the stands. But when your talking about making football viewer friendly the product on the field and where the programs stand and importance of the game should trump a fans in the stands. I know that's not painting a rosy pic for my Hawks but I feel it's objective and it makes sense to me

 

[NCHawker]

It didn't help when Herbstreet went on his rant about NIU and how they lost to Iowa..Iowa..he said how bad Iowa was about 3 times. Lot of people heard that.

 

[WinOneThisCentury]

We weren't deserving. We have had a boring dog crap product that last couple years and this is what happens. You want respect and big stages, gotta earn it through wins.

This...you can't be too upset about this. Until we can show we can possibly outscore an opponent and put more than 17 points on the board...our low scoring 9-6 or 13-7 contests will have to be played in the daylight. Now that's an interesting argument. Would playing these games at night make it easier on the eyes watching them? For example, I look alot better and more attractive in a dark bar, so I guess the same could be applied to Iowa Football.

 

[HawkIMalaise]

Everyone can watch us on NY day

You got keys to Kirk's house?

 

[1hawkeye1]

We weren't deserving. We have had a boring dog crap product that last couple years and this is what happens. You want respect and big stages, gotta earn it through wins.

But KF says not a dog crap team??

 

[hawkdrummer1]

"Iowa also had a bad, boring football team in 2012 and might be similar on the field this season."


says it all

anyone want to sweep that one under the rug?

 

[ottoman89]

If you're truly surprised that we didn't get a Primetime game, than I'm sorry.. but you're delusional. This team has been plain, boring, and quite frankly not very exciting the last few years.

Outdated schemes Offensively, a team lacking athleticism and big plays.. subpar Quarterback play and Vanilla Based Defense and not to mention a Recruiting Class ranking at the bottom of the Big 10.. now, if you're a fan of ANOTHER team, what would excite you about this on a Primetime game? I sure as heck wouldn't watch, I have a hard enough time watching the Hawkeyes play anymore anyways.

Until changes are made, schemes are updated, attitude, intensity and personality are injected back into this team whether it's hiring new Coaches or taking chances on troubled recruits, we're just not going to be given Primetime games or exposure.

Just to think, only a few years ago we were having fun, winning the Orange Bowl and getting excited. And now, we're watching them play with one eye open, cringing.

 

[HawkeyeMHA]

But KF says not a dog crap team??

I actually support kf (even though I have fun with the kf stereotypes) but kf was wrong, we have been pretty dog crappy as of late

 

[AZHAWKFAN1]

I think this is just horse crap!!!!

 

[Rifler]

This doesn't particularly bother me as I much prefer attending day games, but I have to say that this appears to be based on more than just a review of how we performed last year....

Iowa 2012
Big 10 - 2/6
Overall - 4/8
2013 Night Games - 0

Indiana 2012
Big 10 - 2/6
Overall - 4/8
2013 Night Games - 3

Illinois 2012
Big 10 - 0/8
Overall - 2/10
2013 Night games - 2 - (one on neutral site)

Sorry, but Rittenberg's excuse doesn't hold water.....

 

[kicker22]

It's about getting back to a game day routine. Let the players and coaches get back in the habit and once again familiarize themselves with going through the motions of their normal routine for an 11:00 or 2:30 game and giving their opponents a beatdown week after week. Then once we acclimate ourselves with that mentality on a weekly basis we can sprinkle the occasional prime time game in there like we did in the past to mix it up again. Once we start winning the morning and afternoon games we'll start seeing more night/primetime games.

Regardless of what time kickoff is the fact is if the team isn't fun to watch the majority of America won't tune in anyway. Illinios and Indiana ratings will probably back that up later this fall.

 

[WinOneThisCentury]

This doesn't particularly bother me as I much prefer attending day games, but I have to say that this appears to be based on more than just a review of how we performed last year....

Iowa 2012
Big 10 - 2/6
Overall - 4/8
2013 Night Games - 0

Indiana 2012
Big 10 - 2/6
Overall - 4/8
2013 Night Games - 3

Illinois 2012
Big 10 - 0/8
Overall - 2/10
2013 Night games - 2 - (one on neutral site)

Sorry, but Rittenberg's excuse doesn't hold water.....

This is absolute bull-****. How many times have a told you people, this board is no place for facts or logic. The fact that Indiana is playing three games at night is ridiculous. BTN, you have some splaining to do.

 

[kicker22]

This doesn't particularly bother me as I much prefer attending day games, but I have to say that this appears to be based on more than just a review of how we performed last year....

Iowa 2012
Big 10 - 2/6
Overall - 4/8
2013 Night Games - 0

Indiana 2012
Big 10 - 2/6
Overall - 4/8
2013 Night Games - 3

Illinois 2012
Big 10 - 0/8
Overall - 2/10
2013 Night games - 2 - (one on neutral site)

Sorry, but Rittenberg's excuse doesn't hold water.....

I don't really think his excuse needs to hold water. Regardless of what he thinks the fact is we don't have any nightgames and Indiana and Illinois do. Obviously there's a reason for this somewhere but the fact is maybe we just have to accept the fact that executives would rather see Indiana's offense then ours. Not sure what's appealing about Illinois.

Don't get me wrong, I think it sucks that we don't have anything at night, but IMO at 4-8 that's a good enough reason why and I don't need an "expert" to attempt to explain to me why we don't have any night games this year.