I made my annual trip to the Iowa State Fair today. As always I had a good time, ate a lot of delicious and artery-clogging food, checked out the farm animals, saw the butter cow...the usual. And, of course, stopped by the big Hawkeye display in the Varied Industries Building. This is reason enough to go to the fair. The highlight is usually getting your free Iowa Football schedule poster. The highlight this year though was that on display were the Orange Bowl trophy and all 3 rivalry trophies. Speaking of which, as pointed out by Mark Schalbach on ESPN Iowa has won the past 9 games that were played for a trophy. Iowa has beaten Minnesota 3 times in a row, Iowa State and Wisconsin twice, and won its last two bowl games.

Seeing the trophies up close was pretty awesome. (Side note: you can see the Insight Bowl trophy at Iowa State's booth...it's not even behind protective glass so I guess you could even touch it if wanted). Here are some related pictures:

Before talking football, let me say that the football program does a great job with the Kids at Kinnick event. It was a great environment for families, a lot fun, and having half-priced concessions was amazing. My family ate lunch for $8! Awesome. I took my son and he had a blast. It was a perfect way to take my family to Kinnick without paying a huge amount and without feeling bad about missing a play or two while fathering. So kudos to whoever organizes this thing.

One more quick note. Two hours in the hot sun, right smack in the middle of nap time is a little bit too long for a 2-year old. So, I missed the last 15 minutes of practice or so. From reading other accounts, I think all I missed with the goal-line and 2-minute drills. Also, I didn't take a lot of notes and wasn't able to watch super carefully, but saw most of what was going on.

The open practice is now just a couple hours away. I'm taking my kid (he's 2) and wife (older than 2). It'll be my kid's first trip to Kinnick, so I'm excited about that. He is well aware of Hawkeye Football, so I think he'll be excited too. So, I'll probably be a little more in father mode today rather than blogger mode, but I should still have some pictures and updates later tonight or tomorrow.

The lowdown

What: Kids at Kinnick
When: Today, gates open at 11:00, practice starts at 12:00
Where: Kinnick Stadium
Price: It's FREE!

It's been a week since I posted Part 1--a riveting tale of two teams destined to meet again possibly in some sort of conference rivalry game--so it's about time to get on with Part 2.

Iowa vs. Iowa State

The end is near...well maybe, maybe not. I've written on this subject before, but it was back when it looked like Iowa State would be shipped off to the MAC or MWC as it seemed very unlikely Iowa would want to keep playing a non-BCS conference team in an annual rivalry game. The main problem would be playing a road game every other year against a MAC team.

Yesterday afternoon @HawkeyeFootball shared this video on Twitter. Watch it, watch it now. It features just about every great play from last year that features a returning player. It also throws in a couple of Jewel Hampton highlights from 2008 that will make you remember why he was anointed the next great one after just a couple of runs against Maine in mop-up time at the end of the game.