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The Bowl Championship Series conferences and bowls announced today that 22 teams remain under consideration to fill the 10 available spots in BCS bowls.
The group includes three Big Ten teams, championship game participants Michigan State and Wisconsin, and at-large possibility Michigan. Penn State was cut from the list of possibilities during today’s call by the BCS.
That does little to end the waiting game for Iowa and other conference schools awaiting bowl bids.
Schools must finish in the top 14 of the final BCS standings for at-large consideration to a BCS bowl. Michigan sits on the fringe of that possibility entering the final weekend of games, creating an opportunity for the Wolverines to move up into the top 14 if other teams lose.
That impacts every team that could be selected below the Wolverines among the Big Ten bowl partners and essentially leaves those bowls in a holding pattern until the final BCS standings are compiled and released on Sunday.
Champions from six conferences receive automatic berths to BCS games. Here is a list of teams still in that mix:
Atlantic Coast: Clemson, Virginia Tech
Big East: Cincinnati, Louisville, West Virginia
Big Ten: Michigan State, Wisconsin
Big 12: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State
Pac-12: Oregon, UCLA
Southeastern: Georgia, LSU
Additionally, the highest-ranked conference champion from among Conference USA, the Mid-American, Mountain West, Sun Belt and Western Athletic conferences earn automatic qualification to a BCS bowl if that champion is ranked No. 12 or higher – or No. 16 or better if ranked higher than the champion of one of the six leagues with automatic qualifications.
In addition, the following pool of teams remains under consideration for at-large berths.
In alphabetical order: Alabama, Baylor, Boise State, Houston, Kansas State, Michigan, Southern Mississippi, Stanford and TCU.
No conference may place more than two teams in BCS games, unless the conference has two teams in the national championship game and neither of those teams is the league’s champion.

Iowa’s football staff hit the road today.
This is the first day of a contact period with high school and junior college recruits and coach Kirk Ferentz said last week that the plan was for Hawkeye coaches to hit the road today.
“We’re all going out Sunday. That’s college football. You keep forging ahead,” Ferentz said.
Iowa currently has 12 known verbal commitments for a recruiting class that is expected to number around 20.
Ferentz has said that response to Iowa coaches in recruiting has been good thus far.
He said Hawkeye coaches are interested to see if they run into recruiters from Nebraska more frequently now that the Cornhuskers are in the Big Ten.
“It will be curious to see if they do shift more in this direction,” Ferentz said. “I’m sure they will. They’ve had such a history in Texas and California, to name two places. I imagine they’ll probably keep that alive as well.
“You never know what recruits are thinking, though. Where you end up playing your games, that factors in a little bit and they don’t play games in Texas anymore.”

A .500 season in Big Ten play ended where its started Friday for the Iowa football team.
The inability to establish a passing game made Iowa a one-dimensional football team in its 20-7 loss to Nebraska.
The quickness on the back end of the Cornhuskers’ defense combined with the ability Nebraska has up front flustered both quarterback James Vandenberg and receiver Marvin McNutt.
It was the same type of frustration the pair felt in Iowa’s Big Ten opener, a 13-3 loss at Penn State.
That was the only other time this season that an opposing defense has imposed its will on the Hawkeyes.
Against Nebraska, Iowa finished with 88 rushing yards and 182 through the air on 16-of-35 passing by Vandenberg.
On Oct. 8 at Penn State, Iowa mustered 84 rushing yards and a 17-of-34 game by Vandenberg led to 169 passing yards.
McNutt finished with four catches in both games.
Iowa turned the ball over twice against the Cornhuskers and lost it three times against the Nittany Lions.
But it was the disappearance of a passing threat which kept the Hawkeyes winless in five visits to Lincoln since 1943.
“When Nebraska is playing well, they’re a good defensive football team and they played well today for sure,” coach Kirk Ferentz said. “That’s a very athletic, fast group back there with their linebackers and secondary guys all running well.”
Those were among the issues Iowa dealt with against the Nittany Lions as well.
“We didn’t get our passing game going that day either, had a slow start, just like this game,” Ferentz said. “A lot of similarities.”
But, Iowa didn’t help itself either.
“We weren’t effective enough in spreading around the ball,” Ferentz said. “When they take one thing away, we have to be able to find other ways and areas to go. Everybody has a hand in that, certainly. It’s a learning thing and we will learn from this and move on.”

Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz says he was a little green under the ears when he was first introduced to football Iowa and Nebraska, style.
It was 1981 and Ferentz was the first-year offensive line coach on Hayden Fry’s staff when the Cornhuskers rolled into Iowa City and left with a 10-7 loss.
The first signature win in what would be a Rose Bowl season for Iowa came in Ferentz’ first game as an Iowa assistant.
“I had dark hair back then and I do remember the game. It was my first here. I was basically like Willie off the pickle boat,” Ferentz said.
“I had no idea where I was, what was going on for the most part. Back then I just kind of knew how to get to work. I lived about three baseball throws away from here over in University Heights. I got that down pretty quick in about a month.”
On that first game day, he grew an immediate appreciation for what he had just become a part of as a new collegiate assistant.
“The thing I remember most of all is the crowd. I couldn’t believe it coming out of the tunnel,” Ferentz said. “It was a special moment that just kept getting better over the course of the day. It was really a historic win for our team and for our program, probably the culmination of a couple years of effort by our players, coach Fry and the staff that were here prior to my arrival. Great moment, great way to start out.”
It was that way in part because of who the victory came against.
Ferentz said the excellence in execution he remembers from the Nebraska teams he has coached against four times during his two tenures at Iowa remains a hallmark of the team he is preparing to coach against Friday morning in Lincoln.
“They’ve been a premiere program for a long, long time. They look the part and they play the part. They’re really a good football team,” Ferentz said.

After watching the 2011 football season play out, Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz is more convinced than ever that Nebraska is a good fit for the Big Ten.
“I think it makes perfect sense,” he said today at his weekly news conference. “It was great for the conference and obviously, it affects us probably more than anybody, so it’s a good thing.”
Ferentz will consider it to be a better thing if the Hawkeyes are able to make the series against their newest border rival a good one.
That hasn’t been the case in the last three meetings between the games, including a 42-7 and 42-13 loss in his first two years on the Iowa sidelines.
“We didn’t have too many memorable moments in that ’99-2000 series,” he said.
“We were certainly at the bottom of the bottom third in ’99 and they were in the top five, so that didn’t help,” Ferentz said. “Then we went over there and turned it over a ton in 2000. We weren’t very good then, either, and they were pretty good. That wasn’t much fun, either.”
Ferentz said it takes two competitive teams to make a rivalry, something he hopes will develop over time between Iowa and Nebraska.
He also wouldn’t be surprised to see the Cornhuskers and Hawkeyes run into each other a little more frequently on the recruiting trail in future years as well.
“It will be curious to see if they do shift more in this direction,” Ferentz said. “I’m sure they will, but they’ve had such a history in Texas and California, to name two places, that I imagine they will probably keep that alive as well.”
Ferentz said that recruits will probably dictate what direction the Cornhuskers recruiting efforts will take in future years.
“I think that’s a thought that recruits have. Where you end up playing your games, it does factor in a little bit.”

As his team works toward Friday’s game with Iowa, Nebraska football coach Bo Pelini took some time today to recall the time he spent on the Iowa campus as a graduate assistant coach on Hayden Fry’s staff.
Pelini worked at Iowa in 1991, a year after he completed his undergraduate work at Ohio State.
While he made his mark as an assistant on the defensive side of the ball, he spent his time at Iowa working with the offense.
“It was enjoyable experience and working on the offensive side of the ball was a great experience for me,” Pelini said.
The fourth-year Cornhuskers coach recalled working with Fry and his longtime assistants, rattling off the names of Bill Brashier, Don Patterson, Bobby Elliott, Ted Gill and Carl Jackson, who he would later work with again on the staff of the San Francisco 49ers.
Iowa’s other graduate assistant that season was Mark Stoops and another former Hawkeye, Mike Stoops, was a volunteer on that staff.
“It was a good staff to be around, a group of excellent coaches, and I was able to learn a lot from them,” Pelini said. “I left there with a lot of respect for coach Fry. He is a great football coach and a tremendous man. He was a very creative coach and did it his way, a very unique guy.”

If it seemed like the Iowa defense played with an extra edge today at Purdue, it might have had something to do with the guy who spent the day standing on the Hawkeye sideline.
Taking advantage of a day off created by the Indianapolis Colts bye week, former Hawkeye Pat Angerer of Bettendorf watched his old team put together one of its better defensive efforts of the season in the Hawkeyes’ 31-21 win over the Boilermakers.
“Just having him there reminded us all of how hard he played every down,” Iowa defensive tackle Mike Daniels said. “It gave us a little extra motivation.”
Angerer – who never needed any extra motivation during his playing days at Iowa – enjoyed watching the Hawkeyes make life miserable on Purdue, which saw nine of its 36 rushing attempts end behind the line of scrimmage.
He spent time talking with pretty much anybody who would listen.
“He told me at the half that I dropped my cellphone on the field,” said quarterback James Vandenberg, who said he probably deserved the ribbing after his second-quarter fumble led to a Purdue score.
“It was great to see him back,” Vandenberg said. “Hopefully, we’ll get to see more of him later. It’s good to see all of those guys when they come back and hang around.”

A year ago at this time, Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker was dealing with a number of health issues that kept the venerable assistant off the field.
He had a leg amputated as a result of issues with diabetes and it has taken some time for Parker to adjust to his new prosthetic leg.
Parker now works out of the press box on game day with other assistants, but it has been “business as usual,” for Parker this far from the perspective of coach Kirk Ferentz.
“He hasn’t missed a day,” Ferentz said. “Until last spring, he couldn’t drive, but he is at a point now where he is driving again. That was a huge thing, because he can come and go as he pleases.”
Iowa does assign a student assistant to help Parker with any mobility issues he may encounter at stadiums on game days.
“It’s probably something at this point that he doesn’t necessarily need, but it will be there for him as he needs it,” Ferentz said. “He’s doing well.”

It was bound to happen.
The name of Pennsylvania native Kirk Ferentz has made its way onto a list of potential candidates for the Penn State football coaching position.
The New York Times included Ferentz among a list of possibilities in a story published Tuesday, but by midday Ferentz was serving up the same answer he has provided when he has been mentioned as a potential candidate for any other open job during his 13 years as the Hawkeyes’ head coach.
“I’ve got a great job and I feel fortunate to be here,” Ferentz said following his weekly news conference.
Ferentz said he has no idea if his agent or university administrators have been approached by Penn State officials.
He suspects no contact has been made, saying it seems the administration at Penn State have other present priorities.
“I would think they might be busy doing other things,” Ferentz said.

For a brief moment, the Iowa football team looked like a contender in the Big Ten Legends Division.
Then shortly after the seniors collected hugs and posed for pictures this morning at Kinnick Stadium, the Hawkeyes reverted into title pretenders.
Fans were still settling into their seats as Kirk Cousins and Michigan State gave the Hawkeyes a taste of what they dished out a year earlier when Iowa knocked MSU out of a trip to Pasadena and out of a BCS game.
It was the only loss on the Spartans’ regular season and MSU players did not forget who denied them a trip to the Rose Bowl.
They took out their frustration of that situation on the Hawkeyes today.
Iowa looked human, as it did at Minnesota and as it did in its Big Ten opener at Penn State.
The same team that manhandled Michigan a week earlier watched Michigan State run the football authority, something the Spartans had struggled with all season.
Iowa struggled to match that against one of the Big Ten’s best defenses and for the first time since facing another of those defenses, Penn State, Marcus Coker did not run for 100 yards.
The Hawkeyes became the one-dimensional team that they had made the Wolverines the week before, back on their heels and struggling to gain an edge.
That’s a tough way to win football games in the Big Ten.
Now back to .500 in the conference and two games behind the division-leading Spartans with two games to play, Iowa again faces the challenge of rebounding from a tough loss.
It’s something the Hawkeyes have gained plenty of experience at during a roller-coaster season that will likely continue.
“We’ll bounce back,” defensive back Tanner Miller said. “We’ve done it before. We’ll do it again.”