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There were two articles on the front page of today's CR Gazette, and this one was particulary good in my opinion!
Panther Express goes extra mile
Panthers are Chattanoogabound. All aboard! The state of Iowa will ride along on the Chattanooga Choo Choo this week as the Northern Iowa Panthers head to that Tennessee town. There, the Panthers will battle the Appalachian State Mountaineers Friday night for the NCAA IAA football championship.
If there is one college team our whole state can rally around, it’s UNI football. It’s the only scholarship I-AA program in the state. It’s built around Iowa athletes. And, unlike UNI men’s basketball, it isn’t perceived as a threat to Iowa and Iowa State. (Yes, I know UNI used to beat ISU in football back in the Cyclones’ darker days.)
Hawkeye and Cyclone fans alike surely cheered for UNI after they got done watching the Iowa-ISU men’s basketball game Friday night. What a wonderful and wacky 40-37 overtime win it was for the Panthers over fourth-ranked Texas State.
Watching on a television in the Hilton Coliseum press room, an Iowa State athletics department official who graduated from Drake strongly urged on UNI. He probably typified a lot of Iowa sports fans.
What a week for the UNI athletics department. Tuesday night, the Panthers beat Iowa in men’s basketball, also in overtime. Normally that would be second to reaching the NCAA basketball tournament in UNI’s athletics year. But it turned out to be just the warm-up act for the football team’s secondstraight playoff road win over a higher-ranked opponent.
Before that basketball game at the UNI-Dome Tuesday, the football team practiced on what little of the Dome’s artificial turf that was left available. The basketball court and portable bleachers covered most of the turf.
Basically, Mark Farley’s team worked out on a 20-yard strip. The coach could easily have gotten bent out of shape about having just a sliver of his own field to use in preparation for a national semifinal. Instead, he shrugged it off. Farley joked that his team should be pretty good in the red zone against Texas State.
At schools like UNI with multi-purpose facilities instead of isolated, state-of-the-art football complexes, you work with what you have.
By the way, UNI was pretty good in the red zone Friday.
So Iowa’s team heads to Chattanooga to take on a third-straight higher-ranked team in Appalachian State of Boone, N.C. It will be more of a home game for the Mountaineers, since they’ll be 270 miles from home as opposed to UNI’s being 830 miles from Cedar Falls.
After being the visitors at such disparate places as New Hampshire and Texas State and overcoming two of I-AA’s finest teams, having fewer fans at a neutral site won’t faze the Panthers.
Friday night in San Marcos, those were Iowans who did the winning. That was Oelwein’s Eric Sanders quarterbacking so brilliantly. That was Brian Wingert of Cedar Falls making a game-deciding field goal for the thirdstraight playoff game. That was Webster City’s Matt Tharp intercepting the Texas State pass in overtime to finalize the triumph.
Tanner Varner of Ottumwa had 13 tackles. Brian Cutright of Davenport had a touchdown catch.
Panther starters are from Council Bluffs and Sergeant Bluff. They’re from Des Moines and Waterloo. They’re from the shadow of Iowa City (punter Adam Kos of Kalona).
It’s always been that way, and UNI football has been very good for a long time. The school came so close so many times. Now it will know the sweetness of the week leading to a national-title game.
Friday night, the porter won’t need to holler as the train leaves the station. Our entire state will be on board, pulling for the Panthers.
Panther Express goes extra mile
Panthers are Chattanoogabound. All aboard! The state of Iowa will ride along on the Chattanooga Choo Choo this week as the Northern Iowa Panthers head to that Tennessee town. There, the Panthers will battle the Appalachian State Mountaineers Friday night for the NCAA IAA football championship.
If there is one college team our whole state can rally around, it’s UNI football. It’s the only scholarship I-AA program in the state. It’s built around Iowa athletes. And, unlike UNI men’s basketball, it isn’t perceived as a threat to Iowa and Iowa State. (Yes, I know UNI used to beat ISU in football back in the Cyclones’ darker days.)
Hawkeye and Cyclone fans alike surely cheered for UNI after they got done watching the Iowa-ISU men’s basketball game Friday night. What a wonderful and wacky 40-37 overtime win it was for the Panthers over fourth-ranked Texas State.
Watching on a television in the Hilton Coliseum press room, an Iowa State athletics department official who graduated from Drake strongly urged on UNI. He probably typified a lot of Iowa sports fans.
What a week for the UNI athletics department. Tuesday night, the Panthers beat Iowa in men’s basketball, also in overtime. Normally that would be second to reaching the NCAA basketball tournament in UNI’s athletics year. But it turned out to be just the warm-up act for the football team’s secondstraight playoff road win over a higher-ranked opponent.
Before that basketball game at the UNI-Dome Tuesday, the football team practiced on what little of the Dome’s artificial turf that was left available. The basketball court and portable bleachers covered most of the turf.
Basically, Mark Farley’s team worked out on a 20-yard strip. The coach could easily have gotten bent out of shape about having just a sliver of his own field to use in preparation for a national semifinal. Instead, he shrugged it off. Farley joked that his team should be pretty good in the red zone against Texas State.
At schools like UNI with multi-purpose facilities instead of isolated, state-of-the-art football complexes, you work with what you have.
By the way, UNI was pretty good in the red zone Friday.
So Iowa’s team heads to Chattanooga to take on a third-straight higher-ranked team in Appalachian State of Boone, N.C. It will be more of a home game for the Mountaineers, since they’ll be 270 miles from home as opposed to UNI’s being 830 miles from Cedar Falls.
After being the visitors at such disparate places as New Hampshire and Texas State and overcoming two of I-AA’s finest teams, having fewer fans at a neutral site won’t faze the Panthers.
Friday night in San Marcos, those were Iowans who did the winning. That was Oelwein’s Eric Sanders quarterbacking so brilliantly. That was Brian Wingert of Cedar Falls making a game-deciding field goal for the thirdstraight playoff game. That was Webster City’s Matt Tharp intercepting the Texas State pass in overtime to finalize the triumph.
Tanner Varner of Ottumwa had 13 tackles. Brian Cutright of Davenport had a touchdown catch.
Panther starters are from Council Bluffs and Sergeant Bluff. They’re from Des Moines and Waterloo. They’re from the shadow of Iowa City (punter Adam Kos of Kalona).
It’s always been that way, and UNI football has been very good for a long time. The school came so close so many times. Now it will know the sweetness of the week leading to a national-title game.
Friday night, the porter won’t need to holler as the train leaves the station. Our entire state will be on board, pulling for the Panthers.
Panther fans around the country are all on board!
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