By John Millea
I returned home today from a quick trip to Iowa (more on the Hawkeyes in a moment) and went to the scoreboard to see how I did in my Week 4 football predictions.
It was a 15-5 showing, which is the second-best performance of the season; topped only by my 16-4 mark in Week 1.
Kudos to Blaine, which made me look silly by beating No. Champlin Park 32-28. I predicted a CP win by a score of 36-32, so I was in the ballpark ... even if it was the wrong ballpark.
Other games I missed were (these are the actual results): St. Michael-Albertville over Rogers ... New Prague over Prior Lake ... Fridley over Benilde-St. Margaret's ... and Chatfield over Rushford-Peterson. Nice going, boys.
Now a word about Iowa and Hawkeye football fans. My wife and I were in Des Moines to visit our daughter, who is a freshman at Drake University. We were eating dinner in a little bar & grill when the Iowa-Penn State game began. The place wasn't crowded, but the Hawkeye fans were in full roar from the get-go. When Penn State scored on its first play, one of the angry Iowans banged the table so hard I thought he might have broken it.
We ate and then did some shopping. We watched the second half of the game in our hotel room. This was an atrium-style hotel and we were on the fifth floor. There was a wedding reception in the hotel, and lots of well-dressed people were on the ground floor of the atrium, watching the Iowa-Penn State game on a large TV. They hooted and hollered every time the Hawkeyes did something good. My wife and I are natives of Iowa, so we are well aware of the rabid fans down there. Our daughter, a born-and-raised Minnesotan, said, "Why are those people down there screaming?"
Welcome to Iowa, dear.
