Iowa City Crack Down

Don’t look now, but tailgating in Iowa City just got shittier.  Kinnick Stadium, where our mouth-breathing eastern rivals play on Saturdays, has long been known as a below average tailgating venue.  The obvious joke here is because its full of hawkeyes – but I’m not going down that easy (that’s what she said).

No, instead Iowa City tailgating sucks mostly because of the geography – or lack of it.  Undersized parking lots separated by residential housing paired with the heavy roadway congestion make finding and getting to your tailgate a confusing and irritating pain-in-the-ass.  Couple that with the on-field successes of Kirk Ferentz coached teams, which have dulled the tailgating abilities of an already dimwitted fanbase and the irrational 11AM start times for every game and you have disaster.  Tailgating in Iowa City is an affront to the word tailgate.  It sucks massive, cancerous balls – and this is without me reminding you that there are throngs of hawkeye fans everywhere too.  It’s fucking rough.

Who knew Stanzi rocked tighty-whiteys?

Regardless, tailgating has the cockroachesque ability to survive in even the most uninhabitable of environments.  Hawkeye fans do their best to entertain themselves with the standard variety of food, booze, loud music and game-playing that exist at any tailgate across the nation.  Soulless and depressing as their version of a tailgate may be – they power through.

However this weekend hawk fans were greeted by the new Iowa City police department.  No longer will police stand for people “playing games“, “listening to loud music”, or “carrying purses”.  These types of egregious offense will be dealt with swiftly – the perps will receive a costly ticket and possibly the butt of a pistol at the discretion of the officers. 

Iowa City and University officials announced this crackdown to clean up an image ironically mostly tarnished by the same football team the tailgate is for.  However the severity of the enforcement has hawkeye fans in uproar. 

Iowa City - almost as gay as this tat ... almost

Whole trailer parks were abandoned as loved ones awaited court dates and the few literate hawk fans stormed their message boards to voice their anger.  Check here for names of those relatives you only know from their Christmas cards.

As fellow tailgate affectionatos, WRNL was torn between deep belly laughter and empathy to a tradition spoiled.  However, when we heard people were being denied the ability to play Flippy Cup and Beer Pong … well that shit is just wrong.  Way to fuck it up Iowa City – your quest for #1 gayest city in the nation is now complete, congrats I guess.

Helmet Stickerzzz

Welcome Cyclone fans (and others who casually read the site) to the first installment of our weekly edition of Helmet Stickerzzz.  While the concept of this article is actually taken from ESPN’s College Football helmet sticker segment (you know the segment where old ass Lou Holtz stutters and spits while placing a sticker on a helmet), our version is focused only on the latest Iowa State game.  If all works out as planned and I’m not sleeping off a hangover equivalent to an F5 tornado you’ll be privy to who I consider the best offensively, defensively, surprise player, and also who comes away with the commemorative Gene Chizik Novelty Coin presented to a player from the opposing team who stood out due to his poor performance or even his tremendous performance causing Iowa State fans to despise him.

Now that I’m finally reeling down from the excitement that came with the opening game against Northern Illinois I’m ready to break things down and award the very first WRNL helmet stickerzzz.

NORTHERN ILLINOIS SEPTEMBER 2, 7:00 PM

FINAL SCORE: Iowa State (1-0, 0-0) 27  Northern Illinois (0-1,0-0) 10

OFFENSIVE WRNL HELMET STICKER:

No doubt in my mind on this one, although there were a few standout players that caught my eye during the opening game.  This helmet sticker clearly goes to Alexander Robinson.

A-Rob began this season right where he left off last season.  He came up just 3 yards short of his first 100 yd rushing game with 97 yards on 19 carries and 2 scores.  That’s 5.1 yards per carry since I know you are too lazy to pull up the calculator on your computer.  He also added 4 receptions for 32 yards.  All of this, against a defense that ranked 35th in rush defense last year, as KnowDan kindly pointed out in his preview.

DEFENSIVE WRNL HELMET STICKER:

I also don’t think there’s much doubt on who deserves the defensive form of our newly created award.  Jake Knott is going to be special ladies and gentlemen.  If last night’s performance was a precursor to the remainder of Jake’s career at Iowa State, we Cyclone fans are in for a treat.  How does 9 tackles, 2 interceptions, and 1 forced fumble sound for your first game starting at linebacker in division 1 football?  You know what I don’t even care how you think it sounds, to me it is a performance deserving of this WRNL helmet sticker.

SURPRISE WRNL HELMET STICKER:

This honestly isn’t much of a surprise to me, more of an honorable mention helmet sticker.  Collin Franklin had himself one hell of a game catching 5 passes for 75 yards.  I foresee him playing an integral role in this offense under Tom Herman and I, for one, am looking forward to it.  Not only does he block and catch well but he had open field moves causing a few jock straps to be left on the field by the opposition.  Who knew white boys could juke so well?

COMMEMORATIVE GENE CHIZIK COIN:

My buddies and I had quite a laugh at Northern Illinois kicker’s expense.  I mean, really how shitty must he feel about his performance?  Guy goes by the name of Michael Cklamovski and is probably better suited as a Russian mail order bride than he is as a kicker.  His official stats are 0 for 2 in field goal attempts but it was a lot worse than that.  At one point he missed 3 consecutive field goals from the same exact spot on the field back to back to back.  He of course was given 3 opportunities because the Cyclones called time outs right before the ball was snapped in order to ice him.  So let me break this down for you.  They line up ready to kick roughly a 30-40 some yard field goal and he misses the kick way wide right after timeout #1.  They line up again and he clanks it off the right upright immediately after timeout #2 was called.  They line up yet again and he pushes it wide left.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, he was then replaced by the backup kicker.

Well there concludes the first segment.  Check back next week when we reveal the winners of this illustrious award for the Iowa State vs. Iowa match up.

WRNL pregames with KXNO

sexually.

Click Here to Listen to Podcast

WRNL contributors Al & Steve were on the Keith & Andy show prior to yesterdays Cyclone victory. Hear what the boys had to say about the Huskies, Big 10 realignment, and why its not safe to stand next to Coach Rhoads’ bus.

Click the KXNO image at the right to listen – starting at minute 37ish

Vacation Day – Sept 2nd

Only 2 weeks left, so if you’re going to let the boss know that you’ll be on vacation or sick or your Grandmother is going to pass away on September 2nd – the time is now!

Join WRNL and Cyclone Nation in opening the 2010 football season with a bang on September 2nd. Remember the important equation:

Game time – 6 hours of tailgating – drive time = Time to get the fuck on the road!

Worst case scenario, today is the day to get that 2 week notice turned in. We leave you with this Office Space clip as inspiration:

Always Sunny Premiere Spawns ISU/Iowa Actor Challenge

If you’re a fan of WRNL then it’s more than probable that you also enjoy the misadventures of the gang at Paddy’s Pub from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Nothing makes a knitting session fly by more effortlessly than Sweet Dee skanking up the joint. FX has recently released some sneak preview clips to this upcoming season, premiering Sept. 16, and it has gotten me more excited than Paul Shirley when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

The McPoyles - ISU alumnus Nate Mooney at far right.

Making the premiere even more enticing to WRNL nation is the reappearance of Iowa State alumnus Nate Mooney as Ryan McPoyle (see 44 seconds into the Halloween clip when he spills on Sweet Dee). Congratulations, Nate, you and your Iowa State aerospace engineering degree have taken you right to the upper echelon of television greatness. I really don’t know where you could go from here, I mean, you’re already on the greatest show ever made.

Maybe Mooney could take a page out of University of Iowa engineering drop out Ashton Kutcher’s playbook and start kicking out the worst possible movies ever scripted and then start banging Bruce Willis’ leftovers. I heard Brooke Burns is available. Thankfully for Mooney, the only thing he has in common with Kutcher is that he plays a douche bag on Always Sunny and Kutcher is one.

With the Iowa State vs. Iowa game taking place the weekend before the Always Sunny premiere, we at WRNL think it would be apt to issue a challenge to Mr. Kutcher on behalf of Mr. Mooney and the gang at Paddy’s Pub. The game: Flippy Cup. The Stakes: Loser has to quit acting and never return to the state that they have shamed over and over again by making shitty movies. The choice is yours, Ashton.

Fantasy Football – WRNL Writers League

Football – the greatest game ever played (we’ll take Ray Lewis over Shia LaBeouf anyday)

Fantasy – that dream of  taking on two midget nurses and Warf from Next Generation in a sweaty sex pile.

Two great words – when their powers combine they make one of the greatest time-wasters ever created: Fantasy Football.  Like any hip and with-it sports website, WRNL recently formed a fantasy football league made up of our writing staff and a couple slutty hangers-on.  The draft was held last Wednesday night and we honor our readers with a chance to review the picks with some commentary from yours truely. 

The league is standard PPR scoring and we start the following: QB, RB1, RB2, WR1, WR2, RB/WR, TE, K, DST

We welcome any comments on how shitty we drafted.

Cool story, Hansel

Know Your Enemy Part 11: University of Colorado

We’re aware that the CU piece was supposed to go up last week, but the Pac-10 came over and we got ahold of some dank ass nugs, got totally rocked, and spent the rest of the weekend watching Phish DVDs and covering ourselves in patchouli, while occasionally busting into spontaneous dance and engaging in environmental protest, while awaiting money from our east coast trust funds.  We of course topped the weekend off by throwing garbage at Nebraska fans and refusing to watch college basketball.

STADIUM: CU plays at Folsom Field, which is nestled at the base of the Flatiron Range.  It’s considered one of the most beautiful settings and college football.

This is the only football stadium where you can get a peanut butter, graham cracker and chocolate syrup sandwhich...

However, once you see the actual people there, this changes instantly.  Boulder, CO is basically what Iowa City dreams of being:  a mecca for douche bags.  CU students are known for falling into 2 categories.  The first, and most tolerable category is that of the out-of-state trust fund babies who will spend all of their time telling you how fucking awesome they are, in between cashing out their trust funds to cover their blow habit.  These are the “good” CU fans.  The second kind of CU students are college know it all Hippies.  Between getting stoned, organizing hippy jam fests, getting stoned, stocking up on patchouli oil, getting stoned, listening to Phish bootlegs, and getting stoned, they occasionally catch CU football games and get stoned.   When they aren’t getting stoned, or buying blow off mommy’s credit card, CU fans enjoy assaulting people from Nebraska and throwing garbage.