Even in the University of Nebraska football offices that have been shaken to their footings.

Bo Pelini, a 35-year-old first-year defensive coordinator who was named the Cornhuskers’ interim head coach after Frank Solich was fired following a 9-3 regular season, was a graduate assistant on Hayden Fry’s staff at Iowa in 1991 and 1992. He worked with the receivers.

And actually, when Pelini was a player at Ohio State from 1987-1990, he was involved in one of the biggest games in Hawkeye history.

On Nov. 14, 1987, Iowa played the Buckeyes in Columbus, and I was in the press box for the game. When I was interviewing people for my book, "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines," last year, I made it a point to talk with former Hawkeye quarterback Chuck Hartlieb about the game.

Iowa was trailing late in the game and Hartlieb says now that he was "knocked pretty woozy on a blitz" several plays earlier.

"I can’t say I was thinking that clearly the rest of the game," Hartlieb told me. "We had tried on a couple of snaps to get the ball downfield to Quinn Early or one of the other wide receivers, but we struggled to get them open.

"On fourth down, I went to the sideline beforehand and said, ‘Let’s try and work Marv Cook’s matchup.’ What we decided to was send Marv down the sideline and, hopefully, take advantage of a man-to-man situation. I dropped back and looked down the left side of the field as long as I could shave the deep safeties away from Marv/

"I flipped my feet around and Marv was running a trail down the sideline. Marv was caught man-to-man with the strong safety. I threw it at his head. It allowed Marv to kind of come back to the ball and let the strong safety run by him."

Hartlieb said Cook "was the one who made the play….He easily could have been stopped on the 1- or 2-yard line."

Indeed, maybe he was. Hartlieb says Pelini, who was Ohio State’s free safety, "swears today that Cook was down on the 1-yard line. It could have gone either way."

The 28-yard touchdown pass with 6 seconds remaining gave Iowa a 29-27 victory—Fry’s first ever at Columbus.

Hartlieb says Pelini "is a good friend of the Stoops brothers." Bob Stoops is the coach at No. 1-ranked Oklahoma, his brother, Mike, was the Sooners’ co-defensive coordinator and was named Arizona’s head coach Saturday, and another brother, Mark, will join his staff there. All of the Stoops brothers played at Iowa.

Pelini, a native of Youngstown, Ohio, said he’d like to be considered as the permanent replacement for Solich.

Some of the Tigers apparently not only pack such things as their shoulder pads, jockstraps, and helmets. They also include a 12-pack of Bud Light.

That must have been quite the sound on the buses coming back from Cedar Falls—cans popping open all over the place.

So much for thinking the kids are asking for Gatorade and Diet Pepsi after big games these days.

Taylor said one of the things he got in the habit of doing was sending prostitutes to the rooms of opposing players to tire them out the night before big games.

Taylor, telling his story on "60 Minutes," said, "You know what they like and what type of women they like and you just call the service and ask, ‘What you got?’"

Seems kind of strange to me. Why would that wear a guy out? As far as I’m concerned, that should get a guy up for any kind of game.

Floyd, the bronze pig that’s awarded to the winner of the Hawkeye-Gopher game every year, has since taken up residence in the football offices in Iowa City for the third straight year.

Before we said goodbye on the sideline in November, Floyd and I exchanged e-mail addresses. And darned if my favorite hog didn’t send me a message today while borrowing Kirk Ferentz’s computer.

His e-mail read:

Hi, Ron,

I forgot to tell you one thing on the sideline. Another reason you’re my favorite columnist is because you don’t eat pork. You’re my kind of writer. Don’t forget to come over and see me in the off-season. And keep up the great work."

Your Pal,

Floyd

My e-mail response to Floyd:

Hi, Floyd,

Thanks for the kind words. I thought you’d be fond of my eating habits. Heck, I haven’t had pork for nearly 18 years. Or beef either. I don’t miss either one. So tell that to all of your buddies in the barn.

I’ll see you soon.

Ron

The December question started out to be: How would you grade Iowa State’s 2003 football season?

Then Deace thought about it and changed the question.

"After careful supposition over vacation, I have decided to change this month’s question of the month," he wrote in an e-mail today. "After all, we are just a spin publication, and Lord knows, there’s already enough negativity out there (like my radio show)."

I had already e-mailed Deace with my answer to his first question. Now that it will never appear in CycloneNation, I’ll print it here. On the grade for the 2003 Cyclones, I wrote:

"First of all, let me point out that Dan McCarney is a friend of mine, and obviously he’s one of my favorite football coaches. He had the guts to take over an Iowa State program in 1995 that was one of the worst in major-college football. It had been left in a shambles by Jim Walden, whose final team in 1994 went an embarrassing 0-10-1. McCarney re-landscaped this coaching graveyard and took his 2000, 2001 and 2002 teams to bowl games. Some people thought McCarney should have moved on after his 2000 team went 9-3. He figured he could keep the good times rolling forever. In retrospect, he was foolish. Then came the 2-10 record 2003. There was uncertainty at quarterback. Uncertainty at tailback, too. Probably not enough talent at either position. There were injuries—plenty of them. McCarney’s staff wasn’t as good as it was a few years ago, and it showed on the field. The schedule was brutal. It didn’t make any difference if the Cyclones played Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas State at home or on the road. They always were overmatched. Still, during two-a-days, McCarney—the eternal optimist—thought things would be better. They weren’t. Sadly, the grade for 2003 is F."

I guess the only way to get Deace’s revised question and the way all of us answer it is to get a copy of his magazine. After all, he does pay big bucks for our answers.

And, naturally, I pushed a very, very hot button with what I wrote recently about the Register’s 20-Year Club.

If you recall, the paper has had a 20-Year Club for as long as people can remember. For a long time, folks in most departments there considered it an honor to work at the place for 20 years and to receive a watch of their choice from the company at a lunch or dinner.

Other members of the club and their spouses attended the lunch or dinner, and the company paid for their two meals.

So what happens? The company quietly cancels the dinner this year—a year after publisher Mary Stier was awarded a 20-Year Club watch which a number of oldtimers thought she didn’t deserve.

The company still hasn’t announced why it canceled the dinner (you don’t suppose it was the cost of the meals and the rental of the Younkers Tea Room, do you?) and no one knows if people who have worked there 20 years will still receive a watch. A woman in the human relations office told me that something else "around the holiday period" would be scheduled to take the place of the lunch or the dinner.

No one yet knows what that "something else" is. One guess I had was that we’d all get to personally sign a Christmas card to Stier.

Anyway, several people have e-mailed me about the 20-Year Club.

"I, for one, won’t miss the 20-Year Club dinner," wrote Bud Appleby, a retired reporter and editor. "I never attended a single one, even the one at which I was inducted into the club.

"I never got a watch either. I’m allergic to most metals and have never been able to wear a watch or ring or any metal that touches my skin. When I was told to go to some jewelry store to pick out a watch, I informed them that I did not want one – thinking they might give me the money instead.

Appleby’s e-mail continued with these comments:

"The paper ran an editorial on Sept. 29 saying the national do-not-call list was a violation of free-speech rights and that people should screen their own telephone calls.

"But if you check Paul Anger’s home telephone number on the list you will find that he signed up early in July—more than two months before the editorial.

"Talk about hypocrisy.

"You can check numbers at:

[Anger is the editor at the local paper]

More from Appleby:

"And on another matter:

"I disagree with you about Dan McCarney. He has been a mediocre coach, at best, and probably not even that good."

"Hey, Ron,

Jerry Perkins guided me to your page, particularly the part about the 20-Year Club dinner. What a bunch.

"I must tell you about my 20-year watch, which I received in 1989. The paper gave me $200, as it did everybody who qualified. I bought myself a nice Seiko Mickey Mouse. (Mr. No-Name) bought himself a Mickey the next year with his watch money. I think management must not have been amused. The following year the company picked out the watches and presented them. Mine is still running fine, by the way."

[Mr. No-Name is a guy who still works at the paper. I didn’t want to risk having some second-rate editor with no sense of humor hand him a pink slip over something written here, so that’s why I didn’t use his name.

[I e-mailed Fruhling to see if he cared if I used his name. This was his reply:]

"Use my name all you want. Hard to believe that we’ve been having fun in Bellevue for 6 ½ years. I’ll bookmark your web page, but I won’t read it unless you promise to gig Alford once in a while. All of the women in the neighborhood fell in love with him at first sight, and I still don’t have many of them convinced that he’s done a crappy job with the Hawks. (Yes, I have become a Hawkeye fan, pretty much. I was the only guy in the ‘hood who thought from the start that Ferentz would succeed, so I feel kind of like a prophet). My own personal athletic talents are now confined to the golf course. I’m still trying to break 100."

[Yet another longtime editor and reporter at the local paper, now retired, sent me this e-mail upon learning what Fruhling wrote:

"I knew Fruhling got a Mickey Mouse watch, but didn’t know the company ruled them off-limits after (Mr. No-Name) got his. That was part of the campaign to be sure no one was having any fun]."

Let’s see, I wonder if he’s talking about Fernando Ortega, the musician? Or Fernando Vina, the baseball player?

Nah.

"I’ve been reading your columns on the Internet for some time now and thought I’d drop you a line. I enjoy your take on the sports scene, although that hasn’t changed since I grew up reading you and the other great writers then at the Register. As a point of disclosure, I am a ‘Gannetteer’….

"Although Gannett signs my paycheck, it borders on criminal what has happened to the Register. Now that the Henry/Ryerson regime is in place, I assume the same will happen in Indianapolis. Recalling your reports on Register circulation numbers, it was a real hoot to see that the circulation director at the Register was the circulation director of the year. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?….

"And don’t hold your breath waiting for that freelance check."

[The comment about the freelance check – or lack of one – was in reference to a new look on Page 2 in the sports section. I’ve been happy to see some of the stories I once wrote show up again in the "Rewind" or "Flashback" section, or whatever it’s called].

I think Dick Vermeil’s hair was still brown the last time they staffed an NFL game.