Big Ten Network Rolls into Iowa City

Every year the Big Ten Network crew travels the midwest reporting on the progress of its member institution football teams. With a little over half way through this year tour the Big Ten Network bus stopped in Iowa City for an evening practice with the Iowa Hawkeyes.

This year the show was shot on the 19th of August, but will not be shown until the 26th. Since everything was shot to tape, it gave the Big Ten Network football analysts a great chance to see how the Hawkeyes were preparing for a run at the conference title. Gerry DiNardo, Howard Griffith, and Dave Revsine spent time getting the low down on the team from Iowa Head Coach, Kirk Ferentz.

DiNardo has spent some of his coaching career in the Big Ten with a stop in Bloomington, Indiana as head coach. He has been with the network since its inception in 2006. Above he is finding out the latest on the Hawkeye Wide Receivers from Iowa position coach, Erik Campbell.

For the show, which will be seen August 26th at 9pm, the studio analysts sat down with a few of the Hawkeye players. Above Chirsitan Ballard tried to get his interview out of the way pre-practice, but audio difficulties placed the interview later.

But by the end of practice the audio glitches were out of the way and the focus was on the players. Adrian Clayborn sat down with the BTN crew.

 The final interview was saved for the head coach of the Iowa Football team, Kirk Ferentz. All segments were taped and will be packaged into an hour special a week from tonight on the Big Ten Network.

After a night in Iowa City, the bus rolls north to Minneapolis. This crew will not be at TCF Bank stadium tomorrow, but will be on Saturday.

Media Day at Spring Practice

Outside of the annual Spring Game the media is allowed to visit Iowa football practice once. Many members of the local media have at least twenty minutes to get some photos, shoot some b-roll as well as get an idea to how the Hawkeyes practice. They are asked to leave before the competitive team periods begin, but two members of the Big Ten Network were allowed to stay. Gerry DiNardo and Howard Griffith, anchors of the Network's Studio Show watched on as they prepare for their coverage of each conference school's Spring Games. Each have had their history with the conference before joining the Big Ten Network. DiNardo had a short stint as Head Football Coach at Indiana while Griffith played his college football at the University of Illinois. Find out what they learned from their trip as well as how the Hawkeyes end their fifteen spring practice period when the Big Ten Network airs the Iowa Spring Game on April 17.

Big Ten Network Practice Tour - IOWA

For the second straight year the Big Ten Network brought its crew to the Iowa campus to televise an Iowa Football practice. The faces of football on the network have been travelling around to each conference institution and package an entire practice session to be aired that night in a 90 minute show. Their trip to Iowa City capped off a two-week trek throughout the upper Midwest.

The Big Ten Network football studio crew of (L-R) Dave Revsine, Gerry DiNardo, Howard Griffith is joined by Iowa Football Head Coach, Kirk Ferentz

Joining Howard Griffith was sideline and special feature commentator Mike Hall (Left).

The Big Ten Network had an entire set along with multiple cameras. We were asked to share a lift with one of their cameramen. For close to $7 million a year and great publicity, we co-existed with the crew for one day. However next year we hope they are better equipped with longer cables allowing us to go to heights we are used to.

Iowa Defensive Coordinator, Norm Parker joined the crew on the set for an in-depth look at his side of the ball.

Iowa Linebacker Coach, Darrell Wilson was mic'd up for a segment of the show.

For those of you who follow the Big Ten Network on twitter, this is Brent, the person supplying the tweets for @bigtennetwork. He informed us he is one of the lone Cub fans among the travelling road show. Many of the other staffers are White Sox fans who have monopolized the televisions on the trip. We informed him he hasn't missed much.

Iowa Offensive Coordinator Ken O'Keefe was on the set to discuss how they would replace Shonn Greene for the '09 season.

Cameramen covered every inch of the Iowa Football practice.

Kirk Ferentz was the last to record his segment for the show.