A whole new world?  IIAC?  Gone!  First game under the belt and no comment from Klompen?  What is the world coming to?  Okay, I am finally back and need to get with it.  I am excited for this year's Central football team with Blaine Hawkins back at QB.  I sure do wish we had Sam Markum again, but like the IIAC, he has vanished.  Time for some new players to step up and shine.  I would love to see Pella Christian grad Hayden Vroom get some playing time at receiver and see what that could bring, but not sure how he stacks up with the rest of the talent.  Only know he had an outstanding HS career.  Tomorrow's game will not be as easy as last week's and it will be interesting to see how the young Dutch come out. 

Looking forward to another great year of football.

For the next 1 - 10,000 weeks I am a Central fan, but it would be nice to see an IIAC team make a deep run in the playoffs.  I tried to say I could be a (cough, cough) fan for a few weeks, but it just couldn't quite make it out.  Always an IIAC fan though!  That said, good luck to the Knights.  Represent us well!

Doolittle, sorry you and your wife didn't make it down to Pella for the game.  I looked to see if you were going to be there, but didn't see anything when I posted.  The rain held off.  Part way into the first quarter I shed my coat, by the end of the game, I was really cold.  Such is life in Iowa I guess.  Your team had some nice drives, but didn't play with the consistency or intensity I have seen from UD in recent years.  Then again, I haven't seen that from Central in recent years either.  Lots of seniors on the team who will all be missed.  This team seemed to have playing together as a team down and I believe they got better as the season progressed.  The team at the end of the year, would never have lost that game to BV.  The way the season started, I am proud that the Dutch finished in second place.  Fill the holes left by graduation, Sam Markham's will be a huge one, and reload for next year. 

Congratulations seniors, thanks for four enjoyable years!

Best of luck to the Pella Christian Eagles today and Coach Kac as they make their first dome appearance in school history.  Good luck also to the Pella Dutch as they face a revenge minded Xavier in the championship game Thursday night.  The Dutch built an early 35-0 lead Thursday and had to hold on for dear life against a senior dominated Harlan team to eek out a 41-39 win.  Many Dutch players start offense and defense and the time on the field was showing Thursday night.  Nice to have the only two high school teams in town both representing Pella at the UNI Dome this year. 

Condolences to the Wartburg football family on their loss, it sounds like Julie was a wonderful person.

Condolences also to Phred's family.  I always enjoyed his posts, he will be missed.

Good luck to all the teams today and all the IIAC seniors, other than Wartburg, playing their last game.  Stay healthy and give it your best to make it memorable.  Best of luck to the Dutch, finsih strong and clinch sole possession of 2nd place.  We have a lot to build on with the younger players.  I'm looking forward to another exciting 3 years with Hawkins at QB.  Hope the rain holds off in Pella until after the game is over. 

Congratulations to Central's QB Blaine Hawkins on making the D3 team of the week!  You deserved it with that performance Saturday.  Let's have a repeat performance against Luther.

I sure hope there are no roofing jobs open this summer!  Blaine Hawkins is fun and exciting to watch.  He should be on the D3 team this week for the performance he gave.  Now I know Loras does not have a winning record this year, so maybe my excitement is a little high based on this game, but Central screwed up and lost at BV and the following week BV was crushed by Loras.  Add that Loras has given us struggles in recent years and that is why I was pensive about how the game would go.  Even with my red glasses in place I would not have seen that coming.  When we played WB they were clearly the better team on the field, but even then Hawkins had some outstanding plays.

Sorry to go missing so much of this season.  I have still been faithfully following the Dutch, but have been moving and it is taking forever to get settled in.  Downsizing when you have too much stuff is a challenge. 

Congratulations to all of today's winners.  So is anyone other than me shocked by today's Central score against Loras?  They have seemed to have our number some lately and hit at our weak spots on pass defense the last few years.  If someone had said that Central would only have the ball 8 minutes of the first half I would never have guessed Central would be the team up 48-17 at the half.  I have seen decades of great Central teams and can't think of one of them that I would truly say was a big play offense.  Today that was Central, scoring the first 4 touchdowns on 1 play drives of 77, 30, 86 and 73 yards!  We have not done what I hoped we would do this year, win the conference, but wow am I excited by what our freshman quarterback is capable of.  He was good in his first start and has gotten better and better as the season progressed.  If we can just recruit another Sam Markham we have the potential to be outstanding.  I wish we could replay and replace the BV game, we let that get away. 

Today was a fun game for Dutch fans to watch.  Amazingly the two teams combined for over 1300 yards of offense, with both teams over 600 yards in total offense.  Of course our defense was out there almost the entire first half because the offense was so efficient.  I could just picture the defensive players cursing the offense, saying can't you be out there for more than one play at a time!  At least today we were scoring and not turning the ball over.  Great game for building confidence in the team and the fans.  Today I was a bit worried heading to the game and it made me a believer all over again.  Good luck next week in the battle for second place!  I'm a believer!

Any other long time Central fans notice history repeated itself on Saturday?  Anyone remember wide receiver Lance Kooiker stepping away from starting wide receiver to be QB against Augustana when we played them in the semi-finals at Central after injuries to the first and second string QBs?  At least this time it wasn't #87 taking snaps.  Saturday it was Kohle Helle switching from starting WR to QB Central to a win against Augustana. 

If we continue playing Augustana the coaches might say forget the QB, who is the WR?   

Congratulations to all of yesterday's IIAC winners.  Props to Augustana on a very well played game.  I was glad to see it end.

Central finds out on Wednesday that the starting QB cannot return yet due to an injury and switches "as needed" backup Kohle Helle into the starting spot.  He responds with outstanding passing, leading rusher stats and a refusal to be caught and sacked.  Nice job!  Another player with an outstanding performance was Jon Alberts going 4-4 on field goals and hitting every extra point. 

We still need a lot of work in the secondary, but we got two key interceptions and held when we had to.  Nice improvement from game one to game two.  Then again, the competition was not anywhere close.  Not to take away from Augustana, but Whitworth was outstanding.

I finally made a path between moving boxes to get to my computer.  Moving was so much easier when I was 20 years younger! 

Belated congratulations to the far better Whitworth team on the their impressive win last week.  It was a tough thing to watch and I too ended up leaving at the half as I had plans for the evening that would have made it difficult to stay the whole game anyway and it was clearly over.  Central kept them in sight the first quarter, but the yardage was already going strongly the wrong way and after the successful fake punt the tide was washing us away.  Defensively we did what we always do when playing a strong passing team, play well behind the guy to avoid the big play and give them tons of easy short passes, that they were able to turn into big gains anyway.  It was our receiver #5 against theirs and they had a much better passing QB.  Riley Gray graduated and they had their QB and receivers all back and they put up huge numbers against us last year.  I expect Whitworth will have a great season and as the radio announcers mentioned frequently, those players saw Central celebrate an OT win on their field last year.  There was payback involved on their part and that always adds to momentum.

Good luck to all the teams tomorrow.  Dutch, let last week go and come out strong tomorrow!

Okay, each year I get a little older and a lot slower.  Finally figured with football games starting tomorrow I better check things out only to find Grandview wasn't the only one with a Thursday night game.  That is all I really heard about on TV. 

So if I do pick-ems I am already behind in the won-loss?  Oh well, if the Dutch are strong this year, maybe I can gain some back.  I really hate to pick against my heart's team.  Glad to hear the football helmets are keeping the old C.  Maybe the new one is beefier and more muscular looking, but it isn't Central to me yet.  Maybe 50 years from now...

Given the number of years I go back I just want to cry seeing UD picked to win the conference and Central down in 4th.  Oh how the mighty have fallen and I still don't like it.  Time to step up Dutch and defend the tradition that should again be Central College football. 

Hey Doolittle sorry to bug out on BB season, but my normal computer went funky for awhile and could not remember the password.  I was able to get in again now, but can't update my e-mail address and password unless I know the password!  I am in the process of moving homes and finding anything at the moment is an impossibility.

Go Dutch, red glasses firmly in place!

That's right and I think the problems will work themselves out. 

Looking back to the Wash U game, there was some cheap shot play that was either missed or ignored by the refs.  Add the upset win and fevered pitch in the gym and there was some excess testosterone still bubbling in the handshake line, players and coaches.  No fighting, but not far from it either.  So that explains at least one of the absences.  Cooler heads should have prevailed, but I get that at some point you have to defend yourself too and I don't know what lead up to the less than friendly exchange.

I didn't mean to take anything away from Augustana and they definitely played a better second half.  That said, playing a fully staffed Central team, I believe Central would have won.  We had too much talent not in the game at all or for a full half or more. 

I am a decades long Central fan and have supported Central through some really bad years of basketball.  This team could be up there with some of the best Central teams, including the one when Colby Taylor was a freshman.  They have the ability, they have the talent to be exceptional and it is frustrating when it looks like they aren't using it.  Then again, last night gave some great playing time to the younger players and hopefully that will help us more than a non-conference loss will hurt us.

Central loses a game they should have won against Augustana tonight.  As a fan I have to ask why?  Not in terms of play, they lead by one at the half, then suffered cold shooting and poor rebounding in the second half along with an incredible number of traditional 3 point plays by Augustana in the second half. 

Why did Colby Taylor sit out the first half?  Why did Kyle Smith not dress?  Did Pete Walker get seriously hurt?  It could have been injury for Smith, could have been illness for Colby, and sure hoping Walker didn't break his arm when Augustana blocked his shot in the first half.  Pure speculation for which I will apologize in advance has me wondering about a rules infraction benching both Smith and Taylor, with Taylor being allowed to dress in case we needed him.  Which again, it could be illness, because if one could not dress for rules infraction, hopefully the other would not be allowed to either, even if he is the leading scorer.  Whatever the reason, Taylor was held out the entire first half, even when second leading scorer Walker got hurt. For those players that did play in the first half, they did a great job.  It can't be easy going to play at a ranked school with two of your top 6 players out of the game and then the number two scorer missing almost half of the first half.  I was surprised at how well we stayed with them the first half.  Maybe those players really stepped up with Taylor and Smith out, then Walker going out with an injury.  I really can't say enough about how well Central responded to the situation the first half. 

With Walker out, I think Douma felt forced to use Taylor regardless of the rules infraction or illness that kept him benched the first half.  But in some psychological way, it seemed to throw the team off in the second half.  We stopped rebounding and went cold on shooting at the same time Auggie started attacking the basket for numerous and one situations. 

To Smith and Taylor, I sincerely hope my speculation is off.  But if you were out for rules infraction, then you set a really poor example and your senior leadership needs a lot of attention.  This was another game we could have won.   

To those that picked up the slack, you showed tremendous leadership.