UNI & Jacobson both smart, No Pearl at Iowa, Hot Tub Time Machine

• Ben Jacobson got paid. And secure. UNI A-D Troy Dannen wisely locks up Jacobson for 10 years. No, it won't keep Coach Jake from leaving if he wants to go, but it's a smart preemptive strike. No way Jacobson goes anywhere this year, not after Dannen made the announcement at a pep rally in front of UNI's most faithful.
• The deal is $450,000 a year with a $25,000 bump every year (none of it from tax dollars, UNI emphasized). A man can live comfortably in the Cedar Valley with $5 million over a decade.
• There is little doubt Jacobson could pursue bigger paying gigs in BCS conferences. He saw his best friend Greg McDermott do that. Do you think Mac seems happier? More successful? Secure?
• McDermott deserves a nod for the recruiting class of Eglseder, Ehelegbe, Koch, and Dunham. Those guys worked out pretty well.
• Ali Farokhmanesh gets the Sports Pickle treatment.Among the quotes: Farokhmanesh is listed at 6'0", 190 pounds, but he stands closer to 5'9". The three-inch difference meant Farokhmanesh was not recruited coming out of high school, and it also makes Kansas' lost to Northern Iowa three inches more hilarious. http://www.sportspickle.com/article:752/who-is-ali-farokhmanesh
• The Des Moines Register's Rick Brown, one of our state's best and most respected sportswriters, tells me you can scratch Keno Davis, Bruce Pearl, and Ben Jacobson off Iowa's list of coaching candidates. None appears interested.
• The Iowa job is a good job, but not a great job, not right now. The hire will follow a predictable course. Some fans start by thinking every coach in America would love to come to Iowa. Reality starts to set in, and expectations are lowered, especially as coaches previously described by fans as beneath Iowa, show no interest. Iowa eventually does hire someone. Initial reaction is outrage, "We hired this guy?", but then turns to acceptance as the positives are talked up, negatives down. There are plenty of good candidates out there.
• Urban Meyer acted like a bully when lecturing a reporter for quoting one of  his Gators accurately. Wasn't the reporter's fault someone said something that came across as a small shot at Tim Tebow. It's good Meyer stands up for his players, but he could have, and should have, handled it better. No wonder he's so stressed. I hope he mans up and apologizes. I bet he does. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5025822
• Paging Tony Robbins. Bill Fennelly has his hands full making his Cyclones believe they can beat UConn. I'm not even sure it's possible to make them believe it. Not only has UConn won 74 straight games, the Huskies won the first two games of the tourney by a combined 110 points. Iowa State could play its best game of the season and still lose by 20. That's how big the gap is. The Cyclones have nothing to lose, and need to play loose, or they'll be the third straight team to lose by 50+. Comparisons to UNI vs KU don't apply. Connecticut is a monster. I'm not into moral victories, but I just hope Iowa State avoids what Temple experienced Sunday. By the way, this is Fennelly's greatest coaching job. (Don't miss his locker room speech at http://www.cyclones.com/ ) Back-to-back Sweet Sixteens.
• American Idol is having a bad season.
• Two days until Hot Tub Time Machine!