Black Heart Gold Podcast

BHGP Podcast Number 65 Retirement Age Look At Our 65-Year-Old Wrinkly Balls Of Retirement is finally uploaded and ready to do the rocking. We're joined by @frankthetank111 of Frank The Tank's Slant, and do not let the "random internet bro" nature of either of those names fool you -- Frank is and has been for the last 18 months the single best source of information on conference realignment. Realignment is special, because it's essentially big business being conducted by homer fans with way too much influence, and if that sounds like a terrible idea, it is, so as with all terrible ideas, it's best to have a lawyer around to talk you through all the different scenarios in play.

It doesn't feel like Pitt week. Sure, it's been four years since we faced the Panthers, so it hasn't felt like Pitt week for quite some time, but this one feels especially hollow. Without the grizzled visage of Dave Wannstedt on the opposing sideline, it just isn't the same. It's like Pitt is bringing their JV team to Kinnick Saturday morning. In any case, we talked about all things Pitt with Chas Rich, the proprietor of Pitt Blather and an overall good, honorable Pitt fan. His team barely beat Maine last week. Our team lost to Iowa State. And Dave Wannstedt is still gone. There is much sighing. So much sighing.

For this week's podcast, we talk with one of the few men to see Iowa State's one-point victory over Northern Iowa that we can actually tolerate, John Bohnenkamp of the Burlington Hawk-Eye. Bohnenkamp, whose Twitter feed is a wonderful mix of sports information, inside sports reporter jokes, and weather warnings, tells us his thoughts on Steele Jantz, the ISU offensive and defensive lines, and the current wave of Vandenbergmania sweeping through southeast Iowa. This is a very dangerous storm.

Last week, when AJ and I were previewing the season, we spent about fifteen minutes previewing Tennessee Tech. The podcast went on for about an hour and a half, and we ended up leaving the TTU preview on the virtual cutting room floor so that we could fit more discussion of actual competitive football into the podcast. No worry, though, because we kept it and put together a second podcast for today, this one with just the Tennessee Tech infomation. And, by information, we mean the sort of blatant lies we usually trade in when we have no actual information about an opponent. I just wish we could have somehow fit the Gadsden Purchase into the discussion.

AJ had lemon ice cubes and vodka. I had Dreadnaught IPA courtesy of Kyle McCann't. We had an hour and a half of previewing to do. It sort of disintegrated. It also had to be broken up. In part one, we do the obligatory schedule breakdown. We'll be back with the Tennessee Tech-specific stuff next week.

We're 18 days from kickoff, so it's time for our annual Iowa football preview special. This year, we were fortunate enough to be joined by both Marc Morehouse and Scott Dochterman of The Gazette (and the rival On Iowa Podcast) to analyze this weekend's open practice, fill the holes in the depth chart, and discuss a couple of late-breaking news items. And then Jacobi had some microphone issues and a barking dog and fingers like anvils, and so parts of this sound like an Animal Collective track (and if you play it backwards, it will tell you to punt from your opponent's 30 yard line). We did our best to fix it, but there's not much we can do in editing. So enjoy, and our apologies for anything lost in the mix.

Michael Felder writes about football in a lot of places, most prominently In the Bleachers but also Onside Kick and Crystal Ball Run. He tweets about football (@inthebleachers) and other stuff constantly. He played football at North Carolina. He once appeared on an internet TV show with me and lived to tell the tale. You can say he's kind of a badass.He also loves The Devil Wears Prada and ABC Family's "Pretty Little Liars," but we're not going to be the ones to make fun of him for that. Well, OK, yeah, we will.He's on the pod with us to discuss the fallout of "Butch Davis presents Apocalypto" in Chapel Hill, his overall top 10, and what he sees out of the Big Ten this season. We also discuss his affinity for the aforementioned ABC Family teen drama. Along the way, I forget how the Big Ten divisions are aligned and where Michigan State plays Nebraska. I'm just saying it's nice to have a co-host.

For the season three premiere of Black Heart Gold Podcast, your hosts are joined by Luke Zimmerman (the artist formerly known as worstfan). Zimmerman is a writer for Every Day Should be Saturday, a writer and podcaster at Eleven Warriors, an Ohio State fan, and one of the preeeminent chillbros of the internet. Given that OSU had a bit of a dramatic offseason and that we don't see the Buckeyes this fall, we figured it's as good a time as any to preview the Evil Empire and the Big Ten at large.