Black Heart Gold Podcast

Northwestern is annoying. Their constant ability to come back from two score deficits to beat Iowa in the last six years is frustrating as hell. Their fans, who have turned from equally stunned to ALL WE DO IS WIN GROWL over that time, are teetering on obnoxious. Their coach, who clearly has a bone to ~~break~~ pick with Iowa, is irritating.

With that said, their web presence (especially considering that Northwestern is a small private school that draws from a nationwide talent pool that, in large part, has no affiliation with Northwestern athletics when they hit campus) is pretty stellar. LTP's troll-baiting notwithstanding, both Bring Your Champions, They're Our Meat and SB Nation stalwarts Sippin' on Purple are must-reads for fans of Northwestern, Iowa, or comedy in blog form. Rodger Sherman from SOP is with us for this week's pod to discuss Gerry DiNardo's nephew, the beauty of Mi'kail McCall's name, how to work Childish Gambino references into your discussion of college football, and yes, Iowa-Northwestern.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:57:38 PDT

It's a tradition unlike any other. Iowa is scheduled to play Penn State on Saturday, Chris and Kevin from Black Shoe Diaries and Slow States join us for the podcast to tell us how Iowa will beat Penn State, and then Iowa beats Penn State. It's gotten quite boring, actually.

This year's pod in particular is awfully damn entertaining. For one, Penn State might be the most dysfunctional team in the conference this year. For another, yhe simple question of Bolden vs. McGloin has devolved into a metaphysical discussion of whether a quarterback even matters when your offensive line is always a mess and your passing offense is essentially "throw it toward the tall guy." It's a de facto Slow States pod, so there's some beer and music in there, too.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:21:27 PDT

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.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 23:30:52 PDT

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.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:05:51 PDT

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.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:09:23 PDT

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.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:27:52 PDT

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.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:10:09 PDT

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.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:21:45 PDT

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.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 21:49:14 PDT

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.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 07:33:54 PDT

Viewer mail. Viewer mail. Tonight is the crazy night we do viewer mail.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:03:21 PDT

There's a whole lotta nothing going on: Wrestlemania 27 is over, spring football is a bore, Name of the Year is just getting started, and Southerners are giving money to refugees (seriously, give what you can in $6.04 increments). Here to make sense of it all is Spencer Hall, nee Orson Swindle of Every Day Should Be Saturday. Also, new theme song!

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:41:44 PDT

It's Wrestlemania Week, which of course means it's time for the annual Wrestlemania preview podcast. Jacobi and I run down the card and get sidetracked by discussions of the hall of fame credentials of Kane, the inherent problems of Triple H's finishing move, and the brewing civil war within WWE. We bring it.

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hawkeyestatebhgp@gmail.com — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:26:23 PDT

Spring has sprung, and with it balmy 40 degree weather, snow flurries, rhabdomyalysis reports, and spring football. We talk about it all, whether it be the rhabdo report, the national media's opinion of Iowa football, the spring two-deeps, or the last few Drive By Truckers albums, with The Gazette's Marc Morehouse. It's nearly an hour of solid football, the way George Washington intended it.