There's no easy way to say this: yesterday absolutely sucked.

Like many of you (whether you'll admit it or not), I spent the last year envisioning Iowa triumphantly riding into Evanston and repaying Northwestern tenfold for the devastation they bestowed upon our Big Ten title hopes last season. Part of me was even cheering for them to be undefeated at the time, just to make it that much worse (of course, the realist in me knew better than to think NU won't screw up. But a boy can dream). I know it's popular here to trivialize NU with the justNorthwestern monicker. Don't get me wrong, I love the jNU thing. I call them that all the time. Hell, I had my parents calling them jNU when they were texting me game updates. But that has not precluded my loathing of their school and team. Maybe this is different for me, because unlike so many of you, I wasn't raised into Iowa football.

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Today, to the surprise of nobody along the Front Range, the curtain officially fell on the Dan Hawkins era with the Colorado Buffaloes (at last, he can go play intramurals). Typically, this might not be much of a story to the non-CU partisans in the Denver area. But the current state of the Broncos, along with the Cowboys firing Wade Phillips on Monday, has led to rampant speculation about the future of controversial head coach Josh McDaniels. In fact, in the approximately two hours I spent in the car today (thanks a lot snow), I must’ve heard McDaniels’s future mentioned in the same breath as these two firings ten times.

So it’s only natural to ask: is McDaniels next? Should he be?

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So I was perusing The Sporting Blog this evening, when I came across an interesting story about the one and only Lane Kiffen and his monumental upset in some fake bracket in Esquire. Now I know what you're thinking: What does this have to do with Iowa?

I understand your confusion, but if you read the entire post, you'll come across this gem:

Kiffin's inclusion generated Amber Alerts from EDSBS and Doctor Saturday, which has seen him take a comfortable lead on Natalie Gulbis, who is the No. 1 seed in the "sports" regional. It also generated this post, which reiterates the previous two: America. Love it or leave it. Lane Kiffin No. 1.

Further proof that old Ricky Stanzi's infectious patriotism continues to spread like wildfire across the American landscape. Fifty years from now, I imagine we'll be telling our grandkids about where we were when we first heard the phrase that eventually became the national motto.