As we come to homecoming day, the Iowa Hawkeyes have chosen their opponent well. Dear old Indiana.

But as you well know, the Hoosiers have made it difficult for the Hawks the last couple of seasons. I was standing down on the sidelines at Bloomington, Ind., in the last second of the game last year when Indiana's Damarlo Belcher had the ball right in his mitts and dropped it and the Hawks survived. That's how close it was.

I don't expect that sort of close game this year. Iowa in the next two weeks faces two of the poorest teams in college football in IU and Minnesota. The Hawks will be heavily favored in both of them, and those two wins would make them bowl-eligible going into November.

We shall see what Iowa can do in the stretch run, where Kirk Ferentz usually has his team at its best. Yes, there will be two more weeks of development and then the games that will decide the Hawkeyes' season will come along.

If you remember, which I'm sure you don't, I picked Iowa to lose two games during the regular season. And remember my friends, we are still standing on two defeats at this time, and the opportunity is there for Iowa to win out.

Development will be the name of the game against Indiana and Minnesota.

ON THE HIGH SCHOOL front, we come to playoff time. And again I would suggest to the Iowa High School Athletic Association, just as I would suggest to the NCAA basketball committee, they might as well make everybody eligible for the playoffs.

That, of course, is not going to happen. But Cedar Rapids and the Metro area will be well-represented in the playoffs and Linn-Mar, at this writing, has a chance to go through the regular season unbeaten and ranked No. 3 in the state if they can win at Xavier Friday night.

I don't think that the Lion faithful thought at the start of the year that they would get a sparkling new stadium and an unbeaten season all in one campaign. But that is attainable, along with a Mississippi Valley Conference championship.

No matter the outcome of the Lions-Saints game, it's been a great season for Coach Bob Forsyth and his Linn-Mar football team. They have played as a team and have executed the offense and defense very well in what is a season to remember, no matter what the final outcome.

Cedar Rapids Washington, a team that has been on the yo-yo all season, makes the playoffs with a pedigree of beating City High and Iowa City West in one season.

Xavier can also be a contender in all of this, and after a slow start Cedar Rapids Kennedy has come on to be a playoff team. And don't forget what Lisbon has done in Class A in finishing second in the state polls.

So good fortune to all of those teams as we come to the most exciting time of the year with the high school football playoffs.

PERSONAL NOTE: As you may know, on Mediacom we do a weekly Black and Gold breakdown show on Iowa football, which includes the top-5 plays of the week. I campaigned for naming one of those plays for the Iowa card section that put on such a great show before the kickoff of the Iowa-Northwestern game.

Again, Iowans showed their abililty to be a team in the stands as well as a force on the field. Congrats.

(Bob Brooks is sports director at KMRY and has been one of the leading voices of college and prep sports in Eastern Iowa for more than 65 years. He is a 10-time winner of the Iowa Sportscaster of the Year Award, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana in 2004. His sports reports can be heard weekday afternoons at 4:30 and 5:30, and Saturdays at 6:40 for the Hawkeye football wrap-up.)