The Iowa Hawkeyes face two games to get the ship in order for the Big Ten football campaign.

The Hawks, after their loss to Iowa State, went right back to the positive mode, with no finger pointing or woe-is-me talk. A la Kirk Ferentz, it was going forward and improving.

Now is the time for improvement with the University of Northern Iowa coming to Kinnick on Saturday. I would think Iowa will be certainly tested Saturday to see if its play can get to a higher level.

After watching two games, I come up with one word that is needed with the Hawk offense. And that word is consistency. That is something the Hawks will have to have going into the Minnesota game on Sept. 29 and on down the line.

It would seem, after its performance last weekend, that the dear old Big Ten is not a fearsome force, at least for the time being. It's rather obvious that Ohio State is the best team, Michigan State is
second best and Michigan would come in third. The rest of the league is a scramble.

For Iowa to figure into that scramble, the Hawks are going to have to score at least four times against UNI and put up a big number against Central Michigan before facing the Gophers in Iowa City in the homecoming game.

It's simple to say, but after the first two weeks of the campaign it seems hard to do. But hang on and stay tuned.

LAST MONDAY, I became a devotee of the men's singles match between Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic in the U.S. Open finals. It took almost five hours, and some marvelous tennis was put on display at Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

Murray validated his Olympic title with his first win in a Grand Slam event and became the first Englishman to win a Grand Slam tennis tournament since 1936 when Fred Perry was a champion. Incidentally, Perry later in his career played an exhibition match at the old Iowa Field House. Can you believe it?

The men's singles simply was great tennis, great entertainment and an excellent athletic performance by both players.

IN GOLF, a tip of the fedora to the Xavier Saints for getting three eagles on the back-9 at Twin Pines in the second round of the Valley Division tournament on Monday. That is quite a feat for a team that hadn't had any tournament eagles in recent memory.

And a tip of the fedora to the Cedar Rapids Jefferson football team for breaking its 24-game losing streak against Hempstead last Friday. Let's hope they have good success against Iowa City High on Friday night.

And finally, dear old Notre Dame has found a conference it can get along with while keeping its football independence. Notre Dame will become a full member of the Atlantic Coast Conference in every sport, men's and women's, except football.

The Irish say they will play five football games annually against ACC programs. In fact, with that and the ties with Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue, that comes pretty close to filling the bill for ND.

Can full ACC membership be far behind?

(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.)