Greetings from Iowa City
First I want to wish all the Wyoming fans coming to town safe travel and warn you that Iowa speed limits top out at 70 on I80 (I have heard the limit gets pretty high in parts of Wyoming) As a 30 year employee of the University and 30 year season ticket holder who lives within walking distance from the stadium I will be happy to try and answer any questions about parking, food, drink, etc near the stadium and in Iowa City. To visiting fans, Iowa has its share of douchebag fans but they really are the minority; if you want to have fun and can handle a little good-natured verbal back and forth most of the tailgaters around the stadium will welcome you with respect and interest (Iowa is not the destination center of the universe so most Iowan welcome visitors; especially visitors from more vertically orientated) Iowa City is a very progressive college town in the midst of a fairly conservative state so there will be Iowa fans at the game from all over the political and social spectrum. I don't know if we have this in common with Wyoming but students who cant get out of bed for a 2pm class are out drinking at 6am on gamedays (they are the bleary-eyed ones wandering around the stadium area before dawn with cases of Natty Lite on their shoulders. If you are driving into the game be prepared to pay anywhere from $20-$40 to park you car on someones yard (prices go up closer to the stadium). You can park out by the Coralville mall (~3-4 miles away and take the Hawkeye express train into the stadium area. The train exits and departs about 100 yards from the stadium gates. Across the street from the stadium are about 15-20 different food vendors with enough selection for most tastes (food in the stadium is overpriced and pretty blah - hotdogs, brats, pizza hut pizza, etc) Once you enter the stadium you can not leave and reenter again. This practice originated after 9/11 but is primarily a way to drive up internal concession sales. The stadium has some strict rules about what you can bring in. Check out this site before you go and leave other stuff locked in your car or hotel room: https://footballgameday.hawkeyesports.com/allowed-items/
Before I forget, I expect Iowa to be prepared for this game. Contrary to many POVs expressed previously, in Iowa City the fans and team are getting a daily diet of how Wyoming's QB is going to come in and embarrass our relatively young Hawkeye team. The Hawkeyes come into this season with the pundits predicting a 9th or 10th place finish in the conference and outside expectations are pretty low. Meanwhile we are hearing that Wyoming is planning to springboard into national prominence by beating up on a B1G team. In my 19 years experience watching Kirk Ferenz teams, they are never more dangerous than when they are flying under the radar. Kirk just does not manage expectations very well but he is really solid at circling the underdog wagon. I guarantee that he and his coaches have been preaching non-stop that the world is expecting little Iowa to be ass-kicked by big bad Wyoming on Saturday. I will be surprised if the team does not come out of the tunnel with an us against the world attitude.
Anyway this games end, we all wake up Sunday a little hung-over and our lives go on which is much better than our friend in the Houston area can say. I hope everyone has a great gameday experience and that you take some good memories with you from your visit (scenery sucks for the most part but Iowa does have some pretty farm country and mostly good people)
Warm Regards
