Here's a rare feel-good story

Finding the good guys among the college football coaching ranks is generally akin to spotting a needle in a stack of needles.

Which is what made Saturday's showdown between NIU and Iowa at Soldier Field so confusing, and yet refreshing.

Though Iowa won the game, 16-3, before 61,500 on a brilliant summer afternoon at the lakefront, it would have been difficult to consider either group of players losers.

Not when they're playing for the likes of Kirk Ferentz and Joe Novak.

In an era when renegades rule the day, the jungle that is college football has become the muck of mercenaries who climb the long vines, stalk the sidelines, and capture the headlines.

Yet, these men, Novak and Ferentz, have chosen the high road, offering instead an island of reason and respectability, if not outright sanity.

Novak, to his inestimable credit, has remained at NIU into his 12th season when all others would have failed and been fired, or succeeded and departed.

Not only has Novak posted winning records every year this decade, but he and athletic director Jim Phillips have also rebuilt Northern's facilities and brought NIU into the 21st century, offering young men from Chicago and its suburbs a short ride to quality football and education.

So despite the outcome Saturday, and regardless of the heavy Iowa presence in the crowd, this was a huge victory for NIU, playing before a record "home'' crowd in a sold-out Chicago facility, and perhaps floating a trial balloon for future games.

"We played a Big Ten team in a great arena, in a great place, and we got whipped,'' Novak said. "I'm disappointed, but I'm not discouraged because I know we can play better.''

Iowa's going to have to play better than it did Saturday to compete in the Big Ten, but the Hawkeyes didn't take NIU lightly after a tough game with the Huskies last year.

"I have nothing but respect for Joe Novak, for NIU, for their players, for their coaches, for their program,'' Ferentz said. "It was a tough, four-quarter game again.

"I'm looking forward to the bus ride home and a good night's sleep.''

While the trip may not have been easy, having a two-thirds majority in the stands had to feel good.

"Yes and no,'' Ferentz said, when asked if it felt like a home game. "Looking into the sun (from the sideline) didn't feel like home. And that ride here through traffic didn't seem like home.

"If I leave home when the hospital lets out, it's a whole extra two minutes to get there.''

Clearly, the commute is one of the many qualities Ferentz enjoys about Iowa City, and his insistence that quality of life comes first for his family is not to be believed, which is why NFL teams don't believe him every January when he says he's not leaving Iowa.

That doesn't mean when his youngest son is out of high school in a few years, or maybe done with college, that he won't reconsider, but that's a long way away.

Until then -- and probably beyond -- his answer will continue to be, "No thanks.''

"You're pretty safe with that one,'' he said with a laugh Saturday as he walked toward the bus, when I asked if he still felt that way about the NFL. "There's no change there.''

And though family takes precedence, a close second is the promise Ferentz has made to the athletes in Iowa, mainly the commitment that he would be there to teach them as players and lead them as men after they committed to Iowa.

The Ferentz reputation has taken him into the Chicago area, too, where he competes with Novak for recruits, and where Ferentz has stolen his share of stars.

He's built strength with a veteran defensive line and a young offensive line, and both dominated the Huskies on Saturday.

"We couldn't run the football, and not much good is going to happen to us if we can't run the football,'' said Novak, who must have known that ex-NIU star Garrett Wolfe was only as far away as the press box. "Give Iowa credit. They made us throw the ball.''

It's rare to witness a coach you find tolerable, let alone enviable, but there were two at Soldier Field on Saturday, two of the genuine good guys, the kind you'd want teaching your son.

True, it wasn't much of a game, and it doesn't figure to be a championship season for either team as they reload, but sports news being what's it's been the last few months, just one moment was enough to satisfy our start to football season here in Chicago.

After the game, two admirable men shook hands in the middle of the field, respectful and dignified to the end.

Not a bad way to kick off the football season.

Not bad at all.