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Tonight’s home opener for the West Burlington-Notre Dame football team will be a lot tougher than their season opener against New London, a game they won 49-0.

The Falcons will take on West Liberty tonight at Notre Dame’s Tackleson Field. Kickoff will be at 7:30 p.m. with pre-game coverage to begin at 7:15 p.m. on Hot 97.3 FM.

"I said to our team," WBND head coach Jeff Housel said, "'you would think a team that was 2-7 last year and got a new coach in the middle of the summer would be struggling to start out of the gates, but they played a very solid West Branch team very well last week and could have won the game.'"

The Comets, who lost to third-ranked West Branch 27-13 in their opener, will feature another game-breaker in Jordan Meyers, who caught a touchdown pass in their season opening loss.

Game time is set for 7:30 with pre-game coverage on Hot 97-3 to begin at 7:15. Michael Cation will be joined along side Ryan Rump for the call.

With the start of the 2010 football season just days away for the Iowa Hawkeyes, head coach Kirk Ferentz has signed a contract extension with the university.

Ferentz, who is entering his 12th season with the Hawkeyes, signed an extension Thursday that will run through 2020. The deal means Ferentz, like his predecessor Haden Fry, will be at Iowa for more than two decades.

Ferentz is just one of 8 coaches at the highest Division-I level to be at the same school since 1999.

His annual compensation under the new agreement will be $3.68 million per year and, starting this season, will begin receiving at least $325,000 a year in the form of a longevity bonus. The salary gives him the title of highest paid coach in the Big 10 and puts him among the highest paid coaches in the nation.

Ferentz, who's been named the Big Ten Coach of the Year three times and the Associated Press National Coach of the Year once, has taken the Hawks to a pair of Bowl Championship series events, including the Orange Bowl last year and back in 2002.