Todd Brommelkamp / 1600ESPN
Special seasons are just that in college football. Until they aren’t.
I’ve long maintained that since Matt Campbell took over the Iowa State program almost a decade ago, the Cyclones and Hawks have a lot more in common than they do things that separate them.
Add knowing the disappointment of ‘what could have been’ to the list.
Seven straight wins to begin the season, Top 10 national rankings, getting a bit of the college football spotlight on shows like ESPN’s College GameDay and Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff pregame shows. It’s all intoxicating, especially to fan bases that are accustomed to being overlooked in favor of blue bloods like Alabama and Ohio State.
But intoxication doesn’t last, no matter how potent the original high. Not when you’re an Iowa fan. Not when you’re an Iowa State fan.
Therein lies the rub of being a fan of a not-so-major major college football program. The good times, they don’t tend to last. Injuries. Bad luck. The clock signaling the stroke of midnight. Pick your unhappy ending, but returning to reality is almost always inevitable.
The Cyclones have dropped their last two Big 12 meetings and have fallen into a crowded pack of conference contenders, most of whom will wind up also-rans. Will 2024 go down in the annals of history as a memorable one? Sure. Is that any solace to a long-suffering fan base that has long been an afterthought nationally and played a reluctant second fiddle to the Hawkeyes in their own state? No, though solace will surely be taken in this year’s Cy-Hawk outcome.
This may be new territory for the We Will crowd, but Iowa has trudged this ruddy path of disappointment before.
In 2009, the Hawks won their first nine contests, and area grocery stores sold out of copies of Sports Illustrated featuring a leaping Derrell Johnson-Koulianos on the cover. Starting quarterback Ricky Stanzi was injured during Iowa’s very next game, a 17-10 loss to Northwestern, and the Hawks lost the following week in Columbus. Iowa earned a berth in the Bowl Championship Series and subsequently beat Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl, but there was no conference championship and without an expanded playoff no opportunity for a title of any kind.
Six years later, another SI cover and another missed opportunity. Despite surviving the regular season unscathed, the Hawkeyes dropped a heart-breaking Big Ten title game to Michigan State in Indianapolis then were pantsed by Stanford in the Rose Bowl.
Iowa State still has a path to the 12-team expanded college football playoff, but it’s beyond narrow and, most importantly, involves primarily relying on the work of others. BYU remains undefeated and Colorado currently sits alone in the standings beneath the Cougars. It’s the Buffaloes, not the Cyclones, who control their own fate. The Cyclones have three games left to play, including Saturday night’s penultimate home contest of the year against a .500 Cincinnati team. (The Bearcats are 5-4 overall but 3-3 in Big 12 play.) Even if they win all three, they’ll need other things to break their way and that’s just to keep the dream of a Big 12 title game appearance alive. They’d need a win to crash the playoffs.
The latest round of bowl projections from national writers now have the Cyclones landing in Orlando for the Pop Tarts Bowl or in San Antonio for an Alamo Bowl appearance that could include a team from their own conference.
Strolling the River Walk or watching a giant anthropomorphic pastry get eaten alive isn’t the same as playing for conference or national title hardware.
The College Football Playoff is sure to expand beyond 12 teams sooner rather than later, giving another handful of teams a shot at a path to the championship. That will make it a bit easier for Hawkeye and Cyclones fans to convince themselves the next 7-0 or 8-0 team is the one to break the cycle.
It won’t be, but it sure will be fun until the wheels inevitably come off.
Todd Brommelkamp is the host of “The Todd Brommelkamp Show” and can be heard weekday mornings on 1600ESPN from 6:30 to 9 a.m.
