Iowa State counts to 10
Numbers, and lots of them, in relation to Cyclone football's historic year
Iowa State has won 10 football games this season. Until last Saturday that sentence had never been written in the entire history of the sport. The moment deserves a look back at the peaks and pains that preceded the milestone.
One
Iowa Agricultural College’s first win against a true college team was in 1894, a 16-8 triumph over the State University of Iowa in Iowa City. Three earlier wins were against non-college teams.
IAC’s first win outside the state was in 1895. You might have heard about the weather that day, when a mighty “cyclone” struck Evanston, Illinois, leaving “nothing but touchdowns and goals in its wake.”
Two
In 1912, in an era of non-standardized schedules, Iowa State College beat two Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents, Missouri and Drake. Nebraska beat two conference opponents, Missouri and Kansas. The ISC faculty had a rule against postseason games, leaving two champions.
It was ISC’s second time winning the conference, but the titles were shared. ISC and Nebraska both went 2-0-1 in the six-team MVIAA the previous year.
Three
From 1989 (Virginia) to 2023, three power-conference teams had the distinction of never winning 10 games in a season. Indiana got off that list Nov. 9 when it beat Michigan. As of now, the only team never to have reached that plateau is Vanderbilt.
Four
Only four members of the Big 12 Conference on Iowa State’s 2024 schedule share pre-2010 history with the Cyclones. They are Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, and Texas Tech. This is the first full season since 1907 that Iowa State did not play Missouri, Oklahoma, or both, and eighth ever without a game against one of those two or Nebraska. It feels a little different without longtime nemeses on the other side of the stat sheet.
Five
Dan McCarney would not win his tenth game at Iowa State until his fifth season (1999). McCarney took Iowa State to five bowl games, winning two. He built the staircase to get Iowa State out of the basement. In 2005, three missed field goals — against Nebraska in regulation, and against Missouri and Kansas in overtimes — kept ISU from a potential 10-1 regular season and a spot in the Big 12 title game. (Texas buried Colorado instead, 70-3.)
Matt Campbell took Iowa State to five straight bowl games in 2017-21, just one of the things that never happened at ISU until he arrived.
Six
It’s just a few inches in the Ames Times and the unnamed reporter admits having no idea what’s going on, but the account points to October 29, 1892, as the date of the first football game in ISU history. It is recorded as a 6-6 tie against a town team from State Center.
In 2017, Campbell was caught disparaging programs that “care about [going] 6 and 6.” Of the many disagreements I have had with Campbell’s style, that’s one of them. But his “Trust the Process” mindset is paying off.
Seven
In 1959, ISU only fielded a roster of 30 players. A muddy game against Drake earned them the nickname “Dirty Thirty.” That team came within one game of a conference championship, going 7-3. 1959 and 1960 were the only years ISU would hit that win total in a three-decade span.
In the last 50 games against Nebraska (1961-2010), the Cyclones did not lose seven times. There were six outright wins and a tie in 1972 when an extra-point attempt was missed in the last minute.
Iowa State beat Oklahoma seven times in 89 games. In 2020, the Cyclones beat the Sooners for the first — and last — time in Jack Trice Stadium. Instead of a regular-season championship, though, all that earned was a choice of outfit in the title game. (Black-on-black-on-black, of course.)
Eight
ISU had a regular-season record of 8-3 three years in a row under Earle Bruce. In 1976, a three-way tie at the top of the Big Eight kept ISU at home. The next two years, the Cyclones lost their bowl games. But it was one they weren’t playing in that changed the program’s future.
In the 1978 Gator Bowl, Ohio State coach Woody Hayes hit a Clemson player and was fired the next day. “Eight-and-three Earle” took his place, where he became “nine-and-three Earle.” Iowa State would not have an eight-win regular season again for 22 years (2000), then not again for 18 years (2018).
Nine
Paul Rhoads’ Cyclones won games with 9 points twice, 2009 at Nebraska (9-7) and 2012 at Iowa (9-6). Both were due to missed extra points. The former, ISU’s first game in 30 years with a winning score in single digits, led to an iconic video of the Rhoads era.
In 2015, the year Rhoads was fired after going 3-9, ESPN ranked Iowa State as the second-toughest head coaching job in power-conference football, ahead of only Wake Forest. Campbell has had two seasons with at least nine wins (2020 and 2024), matching the entirety of the rest of Cyclone history (1906 and 2000).
Before the Campbell era, ISU had been ranked in the AP Top 10 for one week — ever. In 2002, No. 9 Iowa State lost badly to Oklahoma and went 1-6 in the back half of the season. To date, Campbell’s Cyclones have been in the Top 10 eight times, including a No. 9 ranking this year.
Ten
For Ira C. Brownlie, the first coach and captain of the IAC team, undefeated at 1-0-1…
For Jack Trice, whose ethos and legacy are part of ISU’s DNA…
For Marv Seiler, a fifth-year senior who was picked at the last minute to start against Nebraska in 1992…
For Troy Davis, who had back-to-back 2,000-yard rushing seasons in 1995-96 and became the first player to have those numbers and not win the Heisman Trophy…
For “Voice of the Cyclones” Pete Taylor, who died in 2003 but has had the best seat in the house since then…
For Allen Lazard, who kept his commitment to Iowa State, came back for his senior year, rewrote ISU’s record book by doing so, and is in his seventh season in the NFL…
For Brock Purdy, who went from Mr. Irrelevant to starting quarterback in the Super Bowl…
For my parents, who have had season tickets since before their children were born…
…and for the special Iowa State fan in your life — yourself, your significant other, college friend, neighbor, or a child who sits in the stands or in front of the TV wearing cardinal and gold…
this week is for them.
It took 133 autumns, but Iowa State finally won 10 football games in a season. Now go win an 11th.
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Ditto Chuck! Go Cyclones!
Great column, and go Cyclones! Thanks, also, for the shout-out to my alma mater Vanderbilt U, even though the mention is that my Commodores sadly are the one remaining major conference football team that has never won 10 games in a season. I think we get special grace for going 9-0 in 1904, when our coach was Dan McGugin, native of Tingley, Iowa.