Iowa State Cyclones football head coach Matt Campbell reacts after a touchdown against Arkansas State during the first quarter in the week-4 NCAA football at Jack Trice Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024, in Ames, Iowa. © Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
ORLANDO, Fla. — First 10-win season in 133 years?
Check.
First 7-0 start in 86 years?
Been there, done that.
First chance to take a bite out of a human-sized Pop-Tart?
Now we’re talking.
“I think it will be pretty cool,” said Iowa State’s star senior receiver Jaylin Noel, who hopes to help his No. 18 team beat No. 13 Miami in Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. Pop-Tarts Bowl — and to the victors go the oversized ultra-processed food spoils. “Obviously, watching that game last year while we were (at the Liberty Bowl) in Memphis, and just seeing all the fun stiff they do, I think it will be a pretty cool and fun bowl game for the team.”
But alongside the highly successful PR stunts, there’s a football game to be won, of course. Both the Cyclones (10-3) and the Hurricanes (10-2) fell one win short of reaching the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, and both teams are eager to end their respective seasons with another “first.”
Miami hasn’t won 11 games since then-head coach Larry Coker prowled the sidelines in 2003. ISU, as noted, dwells in uncharted territory in terms of wins, and the Cyclones enjoy a chance to add an 11th victory to an already historic season.
“That,” Noel said, “is what I’m most proud of.”
The Pop-Tart gimmicks simply add eyeballs to what should be a well-watched game that will be televised nationally on ABC. So it’s a big stage — and a fully-functional toaster adorns the trophy that sits at the center of it.
“We’ve (had) a lot of firsts in the133-year history of Iowa State football,” ISU head coach Matt Campbell said. “And I would say, at times, we’ve had maybe more talent but I don’t know if we’ve had the quality of team that we have this year. This team has been ravaged by injuries and challenging situations and they’ve never flinched. And to me, that’s been one of the great joys as a head coach being in a place, now, (for) nine years.”
Both Campbell and his head coaching counterpart at Miami, Mario Cristobal, credit “culture” for their burgeoning success. Sure it’s cliche and coach speak, but it’s not mere lip service, nor a vacuous talking point.
Case in point: Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward. The Heisman Trophy finalist has said repeatedly he plans to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl even though as a potential top NFL Draft pick, conventional wisdom says to sit this one out. He’s not “flinching” either, Cristobal said.
“Nowadays in college football we are compensated at all levels, right?” Said Cristobal, who’s taken Miami from five wins to 10 in three seasons at the helm. “Coaches, players, administrators. And to do a job, you must finish the job. I think Cam’s DNA, his upbringing, everything that he is made of and stands for, it’s the right kind of stuff. The stuff you want your team made of.”
Campbell’s said similar things about his long list of senior leaders such as Noel, safety Beau Freyler, and defensive tackle J.R. Singleton. The Cyclones’ series of “firsts” are rooted in what always undergirds his program — and that helps explain why Miami’s a mere 3.5-point favorite in its home state.
“I feel like we’ve evolved over the course of time, but the always has been — from our first team meetings I ever had here, I said the word trust,” Campbell said. “(I also said), ’At some point, when trust resonates in every corner of this football program, we will have the ability to do great things.’”
That’s why ISU finds itself facing a historically-great program in Orlando for the third time in Campbell’s tenure. The Cyclones lost to Notre Dame and Clemson in previous corporatized iterations of the Pop-Tarts Bowl, so one more positive “first” beckons while a person in a pastry-based and edible suit dances on the sidelines.
And nothing’s half-baked about this opportunity, which balances the profound with the frivolous; the bedrock of the program with a crafty marketing campaign.
“I know that we have bigger things to come,” sophomore quarterback and Florida native Rocco Becht said. “And we need to build momentum with this game.”
