On Monday's Daily Clone, Jake Brend shares why Iowa State's loss to BYU is even more frustrating two days later and how Matt Campbell plans to get his team off the deck. T.J. Otzelberger shares what's impressed him about Dominick Nelson through two exhibitions and Brend takes a look at the big Sunday for Cyclones in the NFL.

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Thanks @brentblum for the Northwest Bank clarification. Had no idea they were a Spencer, IA company. Thought it was some random PNW bank.

The 2005 comparison is interesting in terms of frustration. I do think both teams are frustrating in terms of dumb mistakes, iffy special teams, and an inability to find ways to win games in the 4th quarter/OT. 2005 was a season that could have easily been 9-2 vs 7-4 if just a handful of plays/things go differently. I don't think 11-0 would have been realistic, because the running game was so inconsistent and our pass blocking was dicey too.

It is a little different in that 2005 had some of the highest highs as well as the lowest lows in program history. I don't think we've had the same level of high's in 2025, but that might be due to the higher expectations for football in 2025.

Here are some of my memories from that season. I'm sure I'm missing some things too.

1. 32-21 home win over Illinois State. Meh game.
2. 23-3 home win over Iowa. We kicked the crap out of Drew Tate and their top 10 pre-season ranked Hawkeyes. It could have been much worse.
3. 28-21 road win over Army on a Friday night. Ugly road win. Needed a 2 TDs in the 4th quarter to pull it out.
4. 20-27 2 OT road loss vs Nebraska. So many what if's in this one. We gave up a million passing yards to Bengals HC Zac Taylor, but I still feel like we should have won this one. What if Meyer doesn't throw a red zone INT? What is DeAndre Jackson picks up the fumble and takes it to the house? What if Nic Leaders catches the INT?
5. 13-23 home loss to Baylor. I think this was Baylor's first ever road win in the Big 12 (took 10 seasons). The Greg Coleman fumble game. He had 2 back breaking fumbles in the red zone with 1 of them into the end zone.
6. 24-27 OT road loss vs Missouri. The Chase Daniel game. We knocked Brad Banks out of the game midway thru the 4th quarter up 24-14. True freshman Chase Daniel came in and led the Tigers to victory including the game tying TD with 20 seconds to go. This game was not on television; had to listen on the radio.
7. 37-10 home victory over Okie St in Mike Gundy's first season as HC (I think). Game wasn't close.
8. 42-14 road victory over Texas A&M. Greatest Meyer to Blythe game of all time. 4 TDs. Total domination.
9. 45-17 home victory over K-State. Glorious butt kicking in Snyder's last season before he came back after the Prince debacle.
10. 30-16 home victory over Colorado. The tornado game when an actual F1 tornado briefly touched down on campus that afternoon. Unbelievable atmosphere that night. Joel Klatt was their QB and Mason Crosby was their kicker who could make field goals once they crossed midfield. Big play Curvey put the game away late with a pick 6. We were in the driver's seat to win the Big 12 North and get a date to get crushed by Vince Young and Texas.
11. 21-24 OT road loss vs Kansas. We came out firing and got up 14-3 at half. Felt like we played not to lose in the 2nd half especially when we had the ball up 21-14 with 2 minutes to go and ran the ball 3 straight times to burn thru their timeouts. After punting, it took KU like 30 seconds to march 60 yards for the tying TD. Like Mizzou, Culbertson missed a FG and then KU made theirs ending our chance to the win the Big 12 North for the first time ever the 2nd year in a row in the season finale.
12. 24-27 bowl game loss to TCU in Houston. Fun game, but our inability to find a way to win in the 4th quarter showed up again this season.

This is a great visual of how much CMC hates gold and I am HERE for it.
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Love this article…especially the last line…
"She was a great player, but she's going to be a better coach," Fennelly said.

With only 4 Saturday games and a clear #1 pick, fingers crossed that this won't be a 6-day.

Friday, Nov. 7
7:00 (FS1) - Houston at UCF

Saturday, Nov. 8
Kansas at Arizona
BYU at Texas Tech
Colorado at West Virginia
Iowa State at TCU

Open: Arizona State, Baylor, Cincinnati, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Utah

Did anyone else watch this on HBO Max last night?

It's pretty good, I thought. Definitely some very creepy/scary moments to it, and the end is downright shocking.

I think they've definitely expanded past the known source material, but not in ways that feel forced. Also has an interesting Cold War sub-plot as part of the story that is intriguing.

Continuing to head in the wrong direction along with several other Big 12 teams.

What a fantastic venue, atmosphere and fanbase you have. Your team is physical and well coached. When you took us to the woodshed a couple of years ago, Coach Kalani said that your program is what he wanted to emulate. The first quarter your guys punched us in the mouth and we were rattled. Your team was much more physical than what we had faced so far this year. It came down to the punt turnover and the pick six. I don't want to say we were lucky, but we were fortunate. Anyway, it is such a pleasure to be in a conference with teams and fanbases who care, who are passionate, and who support their team. Just felt like I needed to stop by to say thank you. Hoping to get to a game at Hilton, but it will have to be next year.

only elimination was a no pick 32 left

A reminder regarding tiebreaker points: If your team wins and covers you gain an extra bonus point. If you take a undefeated team who is the underdog you gain the point for them covering plus another bonus point. As the season goes on the number of teams undefeated being a underdog greatly diminish so take advantage while you can.

Taking a double digit underdog who wins gets you 3 bonus points

3 teams plays 2 FBS in this time period Fresno St. Hawaii and and Sam Houston State. If you take them before their first game they will need to win twice for you to advance.


I will be using ESPN's Lines. Line will be the line at kickoff for tiebreaker points.


Bringing back the reward for top finisher other than bragging rights. Since this is a contest on Cyclone Fanatic I like the idea of the reward going back to helping ISU athletics.
For the top 3 CYCLONE Fan finishers (Hawks fans are as always are welcome to play but this is a contest on a Cyclone fan board) I will donate $75, $50 and $25 to @brentblum and We Will on your behalf.

Rules/How to Play if you are new:
Pick a team you think will win that weeks game. Pick only 1 team per week.
Post your pick in the thread, do NOT pm it to me
You can only pick that team ONCE the entire time you are in the game.
The goal is to advance and be the last person standing.
Only games that have a FBS school facing another FBS school are eligible to be picked.
You have up until the start time of the game you picked to switch.
Please if you are changing your pick edit your original post.
If your team loses, you are out for the competition.
If you skip a week of picks, you are out.
You can switch as many times up until the game you have picked officially starts.
Post 2 of the thread will have the possible games you can pick.
Post 3 will have each player and their previous week's picks.
You can only pick teams that are undefeated (they will be bolded).
You can't join in during the middle of the season.
Please include prior weeks picks with your pick for the week.
Have any questions, pm me or ask in the thread. Thanks!

Iowa State wrapped up their exhibition season with an 80-72 win over Northwestern. Below, you can watch Jake Brend's postgame report on how the Cyclones got back to playing their brand of basketball.

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Chris Williams & Brent Blum dissect all of the mistakes that cost Iowa State in Saturday’s home loss to BYU. Plus, men’s basketball played a home exhibition against Northwestern on Sunday. What did we like? Looking ahead to next weekend in the Big 12, as Arizona State will come to town for a noon kick. Presented as always by Mechdyne.

Hey Everyone!

The InCYde Zone boys and I have decided to turn this week's episode into a mailbag episode. Send your questions here or you can send them to me over PM. We want the questions to be focused on this season so anything you'd love for us to dive into, send our way! We want to make sure the conversation goes the direction you would like!

Thank you! And thanks to everyone for listening!

Watch everything T.J. Otzelberger, Nate Heise and Dominick Nelson had to say following the Northwestern exhibition. https://cyclonefanatic.com/2025/10/...n-and-nate-heise-said-following-northwestern/

I know that we're all feeling down, but I did want to try and think about some positives.

1. Tyler Perkins was awesome at holding the ball for Kyle K. He fielded a couple of ground ball snaps today.
2. Will McLaughlin had 2 sacks in the 1st half. The first sack helped lead to a punt and the 2nd sack kept BYU to a field goal. Not sure I saw him in the 2nd half.
3. #25 (Josh Patterson) who I have never seen on the field before and is not on the depth chart, but he had a nice PBU on BYU's #11 that kept BYU to a FG.
4. Abu Sama looks like he keeps getting better. I don't know RB stuff, but it looks like he is starting to make the right cuts/reads vs trying to bounce everything outside.
5. Carson Hanson looked good. Glad to have him back.
6. Ben Brahmer is incredible. I think TEs in general are amazing.
7. Kyle K is back which is great.

Feel free to add anything I missed. Only positive things here; no negatives. Negative stuff is for other threads.

Anyone else check out the new Kathryn Bigelow movie A House of Dynamite on Netflix? Reviews are really strong and been waiting for it to drop. We watched it last night. It's good, but not great I guess? The first 35 minutes or so are ******* intense and fantastic. The rest is pretty meh and the ending will piss people off I think. Definitely worth watching, don't get me wrong. But it was hyped as a big awards movie and I don't see that at all.

Looking to tailgate, and need 2 passes. I've been targeting C2/C3, but open to whatever will work. Trying to avoid grass lots so we can use charcoal grill.
Thank you to those that have reached out so far.

Fresh column for your Sunday.

Three of the top four teams in the Big 12 right now are former G5 schools that were added when Texas and Oklahoma left. After a rough transition in Year 1, those teams are at the top of the league standings in Year 3.

BYU walks into Ames and hands Iowa State their third-straight loss, 41-27. Below you can watch Jake Brend's postgame report on what went wrong and also the highlights from Jack Trice Stadium.
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VS




Northwestern (0-0, 0-0 BIG 10)
#16 IOWA STATE (0-0, 0-0 BIG 12)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26TH 12:00 P.M. CST
HILTON COLISEUM / AMES, IA


TV: ESPN+
Talent: Alex Cohen, pxp Derrin Hansen, analyst

Radio: Cyclone Radio Network (Varsity Network)
CRN Talent: John Walters (pxp); Eric Heft (analyst)