Worst ISU Football Team You've Watched

[Sigmapolis]

We would have had our asses handed to us. 05 Texas is an all time great CFB team.

I would have gotten a free trip to Houston with the marching band out of it. Just seeing Texas dismantle us -- and they would have bashed us badly as a historically great team -- would have been worth seeing. I felt a similar way when I got to see a young Kevin Durant (while at Texas) beat up on us for his one season in college basketball.

It also would have been the program's first trip to the Big 12 championship game, which is something I really hope we nab in the next few months.

 

[cyatheart]

Oh man, those Jim Criner teams were really bad, like they had guys that should have been at Coe College type bad. But the single worst performance, and it’s not even close is the 1985 Drake game which Drake won, by far the worst performance by any organized sports team I have ever seen, and it will never be eclipsed.

 

[awd4cy]

I guess I’ll go with a tie for 2003 and 2014. Both incredibly awful. Getting blown out by an FCS school and a horrible Kansas team might take the cake though. We were kinda fortunate to beat Toledo at home. 2003 had about the worst offense I’ve ever seen. That’s the year I was old enough to really start following.

 

[awd4cy]

In my memory we lost the 2010 Utah game 77-7 but when I look it up it was actually 68-27. Silver linings...

It still feels like every Utah drive was an 80 yard touchdown on a jet sweep.

That Utah game was the earliest I ever left. Feel bad for leaving right at half, but remember the Utes scoring right before half like most teams did against Rhoads to make it 41-14 going into the lockeroom. Lost the next week 52-0 in Norman. That Texas road win the following week might have been the most surprising out of nowhere win for us ever.

 

[awd4cy]

Please don't forget about the 2012 class which I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it may be the worst recruiting class in the history of major college foot all.
https://247sports.com/college/iowa-state/Season/2012-Football/Commits/

Those were the days. Getting to the latter part of June before we would land a commit with other P5 offers. Always kinda amazed how quick Campbell got things turned around. Assumed nobody could fix us in under 3 years at the soonest.

 

[Peter]

I guess I’m one of the only people on here old enough to remember 0-10-1. The most god awful football I’ve ever seen. It started with a not even competitive home loss to UNI and spiraled from there. Lost all our non cons including a devastating loss to Iowa and then got shellacked in conference, with the exception of the OSU tie who was also terrible that year. Troy Davis was a freshman and road the bench despite the fact that every time they did put him in he scored a touchdown. The ISU band actually wrote a song called “0-10-1” set to the melody of “o tannenbaum” and several members were suspended.

 

[inCyteful]

Ugh. I will need counseling after this thread.

The details are sketchy for some reason - time, alcohol, memory suppression?

Jim Criner - '84 or '85? Got throttled by Iowa and I remember 2 ties in a season. The 'keys' - Wasn't he the one that said the key play in a game was the kickoff? Every kickoff rest of his stay at ISU was highlighted by keys jingling.

 

[Cyched]

a Baylor team that was incomprehensibly worse than us

The good old days

 

[RealisticCy]

I guess I’ll go with a tie for 2003 and 2014. Both incredibly awful. Getting blown out by an FCS school and a horrible Kansas team might take the cake though. We were kinda fortunate to beat Toledo at home. 2003 had about the worst offense I’ve ever seen. That’s the year I was old enough to really start following.

No shame in losing to NDSU in the last ten years, but it's the way ISU lost....made no adjustments, gained around 50 yards total in the second half. Just got manhandled...

That NDSU team had 4 draft picks on the roster. ISU had none, but Lazard was a freshmen and should have been.

 

[RealisticCy]

Rhoads, Chiz, and Mac all had so many games we just weren't even competitive. 56-10 type games.

Even though Rhoads and Mac had some nice seasons (7 wins or so) you could just tell we just didn't have the depth and talent to compete in our own conference on a consistent basis. I thought in both 2001 and 2011 that was really beginning to change but it did not.

Campbell has been such a breath of fresh air in that sense. Sure the ND game got out of hand a bit but that was NOT a blowout. I also thought the OU game at halftime was going to be a blowout and we damn near should have won that thing.

Campbell teams have let several close games slip away, I hope we can get over that next hill, but you're correct, staying competitive has been so much more frequent. ND loss felt like a blowout, then I realize why -- it was ISU's most lopsided loss since West Virginia in 2016.

Losses by more than 10 points, since 2016:
2019: Bowl game against Notre Dame
2018: at Texas
2017: None
2016: at Iowa, at TCU, at Texas, vs. West Virginia

In 2013, we had a 5 games stretch with 4 losses by 30+.....

 

[Statefan10]

In my memory we lost the 2010 Utah game 77-7 but when I look it up it was actually 68-27. Silver linings...

It still feels like every Utah drive was an 80 yard touchdown on a jet sweep.

Oh goodness I forgot about that game. We were up 14-10 going into the 2nd quarter, and then it went spiraling downhill after that. It was 14-41 at halftime. Gave up a casual 31 points in 15 minutes of play.

 

[AuH2O]

Oh goodness I forgot about that game. We were up 14-10 going into the 2nd quarter, and then it went spiraling downhill after that. It was 14-41 at halftime. Gave up a casual 31 points in 15 minutes of play.

All I remember from that game was Shaky Smithson. And hopelessness. Lots and lots of hopelessness.

 

[BillBrasky4Cy]

2014 for me. I remember being at that West Virginia game. The last game for me as a student. I remember being so dejected after going up by 20 or something right at the beginning of the 2nd quarter then by halftime we were down 7. I think there was 50 students in the stands (day after Black Friday game).

At least it wasn't like that one cold game the year before against Kansas when the wind chill was bringing it down to -10 or something. There was maybe 20 students that game.

That KU ice bowl was a freakin blast. The crowd was rowdy as hell and pretty much anything in the stands was fair game. Easily in my top 5 JTS games.

 

[Clonefan32]

Well by-golly hasn't this been a fun little trip down memory lane.

 

[Statefan10]

I remember so many years my friends and I would just want to play football on the hills. Sometimes it was hard to play because there were so many different groups of kids playing. We couldn't have cared less about some of the games because we were so bad. Nowadays though, kids toss the ball around a little before the game and most are in their seats glued to the action. That's pretty cool.

 

[BillBrasky4Cy]

Fun little stat from the 13 Baylor blood bath.... The Bears averaged 10 yards per point.

 

[Statefan10]

Fun little stat from the 03 Baylor blood bath.... The Bears averaged 10 yards per point.

Believe you meant 2013 but yes. They had 714 total yards..

 

[BillBrasky4Cy]

Believe you meant 2013 but yes. They had 714 total yards..

Correct.

 

[Statefan10]

Correct.

That year we gave up around 224 rushing yards and around 2.8 rushing TD's per game. Last year our defense gave up 139 rushing yards and exactly 1 rushing TD per game. That's actually incredible how bad we were at defense.

 

[awd4cy]

No shame in losing to NDSU in the last ten years, but it's the way ISU lost....made no adjustments, gained around 50 yards total in the second half. Just got manhandled...

That NDSU team had 4 draft picks on the roster. ISU had none, but Lazard was a freshmen and should have been.

Remember giving up 500+ yards of offense to NDSU while we gained about 200. Biggest beat down I’ve ever seen a P5 team take from an FCS team. I was way off the Rhoads wagon after that game.