Not sure ISU v Iowa rivalry is as much “city” versus country, but there are definitely some cultural differences.
First, Iowa is majority Chicago area kids not smart enough to get into Illinois. For clarity, being “from Chicago” basically means “I’m from Illinois”. Anything within 100 miles is fair game
Many grew up spoiled and look down their noses at smaller towns and agricultural roots of our university. Also, within the state schools you have Iowa with the medical school, law school, business school, etc. ISU more ag, engineering, design, architecture, etc. So that fuels their elitism even though the state schools are intentionally set up to not be duplicative in many regards. Despite their supposed academic elitism on their part, most are too stupid to understand that.
what makes it funny is that they slap an ANF sticker on their helmets (America Needs Farmers) to proudly show their support then forget about it 5 seconds later when they go back to making fun of ISU kids for growing up on a farm.
worst part is that most Iowa fans didn’t go there - or to college at all. We call them Tavern Hawks. Right now, theyre probably on the same bar stool they’ve been sitting for 30 years reminiscing about when they almost f**ed the prom queen after a football game in high school. Ironically, the Chicago kids that actually went to Iowa generally look down their noses at these types of people, but they somehow look past it because they all wear the same Iowa football hat with ANF on the side.
Running joke is “what do Iowa and Iowa State fans have in common? None of them graduated from the University of Iowa”. I suspect that may be similar with Clemson/SC.
their fans are mostly fair weather, oscillating between their head coach being the second coming of Jesus Christ or need to be fired because they’ll never get them to the promised land.
they’ve literally never lost a game in any sport. Sometimes they just decide to give a game away. Or one of their stars is injured. Or the other team got lucky. Or the refs. Etc. We’ll, maybe they did get beat but remember that game years ago?
They are our “super bowl” in every sport, but if we do lose to them it’s because their team was too hyped and buckled under the pressure of being expected to beat us. So kind of like their super bowl, I guess.
Sometimes their coaches’ kids are really bad at basketball, live in subsidized student housing while daddy makes 10 mil a year coaching football, and/or are racist pieces of $hit that somehow get an OC job despite scoring 9 offensive touchdowns in 7 games.
They accuse us of recruiting “thugs” and “criminals” when they have a famously long rap sheet in Iowa City. Thankfully their coaches, AD, university officials, etc provide them good cover.
They think they’re a blue blood but are actually far from it. They go to conference championship games (sometimes) having played no ranked teams, get blown out by 39 points, and then cry about the referees or the other coach running up the score.
They can tell you all about when they almost won the national championship in 2005 or 1984 like it was yesterday. Most of them have at least one child named Hayden (coach of said team from 1984) or Nile (who their stadium was named after a long long time ago).
Ashton Kutcher kind of went to college there. No one really liked him, but it’s still super cool because, you know, no other B list celebrity ever went to college. They’ll tell you all about the time they saw him at a frat party if you ask.
cyclone fanatic, what else am I missing?
