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COLUMN: Let's just enjoy the season

CW, I have to say your read on the young Cyclone fans seems pretty spot on. Anecdotally, I didn't really follow college sports before coming to Iowa State in Rhoads' first year. I missed the Chizik years, only saw the last year of McDermott, and didn't understand how the impact of the Sanderson departure at the time.

Growing up, I watched the occasional CyHawk game at neighborhood parties and such, but was never that invested one way or the other. Once I became a student and got to experience game day in Ames, I was all in. And the early years of Rhoads definitely came with scrappy underdog mentality. Games like '09 Nebraska, '10 Texas and, of course '11 OSU showed that ISU can beat anyone. When Fred took over the basketball program, he showed that ISU can be nationally relevant.

So as you said Chris, Why not us? Why couldn't Iowa State be the next program to climb its way up the the national conversation? Why can't Campbell be our Snyder, our Alvarez, our Ferentz? Everything that the current football staff and AD are doing have us on a trajectory that is going up. Im excited for this year! And the years to come!

PS: as much as I like to beat Iowa, I care about the KSt game more, because I have never seen ISU beat the Vampire.
 
Great message to send, Chris. I agree wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately though it's very tough to believe. After Hoiberg left I have a very difficult time believing anyone will ever consider us a destination job.

If Campbell wants to prove us all wrong I'd be all for it.
 
Great article Chris - well said. My first year at ISU was also Dan McCarney's first year as head coach, so I arrived in time to see some exciting (Troy Davis watch anyone?), but somewhat poorly attended football (some games were full, but many were not). What we have today is light-years beyond that and even further beyond what we had in the years leading up to McCarney.

ISU football has never been in a better position for success (coaches, players, facilities, etc) than it is now. I agree that we need to embrace that and not constantly be paranoid about the next time we need to strap on the nut cup.
 
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dualthreat said:
Great message to send, Chris. I agree wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately though it's very tough to believe. After Hoiberg left I have a very difficult time believing anyone will ever consider us a destination job.

If Campbell wants to prove us all wrong I'd be all for it.
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I hear what you are saying about Hoiberg, but the positive side of that is, we were able to replace him with Prohm and win more big games. 15 years ago we replaced Eustachy with Wayne Morgan and spiraled for several years before Hoiberg.

I think the AD is making much better moves now and replacing good coaches with more good coaches.

I am not naive enough to wholeheartedly believe that Campbell will stay at ISU for a decade, but I do believe that even if he does leave some day to chase national titles, that the AD will make a good hire to replace him and any set backs will be minimal.

I also believe that Campbell will be here for at least a few more years. He doesn't yet have the resume to be a no doubt candidate for a tOSU level job, even if he is currently a "hot name". Those kinds of fan bases would riot if they hired a coach who hasn't won at least a conference title at a "lesser P5 school".
 
I for one resent being called "Middle Aged" but the description fits.

I was pretty much unaffiliated before I started at ISU in 1998. Then we beat Iowa 5 straight years and McCarney finally started winning some ball games. That was the start of Cyclone Football for me.
Chizik was a huge disappointment, but then there was Rhoads.
Some people will look back at the Rhoads era as a failure, because we ended up parting ways, but without CPR, we aren't in a position to hire CMC.

When Rhoads was hired we had just gotten dumped by a d-bag coach in Chizik. People thought there weren't really many coaches who could win here. Heck, it took DMac 5 years just to have a winning record.

Paul Rhoads ignited the fan base that Campbell witnessed when he was coaching Toledo against ISU. There were dissapointments under Rhoads and missed opportunities to turn a corner, but he filled that stadium and lead to these expansions we love so much.

If CMC leaves I believe he will also have left his mark, building ISU into a conference contender. He's well on his way after just 2 years at the helm. The recruits love him and success breeds more success.

Even if the next coach can't get us to the CFB playoff, I think the groundwork is layed to keep ISU as a solid program going forward.
 
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I resent the notion that young folks can't be cynical.

I was an undergraduate from 2005 to 2009.

I saw some bad football in the late McCarney and Chizik era.

I saw some bad and boring basketball under Chewbacca's deadbeat uncle.

Kids these days don't know how bad things can get. They're spoiled with the success under Rhoads and now Campbell, Hoiberg, and Prohm.

:D
 
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We need to come up with better names than old, middle, and young. We could call them Crinerites, McCarneyietes, Rhoadsians, and Campbellites based on when you came of age with ISU football.
 
To my thinking, the biggest challenge to keeping Coach Campbell and his staff here is the difficulty of being in a 10-team conference where you play every opponent every year. As a coach or assistant you have to look at these 14-team or 15-team conferences and realize what an easier path they have to win more games most years due to the changing schedules.

Not to pick on Iowa, but they are who we know best. They are not a ranked team or any recognized power team for 2018, much like ISU (in the ESPN poll both Iowa and ISU have 8 votes). Yet Iowa will likely be favored in 10 of their 12 games. There are 5 Big 10 teams that are ranked but Iowa plays just 2 of them. What an advantage they have compared to ISU that will have to play all 4 (or actually 5 depending on the poll) of the ranked teams in the Big 12.

So I have to think that will be a big consideration for anyone that wants to leave ISU for one of the oversized conferences. When building your career, why go over the mountain when you can just go around it? We can only hope our remaining coaches want the challenge and don't get influenced at all by Coach Ayeni. Or as Chris is trying to tell us, let's just be happy until we actually have reason not to be!
 
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I look forward to a 20-year heated rivalry between Brian Ferentz and Matt Campbell. I embrace the challenge and hope to see it to fruition.
 
Cycsk said:
We need to come up with better names than old, middle, and young. We could call them Crinerites, McCarneyietes, Rhoadsians, and Campbellites based on when you came of age with ISU football.
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Agree. Add the BruceClones (aka Jellyrollers).
 
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Fan since '84 and I fully expect to return to '84 form any season now.

Something else worth mentioning about the younger fans is the fact that not all of them have ties to ISU. Some kids actually follow ISU by choice. This was unheard of in the '80s and 90s.
 
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Cycsk said:
We need to come up with better names than old, middle, and young. We could call them Crinerites, McCarneyietes, Rhoadsians, and Campbellites based on when you came of age with ISU football.
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My coaches were Duncan followed by Criner.

"Grew up" with Majors and Bruce and wanted to be a Cyclone. During those years, Iowa State was definitely the program in Iowa. How quickly a run of poor coaches, coupled with a great coach at Iowa changed that.
 
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So I'm probably somewhere between the "Young" and "Middle-Aged" columns (I attended from 2005-2010), but my distaste for all things Hawkeye is very, very strong. I did grow up in eastern Iowa though and the amount of grief that I got from parts of my family, classmates, teachers, etc. for choosing Iowa State was over the top.

Leading up to the game in 2005, I got a not insignificant number of prank calls from kids I went to HS with about how bad we were going to lose, how stupid I was for going there, and so on (Although I have to point out that none of these people went to Iowa). I have rarely felt as vindicated as I did after that game - that was probably when I really became a fan (I'm a legacy, so I grew up around ISU things, but wasn't really into it).
 
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LarryISU said:
To my thinking, the biggest challenge to keeping Coach Campbell and his staff here is the difficulty of being in a 10-team conference where you play every opponent every year. As a coach or assistant you have to look at these 14-team or 15-team conferences and realize what an easier path they have to win more games most years due to the changing schedules.

Not to pick on Iowa, but they are who we know best. They are not a ranked team or any recognized power team for 2018, much like ISU (in the ESPN poll both Iowa and ISU have 8 votes). Yet Iowa will likely be favored in 10 of their 12 games. There are 5 Big 10 teams that are ranked but Iowa plays just 2 of them. What an advantage they have compared to ISU that will have to play all 4 (or actually 5 depending on the poll) of the ranked teams in the Big 12.

So I have to think that will be a big consideration for anyone that wants to leave ISU for one of the oversized conferences. When building your career, why go over the mountain when you can just go around it? We can only hope our remaining coaches want the challenge and don't get influenced at all by Coach Ayeni. Or as Chris is trying to tell us, let's just be happy until we actually have reason not to be!
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This is the exact weak **** Chris is trying to tell you to not worry about. Look at Maryland's schedule. Nebraska, Missouri. Get over this crap! You think Campbell is walking around all dejected because he thinks he has a hard schedule? As you become a better program, your schedule magically gets easier because those middle teams that once beat you every year become the games you win every year.
 
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RotatingColumn said:
Fan since '84 and I fully expect to return to '84 form any season now.

Something else worth mentioning about the younger fans is the fact that not all of them have ties to ISU. Some kids actually follow ISU by choice. This was unheard of in the '80s and 90s.
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Great point! I have really noticed that change, too. It always used to be you would see an ISU fan and the first question was, "When did you graduate?" And they always either went there or at least someone in the family went to ISU. But now it's just a discussion of the teams and how great it is to be a fan. What a wonderful development.
 
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I grew up as a casual fan of both teams but preferred iowa simply because all of my friends liked them. Went to ISU because iowa didnt offer my program of study.

Over the next 4 years I became a die hard clone and a hater of everything hawkeye.

Why? Because iowa fans are jerks. I was approached constantly anytime I wore anything ISU related and heckled.

Iowa fans turned me into a clone fan. I guess maybe I should thank them instead of hating them. Nah, that wouldn't be as fun.
 
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I grew up in the 80's and 90's across the river on the Illinois side. I was an Illinois fan until I attended ISU. I couldn't understand why so many of my classmates picked Iowa as their favorite team. Despite being closer to Iowa, I thought that people should be loyal to the Illini. After attending ISU and going to a couple of Iowa games during that time, I came to loathe hok fans. Since leaving ISU, I have only attended one Iowa game and it only further cemented my hatred for hoks. Such a classless fan base.

There are two games that I want to win every year - Iowa and purple Kansas (MLW is an alum). I don't see this ever changing.

I lived through Walden and a season of McCarney before leaving ISU. It took Hoiberg to make me a basketball fan. I think all of this points to me firmly in the older generation group despite my age (mid-40's)
 
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