Iowa State football: It’s tough to be a Cyclone fan in the fall
By Doug Winkey
Well, it looks like 2014 might not be that different from 2013 for the Iowa State football team. I was forced to miss the opener against North Dakota State, but I was updated as it slipped away after halftime until the final score became official. To make matters worse, our “friendly” neighbors to the east defeated UNI to get a head start on the in-state bragging rights.
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It is still early, but I have decided to give my feelings about being in Cyclone when it seems bleakest.
I will start out by saying I am a huge Cyclone fan and my family has claimed Iowa State as our favorite school since the 1940’s. That said, football season is a rough time to wear the cardinal and gold.
Even in the Dan McCarney era it was nerve wracking to watch the struggle for bowl eligibility, and with the general increase in schedule difficulty it is that much harder to get six wins. I have every faith in head coach Paul Rhoads and his staff, but the landscape has never favored Iowa State.
ISU is not what one would consider a “football school” and this historical fact works in multiple ways. On the positive side, it has meant we are, in part, a basketball school, which is great because it gives fans something exciting to watch through the long Iowa winters. The negative is that we are the plucky underdog at best in football, a position that is nigh-impossible to overcome in the modern collegiate environment which centers largely around money and T.V. exposure to perpetuate success.
Simply put, football, for me, is a mild distraction where I take my lumps as a fan until basketball hype gets cooking.
The Cyclones can pull off the occasional huge upset as we all saw against Oklahoma State several years ago, but those are few and far between for a school like ours. Simply put, football, for me, is a mild distraction where I take my lumps as a fan until basketball hype gets cooking.
I don’t want seem anti-football here. I’ve been to games in the past and Cyclone fans are the best around, but it’s just a simple fact that it is tough to be a Cyclone in the fall. Unless you’re a volleyball fan — then it has been all blue skies the past few seasons! Please feel free to comment if you have thoughts on what the fall season means for Cyclone fans.