Big 12 Media Days 2014: Iowa State ranked ninth on football preseason poll
By Brian Spaen
The Big 12 football preseason poll was released today, and it should come as no surprise to see Iowa State right near the bottom of the list.
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Edging out the Kansas Jayhawks at the bottom, the Cyclones received 121 points to finish ninth in the conference preseason poll. Kansas had 63 points. The West Virginia Mountaineers, who finished eighth, received 170 points.
By and large, everyone unanimously believes that those are the bottom three in the conference.
Then, there’s the next tier in the Big 12 — the massive middle section that consists of TCU at seventh, Texas Tech at sixth, Oklahoma State at fifth, Texas at fourth, and Kansas State at third. All of those teams are separated by just 80 points, leaving most people unsure of how it’s all going to play out.
After that, you have the top tier in the conference, and Oklahoma beat Baylor out for the top spot. The Sooners received 47 first place votes and a total of 548 points while the Bears received 9 first place votes and 508 points.
Similar to the bottom three, voters unanimously agree that Oklahoma and Baylor are the top teams in the conference. It’s hard to argue with any of it.
You could argue Iowa State belongs above West Virginia, but with how we know all these teams at the moment, you can’t put them any higher. It’s not that the Cyclones are being disrespected, they just aren’t any better than the top seven teams in the conference.
Texas Tech still has more weapons offensively, TCU has an extremely stout defense coming in, Oklahoma State will always be a juggernaut under Mike Gundy, Kansas State is loaded on both sides of the ball, and Texas might be the only question mark because we don’t know what to really expect with the new head coach — but it’s pretty obvious they field the better talent.
For as much potential as there is in the Cyclones football team, there’s also a bunch of question marks. And that shows in the voting. What are your thoughts on Iowa State’s placement in the preseason poll?