Iowa State is entering the stretch before the season opener with a very different kind of energy than the one that surrounded the program all offseason. The outside noise was loud, the new staff made plenty of statements of its own, and now the whole thing has settled into the quieter phase every team hits before the games start for real.
That quiet, though, comes with a lot of confidence.
Across press conferences, the message has been the same: the Cyclones are working hard and they like where they are. Tight end Tyler Fortenberry added a detail that says plenty about the way this group is wired.
In Rob Gray’s article, he said likely starting quarterback Jaylen Raynor is spending a minimum of 12 hours a day at the facility, even on days when the team is only working out for a couple of hours. Fortenberry also said Raynor has been studying season-opening opponent Southeast Missouri State for months.
That kind of commitment is part of why this season feels so intriguing. It is the one I have looked forward to most since 2021, right after the Fiesta Bowl win.
There is a certain freedom in the lack of expectations. Iowa State is bringing in a huge wave of players that most Cyclone fans have barely seen, and it would not be shocking if the final record lands anywhere from four wins to eight.
At the same time, the most important pieces on both sides of the ball have already logged plenty of college football.
I am not saying that should be the standard or even close to it, but the expanded playoff changes the conversation. If a team has the right blend of talent and chemistry, there is a path.
The schedule offers chances, but none of them will come easily. Oklahoma State, Kansas State and Utah are among the Big 12 schools that hired new head coaches, and all three are on Iowa State’s 2026 schedule.
That puts Jimmy Rogers in a very real coaching race of his own, one where every staff is trying to build something quickly and prove it can work. Each of those programs is starting from a different place, and Rogers’ task is to build the strongest foundation of the bunch.
West Virginia, Baylor and UCF also finished 3-6 or worse in conference play last year with the same coaches still in place. That does not guarantee anything either way, because college football never does, but Rogers has a chance to do more than create optimism for the future.
He has a chance to raise the program’s profile in a bigger way.
There is plenty for fans to get excited about. The roster looks different.
The systems are different. The strengths and weaknesses are different from what people have been seeing for more than a decade.
And the expectation should always be the same: win.
As for the Big 12 picture, I am not usually eager to hand out preseason rankings. I am usually wrong, and I do not love judging teams before they have played a snap. But here goes anyway.
My Big 12 preseason power rankings go: BYU, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Arizona, Houston, TCU, Cincinnati, Utah, Kansas State, Iowa State, Kansas, Arizona State, UCF, Baylor, West Virginia and Colorado.
Some of that will age badly, no doubt. I am especially high on a new-look Oklahoma State team bringing in quarterback Drew Mestemaker of North Texas, whom I believe is a generational quarterback prospect. Not generational in the way that ESPN calls the top five players in every draft, but generational as in the best quarterback prospect out of college that we have seen in a long time.
The middle and bottom of the league feels wide open, as it always does. Two teams lost Brendan Sorsby this offseason and could still wind up in the right half of the standings.
Texas Tech lost Sorsby without time to replace him, yet still looks like one of the conference’s top teams. With Sorsby, the Red Raiders would have been my pick to win it all.
In Other News...
Gene Chizik Still Defines A Painful Era Iowa State Outgrew
Matt Campbells departure after 10 seasons sent Iowa State into a familiar kind of offseason upheaval, only this time the ripples felt even larger. He left for Penn State and took much of the staff and roster with him, leaving the Cyclones facing a rebuild without a returning starter and forcing the program to confront just how much of its recent identity had been tied to one coach.
For longtime fans, the new uncertainty still sits in the shadow of Gene Chizik, whose two-year run in Ames ended with a 5-19 record before he moved on to Auburn and later won a national championship there. Paul Rhoads and Campbell both helped Iowa State move forward in different ways, with Campbell in particular lifting the program well beyond where it had been, but the old pain never fully disappears when a coaching change reopens the question of how much ground still has to be made up. [Read more 🡒]