Iowa State’s recent Cy-Hawk history has already proven one thing: the underdog label doesn’t always mean much when the game kicks off.
That’s the backdrop for Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. matchup at Kinnick Stadium, where Iowa State walks in as a two-touchdown underdog. New coach, new players, and a crowd that will be the biggest most Cyclones have ever played in front of - and still, the recent past says not to treat the spread like a final answer.
Back in 1998, Dan McCarney’s team went to Iowa City as a 28-point underdog and came out with a 27-9 win. That snapped a 15-game Cy-Hawk losing streak and turned the rivalry on its head. Darren Davis carried the load that day, piling up 244 yards on 37 carries, while Iowa State scored 10 points off two blocked punts and held the Hawkeyes to 42 rushing yards.
“I don’t know that in 100 years, I could have envisioned that score, over here, against a tremendous traditional program like theirs,” said McCarney, a former Iowa player and assistant coach. “It’s beyond words.”
The same kind of surprise showed up again in 2017, when Matt Campbell’s Iowa State team went into Oklahoma’s Memorial Stadium as a three-touchdown underdog and stunned the Sooners, 38-31. Kyle Kempt, then a little-known third-team quarterback, helped lead the way in a win that ended an 18-game drought against Oklahoma.
So while Saturday’s line suggests one thing, Iowa State’s history says something else: being a heavy dog does not automatically mean the Cyclones are headed for a loss.
Of course, that doesn’t mean every ingredient from 1998 is about to come back. A running back turning into the second coming of Darren Davis?
No. Two blocked punts?
Improbable. Iowa holding Iowa State to 40-something rushing yards?
Extremely unlikely. And Will Rogers becoming the first Iowa State coach since “that Here Today, Gone Tomorrow Chizik guy” to win his first Cy-Hawk?
Vegas experts say no.
Still, the 1998 game remains the reminder that anything can happen in this rivalry when the underdog plays with force and conviction.
There’s another Cy-Hawk memory worth keeping in mind, too: the 2001 game that was supposed to be played on Sept. 15 but got pushed back after the 9/11 attacks. What had been a football game became something far smaller than the events unfolding in the world.
“No one really cares about the game,” McCarney said at the time. “What game?”
The matchup was moved to Nov. 24, and Iowa State won 17-14 when Adam Runk intercepted a Hawkeye pass with just more than a minute left. Kirk Ferentz, then in his third season at Iowa, put the moment in perspective afterward.
“One of the lessons of athletics is, let’s keep everything we do in perspective and never forget what is truly valuable, which is our health, our family and our friends,” Ferentz said in 2001. “Those are the things that are really important in life. Our freedoms and everything we enjoy in America - nothing else even comes close to being second.
“Those things have really been crystallized for all of us.”
Elsewhere, one more RAND-O note: the Big 12’s uniform logo deal with Monster Energy caught the eye, and not in a flattering way. The logo is on every Big 12 field and uniform, and the concern was whether anyone in the conference checked with team medical staff before tying athletes so closely to a caffeinated brand.
And yes, BYU began selling caffeinated soft drinks on campus in 2017.
As for the picks? Iowa over Iowa State, Missouri over Kansas, BYU over Arizona, Oregon over Oklahoma State, Texas A&M over Arizona State, Kansas State over Washington State, UCF over Pitt, and Texas Tech over Oregon State.
That’s all for entertainment purposes only, of course.
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