There in spirit: Iowa State’s best team played to many empty seats this football season
.JPG "Fans cheer during the second half of an NCAA college football game between Iowa State and West Virginia, Saturday, Dec. 5, 2020, in Ames, Iowa. Iowa State won 42-6. (AP Photo/Matthew Putney)")
If a college football team finished first in a Power Five conference and only a few thousand were in the stadium to see it, did it really happen?
Oh yes, even with masked fans, spaced apart leaving rows and rows and empty seats, an outcome that in other years might have brought a field storm or goal-post climbing, was celebrated at Iowa State.
The Cyclones’ 42-6 home thumping of West Virginia on Saturday means this for the program: an outright first-place finish in the Big 12 standing. That’s a first.
The next possibility in this glorious season would not set precedent but would mark a once-a-century accomplishment.
OK, that’s a stretch.
It’s been longer than a century since Cyclones won a conference championship.
Iowa State’s last league title occurred before the first pandemic, in 1912. The Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association was formed in 1907. Iowa State joined a year later and in 1911 and 1912 with MVIAA records of 2-0-1 and 2-0, the Cyclones shared first place with Nebraska both years.
That’s it. Since then, every team in a Power Five conference, and some that were considered a major program but no longer, have won a league championship. The next longest drought belongs to Vanderbilt, which won the Southern Conference in 1923.
Iowa State will get its shot, against Oklahoma on Dec. 19 in Arlington, Texas in the Big 12 Championship Game that matches the league’s first- and second-place finishers.
“Every Cyclone fan everywhere is jumping for joy tonight,” said Iowa State radio play-by-play announcer John Walters on the postgame show.
The team ranked ninth in the latest College Football Playoff poll improved to 8-2. Running back Breece Hall is having an All-America season and now has 17 rushing touchdowns. Quarterback Brock Purdy is a steady presence who had as many touchdown passes as incomplete passes (three) against the Mountaineers. The defense is top half in nearly every Big 12 statistical category.
Bigger budget programs — this year the social media speculation centers on possible openings at Michigan and Texas — and NFL teams will inquire about Matt Campbell, the fifth-year coach who makes $3.5 million annually and has been a rising star for a few seasons. He has and will say all the right things about avoiding distractions with games remaining, but the attention is a compliment to what he’s built.
That approach continued in the post-game locker room that Campbell described as happy but unfulfilled. Another victory is needed.
“I think this team is very proud of what they’ve been able to do, and certainly, a lot of celebration towards our seniors,” Campbell said. “I think also a sense of understanding that there’s more football left to be played.”
Still, these are the best of times in Ames, with a school record for conference victories, beating Oklahoma and Texas in the same season for the first time, and an outright first place finish for the first time.
In another sense, the timing couldn’t seem more unfair.
Of all the autumns to construct a special season, this one occurs during the COVID-19 scourge. The Cyclones didn’t have a game altered because of the pandemic, but like every program, their environment changed. Some games were played with no fans and some were like Saturday’s when less than a quarter of Jack Trice Stadium’s 61,000 seats were filled.
So many more would be there, likely in record numbers, if they could.
“I’ve been here since 1999, and I’ve said all along that no fan base deserves this more than Iowa State,” said Iowa State Alumni Association president Jeff Johnson.
Few do atmosphere like Iowa State, whose fans are among the nation’s most well-traveled. They caravan along the interstates to away football games and bowls. The Big 12 basketball tournament in Kansas City is a pilgrimage, and fans have been known to remain even if Iowa State is eliminated early.
Nearly 16,000 Iowa State fans were on hand in Memphis for the 2017 Liberty Bowl. In 2015, when the Cyclones finished 3-9 in Paul Rhoads’ final season, the stadium filled to more than 90 percent capacity.
Selling out ticket allotments provided by championship or tournament games is a given at Iowa State.
“When I get the question of how many fans would Iowa State bring, I say, consider the allotment sold and we’ll take anything else we can get,” Johnson said.
Cyclones fans take over bars and their, ahem, thirst, is legendary. Busch Light is the traditional adult beverage of choice, and at the 2018 Alamo Bowl, a “Busch Guy,” an actor from the Super Bowl ad, was dispatched to San Antonio to assure fans the city’s establishments would not run dry.
This season? Those Busch 30-packs didn’t find much of a tailgating home. Like all college and pro teams, Iowa State played before a fraction of their fan base. Those who couldn’t go made the most of it.
“Watching it on TV, it’s definitely not the same. You feel more a piece of it when you’re there,” said Mark Schweers, a 1994 Iowa State graduate who lives in Stilwell. “On the other hand, you feel a little blessed that we have this team having a great season that to hang our hats on while we’re all going through this.”
Campbell said as much during his weekly news conference before Saturday’s game in a message to fans.
“I hope what they are watching and witnessing during tough and trying times can be a little bit of a beacon of hope to each of them,” Campbell said. “It’s disappointing obviously that we can’t be back to normal right now ... but I think that how our young people have approached their business hopefully we’ve given them a little sense of satisfaction and maybe a sense of enjoyment.”
Megan Sandry, who graduated from Iowa State in 2004 and lives about 10 miles from the campus, said more fans are bonding through social media, and next season’s home opener will become an emotional release, “fingers crossed.”
“There’s lots of talk about how great it will be when we can all be together again next fall,” Sandry said. “It’s a little bittersweet to think of the team not getting the ovation they deserve, especially on a night like (Senior night). I hope they all know what they’ve meant to this fan base.”
A few in the fan base will get to see the Cyclones in Arlington. The allotment for this year’s championship game is 4,500 per school plus another 500 for students. In non-COVID-19 2019, those numbers were 7,000 and 1,000.
Gary Wait, a Kansas City, Mo., fire captain and 1983 Iowa State graduate, saw Big 12 championship tickets online last week and had no doubt fellow Cyclones fans would snap up whatever was available.
“I don’t know how many will be going, but tickets that are for sale (Iowa State fans) will find them,” Wait said.
To witness a team hoist a first football conference championship trophy ... that would be something to see.
This story was originally published December 5, 2020 at 9:02 PM.