Published: September 18, 2008 10:58 am            

Don’t trust Cy-Hawk game for future predictions

It’s been a week since I went to Iowa City and basked in the swamp of Kinnick Stadium, where the Hawks squashed an Iowa State upset bid. Beside the final result (yes, I’m one of the five Cyclone fans currently in the Clinton area), the mud covering the 10 feet in front of the porta-potties and the odd decision to hand fans yellow ponchos on “black out” day, it seemed like it was a flawless affair.

Sure, I’ve been groomed to cheer against the Big 10, mostly against Iowa (what else do Cyclone fans have to cheer about), but the atmosphere is truly unbelievable and the stadium definitely adds to the revelry. Also, despite a constant downpour during the pregame festivities, the ground crew did a great job at making the field actually playable.

But with all the attention from the state, is the game really that important? (I would say national attention, but the media’s incessant drooling over below-average Notre Dame and Michigan squads got in the way of anything in the afternoon).

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great for the state that it’s at least a competitive game, as opposed to what I endured as a middle schooler. I was dead set on believing that this was the year the Cyclones would win when Troy Davis manned the running back position. Even with a Heisman trophy runner-up, the Clones had zero chance, and I was forced to return to school Monday to face off against all my friends who had laughed hysterically when I made my prediction. Luckily, it’s not that laughable anymore.

What is laughable is that fans either panic or have unrealistic expectations every year when the “Big Game” comes to a close. If Iowa loses, the world comes to a screeching halt, and most likely they won’t win another game all year. That logic went over really well in 2002, when the best offensive line I’ve ever seen led the Hawks to the Orange Bowl.

For Iowa State, if they actually pull off the win, then fans are determined that this team is destined to go to a bowl game, and Iowa fans sit wondering how Iowa State actually played up to their level. That logic sure worked last year when Iowa State started its streak of kicking only field goals against Iowa.

So what’s on tap for this year? Who knows, but what we can expect is a let down. Since the rivalry became competitive again in 1998, the next few games, and even the rest of the season hasn’t reflected the results from the “Big Game.”

Let’s take a look at last season. Iowa State won, looking like the program might be on the rise, but then dropped its next six games by a combined 117 points. The Hawks, on the other hand, struggled, dropping the next three games by 41 points, looking like they never recovered from the game.

In 2006, Iowa beat Iowa State, proceeded to win its next one, then lost three of the next four games, while Iowa State just shouldn’t have shown up for the rest of the season after finishing with an abysmal one win in the final eight games.

The list doesn’t stop there. From 2005 when Iowa State won, struggled against a bad Army squad and then lost three straight games, before rattling off four wins, to Iowa that same year, losing the game, then winning four of the next five, proving the result had little to do with the rest of the season. In 2004, Iowa showed once again the game didn’t matter, when it beat the Clones, then looked bad, dropping the next two before rattling off eight in a row, including a 6-4 offensive explosion win against Penn. St.

But the year to end all years when examining the game’s impact must fall on 2002. Yes, the fateful year that Iowa lost to Iowa State, seemingly paving the way for a Seneca Wallace Heisman run and the emergence of Iowa State on the national scene. Well, we all know what happened from there.

Brad Banks became the Heisman darling, and Iowa went to the Orange Bowl, while Iowa State lost to UCONN, yes the football team, at home that year.

Unfortunately, this last decade has shown us to take the “Big Game’s” result with a grain of salt. So if you’re firing up your Ricky Stanzi, oh wait, maybe its Jake Christensen Heisman express, you may want to wait until the Hawks get out of Dave “the born loser” Wannstedt’s back yard.

        

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