Iowa State

There are a number of schools that have been playing big-time, major conference football for most of the last 100 years, and yet have almost never had a good team.  Iowa State is one of these programs.  The Cyclones have an all-time record of 506-605-46, which means that their winning percentage ranks 103d out of 125 schools in Division I-A.  I watch dozens of college football games every year, and I've been watching college football since 1971, and I don't think I've ever watched an Iowa State game from beginning to end.

A study of Wikipedia reveals that Iowa State's best-ever team was in 1976.  That team, coached by Earle Bruce (who later went on to great success at Ohio State) went 8-3 and beat Nebraska for the first time since 1960.  That year, the Cyclones finished 19th in the AP Poll -- their all-time highest ranking -- but were not invited to a bowl game.  Iowa State's only other appearance in the final AP poll was in the 2000 season, when they went 9-3 and were ranked 25th.  Since World War II, Iowa State has had two coaches that went on to win AP National Championships -- Johnny Majors (1968-72), who won the title at Pittsburgh in 1976, and Gene Chizik (2007-08), who won the 2010 title with Auburn.  But neither Majors (24-30-1) nor Chizik (5-19) had a winning record at Iowa State.  In fact, since World War II Earle Bruce is the only coach to leave Ames with a winning record -- he went 36-32 from 1973-78, which may be one of the best coaching jobs of all time.

Iowa State has won three bowl games.  In 2000, the Cyclones beat Pittsburgh 37-29 in the Insight.com Bowl.  In 2004, they beat Miami (Ohio) in the Independence Bowl, 17-13.  In 2009, they won the Insight Bowl with a 14-13 win over Minnesota.  They've also lost nine bowl games.  They have never played a game in January.

Given this dismal history, it is not surprising that the Cyclones have never come close to winning the UCFC.  They've played for the title on five occasions.  Here were the scores:

11/17/23:  Nebraska 26, Iowa St. 14
11/10/56:  Oklahoma 44, Iowa St. 0
10/05/57:  Oklahoma 40, Iowa St. 14
09/14/96:  Iowa 38, Iowa St. 13
11/15/97:  Nebraska 77, Iowa St. 14

We will see if they can do better today.