I always thought I was the most pessimistic poster on this board, but my crown has been stolen and shattered by several of you guys.

I am as disappointed and frustrated as the next guy, and I don't understand the offensive situation, but good gracious sakes alive, folks. We lost a ton of talent. We are at 3-3, which includes a win at Iowa City and all the losses to rated teams by one score.

Let's get real.

From the Baylor vs WV game last night:

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It's Texas week, so let's get rolling with those predictions for the game against the Longhorns.

1) Winner & margin of victory. (ex: Iowa State by six)
2) Total points scored. (ex: 52 points)

The Longhorns are currently being favored by 17 points (the line opened at 14.5) and the over/under is 50.5 points.

Number one will be the first determiner and then I'll take whoever gets closest to the total points.

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Saw on ISU Facebook page. Looks like red, white, red, white.

It seems more and more people have had Covid at least once. I thought it would be interesting to have an anonymous poll as to how widespread it has been with members of this board.

I just got my fourth Covid shot a couple days ago along with a flu shot. I was waiting for the new Covid shot that is supposed to be tailored for the new strains. I have never had Covid as far as I know. I've been tested about four times and was clean and have no reason to believe I ever had it. But it seems most of my friends have had it, although most weren't very ill.

Who's going to TX? I think I saw a while back one last Alumni/Fans Tailgate. Any info? I can't pull it up.

Thanks.

Pretty sure we can lay to rest the idea Uniform color impacts winning.

We do not have depth at QB on paper. Have not had for years, since Kempt, Purdy and the guy who ended up at S. Carolina via NDSU. Keeps us from using the QB running game maybe?

Is Cook or Rocco the backup?

A friend tells me Norton will play tomorrow...

Des Moines Register story by Tommy Birch reports Paul Rhoads is now the defensive coordinator for Gulf Shores High School in Alabama and, apparently, loving it.

Copied and pasted from Facebook, replies to my posting of Kagavi's picture of the fumble.
"They stole the ball in the pile. It was not a fumble recovery. And it sure looked like it broke the plane. Poor call at best.
But if they had an offense it wouldn't have mattered."
His reply to my response, you watched a different replay than I did:
"I watched several angles multiple times. The ball was right at the line, the question was if he was down, but your angle shows he wasn't. Then the ball comes out and the Iowa player lays on it. Then there is a pile and when the pile is removed an Iowa State player has the ball.
Was it s touchdown? Sure looks like it, but wasn't called as one.
Was he down before the fumble? Based on your angle, which I hadn't seen before, it appears not.
Who recovered the fumble? It's in the replay that Iowa did, but apparently if you give them a minute or two to fight under the pile Iowa State did.
You have to get to the end of the third level before Iowa State gets that ball, but they did."

Losers.

I’m not paying for season tickets to drive from Omaha to watch that garbage. At least I can shut it off and listen to the wife order chores for me. That’s less painful then gas, tickets, and a $9.00 corn dog.

Navy has more passing yards for the season than Ioway, 234 to 201. Navy has only completed 8 passes.

Let me be the first to say that a lot of the information in the linked Wikipedia article isn’t well-sourced, but it contains a lot of information I hadn’t read before and includes other informative links with it.

Highlights:

—The Big 8 really needed to do something just as much as the SWC did. After the Supreme Court ruling in the 80s broke the NCAA’s hold on TV rights, the Big Ten and Pac-10 negotiated a TV deal and the CFA negotiated a separate one for everybody else. By the late 80s, the SEC was already threatening to leave unless the CFA could deliver them as much money as they could make on their own plus a certain percentage of the TV selections.

When Notre Dame got their own TV deal and the SEC expanded with Arkansas and South Carolina, it was pretty clear the SEC was planning to go off on their own after the contract expired, and they did. Next, the ACC with new addition Florida State negotiated their own deal, the new Big East football conference with Miami and the former East Coast independents got a deal, and the SWC and Big Eight both needed to do something to negotiate a competitive deal because they didn’t have the TV markets to do it on their own. Others, like the lesser independents (Tulane, Louisville, Cincinnati, etc.) ended up forming Conference USA.

—Texas and Texas A&M had no problem with Arkansas leaving the SWC. They wanted out and they felt that Arkansas leaving would destabilize the conference. The private schools in the league kind of had their heads in the sand and wanted to replace Arkansas with another private school BYU or Tulane. They felt like having five private schools versus four public schools would give the private schools leverage. Texas and Texas A&M opposed expansion because they ultimately wanted out and weren’t interested in trying to save the league.

—Texas pursued the Pac-10, the Big Ten, and the SEC before settling on the Big 12. The Pac-10 was interested in Texas and Colorado. Some reports said Texas wanted to take A&M along instead of Colorado. The Pac-10 thing fell apart, with some rumors saying Stanford was opposed. Meanwhile Texas A&M and Houston were pursuing the SEC. The Big Ten wasn’t an option for Texas because they had put a moratorium on expansion after taking Penn State. Supposedly, Texas turned down the SEC because they didn’t have enough commitment to academics.

—The Big Eight was afraid of losing teams if they didn’t do something to get a better TV deal. There was concern about Colorado going to the Pac-10, Missouri going to the Big Ten, and/or Oklahoma leaving for the SEC. In addition to the SWC schools, BYU was seen as an expansion candidate.

—The Big Eight and all of the SWC schools but one were interested in a full merger. The one school that opposed it was Texas. After examining the political scene in Texas, the UT President told the Big Eight who ought to be part of the new conference. Texas Tech and Baylor had a lot of influential alums in the legislature and executive branch. Contrary to popular believe, Baylor alum Governor Ann Richards didn’t play much of a role at all.

—The Big 12 was considered a new conference rather than a continuation of the Big Eight. The SWC commissioner and administration essentially took over, moving the conference office to Dallas.

—The Big 12 trademarked “Big 14” and considered adding BYU and New Mexico. Louisville and Memphis would have been the top candidates if we expanded to 16 teams.

This year's road trip had my wife and I meandering soutwest from Ames to Malvern and back...375 miles in exactly 12 hours. I've had a gift certificate to Classic Cafe in Malvern burning a hole in my pocket for the past 3 years, and yesterday was the day we chose to cash it in. 375 miles is a long way to drive for a tenderloin, but hey, times are tough, and a free meal is a free meal 😁

We hit 36 towns in 10 counties. I wave to everyone, so I might have waved to one of you as I was driving by. We were in:

Boone, Ogden, Minburn, Dallas Center, Panora, Guthrie Center, Casey, Greenfield, Fontanelle, Bridgewater, Massena and Lyman;

Grant, Stanton, Red Oak, Emerson, Hastings, Malvern, Elliot, Griswold, Lewis, Atlantic, Brayton and Exira;

Hamlin, Audubon, Dedham, Coon Rapids, Bayard, Bagley, Jamaica, Dawson, Perry, Luther, Napier and Ames.

Counties traveled: Story, Boone, Dallas, Guthrie, Adair, Cass, Montgomery, Mills, Audubon, Carroll.

Observations:
--Lots of tall corn in SW Iowa, especially in the river bottoms, but corn of all sizes looked great all along the way. Some of the biggest corn I saw was between Atlantic and Audubon. Lots of standing water in many counties from last week's rain. I think I only saw one planter running yesterday over all those miles.

--It was the first time I had driven Hwy 25 through Adair County. What a beautiful drive...I had no idea the county was so hilly and suitable for cow-calf production. It was sunny and clear yesterday, and the lush green hills were covered with cows and young calves enjoying the warm sunshine. Nice! Of course, there were many more cow herds to see as I continued southwest.

--My wife was bummed...one of the reasons we headed to Panora was so she could go to the old Five and Dime downtown. But we found out it is closed and is now a boutique and outdoor power equipment store. The world needs one more boutique . My wife loves old-time drug stores and five-and-dimes, and this store was a favorite. So if your town has one, let me know. We will likely come visit.

--Panora and Guthrie Center are beautiful communities though. Going to bring my granddaughter to the little historical village in Panora someday (and the ones in Greenfield and Manning, too).

--We stopped by the original Freedom Rock on Hwy 25. We had just featured Ray Sorensen in our latest issue of Our Iowa. Ray "Bubba" was out painting the finishing touches on this year's edition. It was such a nice day, lots of people were stopping by. I visited with one motorcycle group from Colorado...they were Iraqi War veterans and stopped to pay their respects. I thanked them for their service before we headed out, and one of them offered to snap my wife's and my picture by the rock. This group was on its way to a veterans gathering in Illinois this weekend.

--Made our way to Malvern in Mills County. Saw the remains of Mulholland Grocery and Meat Market that burned down last winter...that place was quite an institution. Anyone know what new business they are building on the north end of Malvern? A new grocery by chance? Our destination for the day...Classic Cafe....was jam-packed with customers over the noon hour. Had a great meal....as good as advertised! I had to try the tenderloin, of course.

--Headed back northeast. Stopped at a pretty little country cemetery south of Griswold...wanted to touch base with some folks we know buried there, and it was a first-time visit. Went into Griswold...what a nice, clean little community. And it appears they still maintain their own school district? The school facilities looked very well-kept and modern.

--From there we headed to Lewis for our last stop of the day to tour the George Hitchcock Underground Railroad House outside of town. Quite a piece of Iowa history...well worth the $5 each for our one-hour tour. What history those old sandstone walls of the home hold.

--I lied...one last stop at Micky D's in Perry for chocolate shakes on our way back to Ames.

This concludes your tour...thanks for coming along. No charge, and tipping is not necessary.

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Going through stored boxes preparing for a city wide garage sale, our first since moving to Sgt Bluff in Dec of 2016. I'm sure we all have piles of old Cyclone material and I do remember promising some old football programs to Paul Clark. But we moved and they were stored away. Anyway, I'm not sure what I want to do with all my collected memorabeilia. I already have quite a bit displayed in my "man cave" area but not enough wall space or approval from the boss for more. I have newspaper articles, football and wrestling programs, newsletters ,etc. I haven't come across the old fb programs yet but know they are here, some dating back to 1971. I think the most prized possessions I've come across today is a Newspaper article from the '92 upset over Nebraska and the cardboard wrestling match placard from the Big O's victory over Lou Banach. I even kept the scores of each match on it which included Jim Gibbons big win over Randy Lewis by medical default when Randy's elbow was dislocated when bracing for a landing. They obviously have a place in my heart but don't think my boy's would appreciate them. I'm not 100% positive I could give them up unless I knew they were going someplace where they could be displayed and appreciated. I realize this may not be possible but maybe Bill or some of you connected posters would have an idea. Or Paul if he's still listening. I promised the fb programs to you so they are yours when I locate them if you still want them. I think it would be cool for someone like Paul, Bill or a poster to set-up Cyclone Report tailgate once a year for posters to meet and look at these type of collections. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Dear subscribers, we have received several complaints about off-topic content on our forums. We will continue to move off-topic threads, particularly those about political and social issues of the day, to our off-topic forum. Those that post those here on the ISU Confidential board are subject to being blacklisted. Per our terms of service, CycloneReport is not responsible, nor do we endorse, the content posted by our subscribers. We will do our best to make sure this forum remains ON-TOPIC, about Iowa State athletics and college sports.

One more thing... from now on, if a post has to do with college sports, let’s go ahead and put it on the ISU Confidential board. I know that was a little bit of a gray area, as far as being on-topic or off-topic. If that particular post ends up turning political, myself or Chester90 will move it to the OT board.

Thanks!

Was by myself yesterday so went to Boulders after the game to watch more basketball and have a beer. My side of the bar was almost all open and i had 3 open seats to my left and right. Here comes a father with three boys heading to the open seats. As i look up and offer to move over i know its an x ISU player, but for the life of me i cant think of his name. So, i ask and its Klay Edwards. 5 minutes later, i look up and recognize a face across the bar by the entrance. I turn to Klay and say if i didnt know better id say that looks like JC Holloway. Klay gets his attention and JC sits down on my other side. The next 10 minutes while they were waiting to get a table i was in bball heaven mostly listening to these two discuss families old times and bball. JC had some or all of his garden city H.S. bball staff with him. Oh, and he has 7 kids now. Wow

What great gentlemen and fine cyclones.

Below is the link for Tuesday night's live chat for the Iowa State vs. Kansas State basketball game, commencing around 6:00 PM central time. Our chats stay troll free and jackwagon free for as long as you all do not share the link beyond this premium forum. We ask that you use your CR.com screen name as your chat room user name as well. Thanks!



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