(Warning: Long. Or long-winded. Your pick.)
1912 was an important year in the evolution of the game of football. The field was standardized to the length and width it is today, and the value of a touchdown was fixed at six points. It is also the last year Iowa State won a conference championship in football — and half of one, at that.
The Cyclones won their only two “conference” games, if you could call the loose confederation typical of the time a conference; Missouri played five. Nebraska also won its two conference games and shared the title with Iowa State. The two had shared the 1911 crown as well after a tie game.
When Iowa State closed out its last championship season against Drake, Nov. 23, 1912, Nebraska and Oklahoma played each other for the first time that very day. William Howard Taft was president. The U.S. flag had received its 47th and 48th stars five months earlier. Clyde Williams was in his last season as ISU’s coach. Some things and people in college football that didn’t exist the last time Iowa State won a conference championship:
The BCS, ESPN, the Associated Press poll, the Heisman Trophy, the first television broadcast of a college football game, the first radio broadcast of a college football game, overtime, distinctions between Division I-A/I-AA/II/III, goalposts at the back of the end zone, 350-pound linemen, one-game-only uniforms, numbers on jerseys, the spread offense, the option offense, the wishbone offense, Nick Saban, Tom Osborne, Bo Schembechler, Bear Bryant (by 10 months), Keith Jackson (the broadcaster), Keith Jackson (the Oklahoma football player), the Big 6/7/8/12 Conference, the Southwest Conference, the Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Pac-8/10/12 Conference, Big Ten “Leaders” and “Legends,” nearly 80% of Michigan’s all-time wins, Fifth Down, “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party,” the ban on use of the name “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party,” the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, Cotton Bowl Stadium, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Memorial Stadium (Nebraska), Memorial Stadium (Illinois), Memorial Stadium (Kansas), Kinnick Stadium, Nile Kinnick, Johnny Lujack, Barry Sanders, Herschel Walker, Ernie Davis, “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29,” “Dixie’s Last Stand,” and any game nicknamed “Game of the Century.”
This year, the pundits profess two things about the Big 12 Conference: They have no idea who’s actually going to win, but whoever it is will not be Iowa State or Kansas.
Same song, 101st verse. To put it in the currency of the Internet, cat pictures, ISU striving for the next level ends up looking something like this.
For the first time since 2009-10, the Big 12 has the same lineup of teams two years running. For the time being, at least, the specter of relegation isn’t looming over the university. Iowa State may be playing the role of Sisyphus, eternally pushing a boulder up a hill only to see it get away, but after two close calls this Sisyphus is glad to have the chance to push.
Somewhere out there are parallel universes where both Tony Yelk’s kick in Shreveport and Seneca Wallace’s goal-line dive in Kansas City are ruled good, the 2004 and 2005 division races don’t come down to missed field goals, and Dan McCarney has reached nearly Bill Snyder-esque levels of awe and respect; where John Cooper doesn’t stay at Tulsa to coach his son; where Woody Hayes doesn’t lose his mind and cause Ohio State to hire Earle Bruce; where ISU is up and Nebraska and/or Oklahoma is down at precisely the same time; where ISU and Iowa played an uninterrupted 20th-century rivalry that didn’t restart as the two teams’ fortunes diverged wildly; or even just where Iowa’s population didn’t stagnate and thus offered more talent in the back yard. Not all of those items directly affected conference titles, but taken in aggregate they can be the difference between a narrative of success breeding success and having a “bad century.”
Iowa State is the toughest job in college football, if not all of college sports, for reasons including but going far beyond the team’s 100-year drought. Its current head coach remains one failed two-point conversion pass in overtime away from a perfectly mediocre regular-season record yet/and/but has a loving fanbase. Hope has not always been in abundant supply in Ames, so when it’s there, it’s a crop to be cultivated wisely.
The boulder is heavy and the hill is steep, but Iowa State is going to keep pushing.