November 21, 2009, 5:07 PM: The second-to-last time the words “IowaSt.” would appear on a scoreboard at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri.
Iowa State at Missouri 2009 was, at the time we left the stadium (and went to see the ISU volleyball team play Missouri right after), just another game in a series dating back a century. But that was going to change.
Two weeks after this game, Nebraska lost the Big 12 championship to Texas on a controversial last-second field goal. Days later, the Big Ten Conference announced it would be exploring expansion. Conferencepocalypse I had begun — and Missouri was unhappy — and this game contributed to it.
How? Even though Missouri had a better record, the Insight Bowl selected Iowa State. The Cyclones beat Minnesota in what to date is the latest-scheduled bowl game (5 PM CST on New Year’s Eve) in team history. Because it aired on NFL Network, it’s also one of the lowest-TV-rated bowl games ever, possibly even the lowest. Missouri was pushed down the pecking order to the Texas Bowl, where it lost to Navy.
In a piece that appears to exist now only on my hard drive, the Kansas City Star‘s Mike DeArmond blogged:
If the Big Ten calls, Missouri WILL listen and with an enthusiastic ear.
I’ve been told exactly that by numerous sources close to and within Mizzou. …
Could the situation within the Big 12 Conference be any worse that three years running the Missouri football team being publicly slighted by being sent to a lower bowl than it has earned?
Missouri, of course, did not go to the Big Ten. But then Conferencepocalypse II happened, Oklahoma decided it needed to show it was just as desired as Texas (again), and Missouri got scared (again) of being condemned to a Conference of Misfit Toys. It followed Texas A&M into the welcoming embrace of the Southeastern Conference, where all the teams love each other equally and there’s absolutely no favoritism whatsoever.
Saturday, Missouri will be hosting Tennessee on a game carried by SEC Network. Rivalries that started closer to the Louisiana Purchase than the present day have been buried for nearly a decade. Iowa State, after a final visit to Columbia in 2011 — the last ISU football game that was not televised — will never play there again.