December 31, 2009: Insight Bowl, Tempe AZ. Iowa State beat Minnesota 14-13. I thought it could be the start of good years for ISU football; instead, it kind of was a high-water mark of the Rhoads era. It’s hard to believe this was a decade ago — and the 2000 Insight Bowl two decades.
I am on record as believing that if Paul Rhoads could not figure out Iowa State football, no one could. (We can’t know what effects Conferencepocalypse had on his tenure.)
I am on record as being unsatisfied with Matt Campbell’s off-field demeanor, including if not especially the “Team Out East” stuff, and for that matter with his early on-field demeanor.
I am on record as believing in the immutability of Iowa State football as the universe’s plaything — its last conference championship nearly as close to the Louisiana Purchase than the present day — and its saga against a football blue-blood as Sisyphean.
I am on record that I hate hate hate hate hate hate LOATHE wearing outfits that do not represent the cardinal and gold of Iowa State University.
However.
Campbell has led Iowa State to three eight-win seasons, two wins against Oklahoma including the first at home since 1960, a bowl game against Notre Dame, its second and third AP Top 10 rankings ever, its first regular-season finish atop conference standings in modern college football history…
…and now, its best bowl game ever (the 1977 Peach or possibly 2018 Alamo the previous title holders). Iowa State will be playing in the Fiesta Bowl, in a January bowl game. That’s a sentence I never thought I would type.
I can’t argue with that.