Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

With only two hits!

There is one more game (substate) before the state tournament. North Tama has never played in Sec Taylor Stadium.

Stewart Mandel revisits his medieval college football pecking order and…well, duh.

Peasants: Arizona, Baylor, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Duke, Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa State, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, Mississippi State, North Carolina, Northwestern, Rutgers, Temple, USF, Wake Forest, Washington State and Vanderbilt.

What’s noticeable at the bottom of the football pecking order is how many good basketball schools there are. And by good, I mean bluest of the blue-bloods. Let’s eliminate those who have won men’s basketball championships (sorry, Baylor) and the two with very old football championships (Minnesota and yes, even mid-19th-century Rutgers).

Who’s left? Baylor, Iowa State, Mississippi State, Northwestern, Temple, USF, Wake Forest, Washington State, Vanderbilt. Five Four small private universities, one that didn’t play in Division I-A until the 21st century, one whose football team was so bad it got kicked out of the Big East, and the three poorest Little Brothers in the country. We should get together and sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”.

EDIT: Temple is in that nebulous not-private-but-not-quite-public category that Penn State is in. So I swapped in a note about Temple’s unique awfulness.

Last week SBNation calculated the “greatest” sports states by historical winning records of the pro and major-college teams that played in those states. Iowa is the, um, least greatest — one-thousandth of a point behind Missouri and two-thousandths behind Illinois. (The 1990s Chicago Bulls were no match for the 19-everything-except-the-90s Northwestern.)

Iowa, you have the Hawkeyes, who have been decent at football and basketball for a long time. But you also have Iowa St., which has been pretty bad for over a century (basketball is .495 over 105 years, football is .450 over 114 years). From what I’ve seen, it’s somewhat rare for such a not-good program in a major conference to have been around for so long.

We’re tenacious! Considering how close Iowa State has been to not being in a major conference during this decade, I’ll take the “rarity” designation.

Historical note: The author did not included the 1949-50 Waterloo Hawks. The 19-43 record wouldn’t have helped.

This is a timed post.

David Ubben, who as ESPN’s Big 12 blogger doesn’t do Iowa State any favors, isn’t saying anything wrong in his ranking of football coaching jobs. It’s just that when you look at the aggregate like this, the bleakness really shows through.

10. Iowa State: Iowa State holds the distinction of being the only truly “little brother” program in its own state, and that lands it at the bottom of our list. ISU is way north in the Big 12, and in a state that has little football talent. Best of luck convincing top Texas talents to sign up for Iowa winters. Feign offense at the “little brother” tag, but Iowa has 11 conference titles, 22 consensus All-Americans and a Heisman Trophy. Iowa State has two titles, three All-Americans and no Heisman. It’s not close. Iowa’s also won 14 bowl games, compared to three for ISU. That said, Paul Rhoads is doing an unbelievable job in Ames. So did Dan McCarney.

The four toughest head-coaching jobs in college football today are Iowa State, Mississippi State, Washington State, and Oregon State, in that order.

The two conference titles, by the way, are Missouri Valley co-championships from a century ago. Counting them in is generous.

Iowa, by the way, ranks seventh of 12 in the Big Ten.