{"id":11695,"date":"2019-12-27T10:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T16:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=11695"},"modified":"2019-12-23T23:56:50","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T05:56:50","slug":"the-matchup-i-thought-would-never-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2019\/12\/the-matchup-i-thought-would-never-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"The matchup I thought would never happen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11710\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/NDStadiumWork.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/NDStadiumWork.jpg 600w, http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/NDStadiumWork-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><em><strong>October 11, 2015:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.athleticbusiness.com\/stadium-arena\/notre-dame-announces-400m-stadium-expansion.html\">Notre Dame&#8217;s stadium expansion<\/a> includes academic facilities and its first video boards.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I wrote before on this blog that Iowa State <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2012\/09\/its-official-notre-dame-will-never-play-iowa-state\/\">would never play Notre Dame in football<\/a> unless the stars aligned for a bowl game. Well, much like with <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2019\/09\/against-all-odds-gameday-coming-to-iowa-state\/\">&#8220;ESPN College Gameday&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0in Ames, an improbable course of events has resulted in exactly that.<\/p>\n<p>AND I CAN&#8217;T GO. (It is possible I will never be able to attend a bowl game again.) But at least I can watch it on TV, given the kickoff time and lucking out into being on ABC for the second time in three years.<\/p>\n<p>Tonight&#8217;s and tomorrow&#8217;s games, with Iowa playing USC and Iowa State playing Notre Dame, would be the perfect matchups to josh &#8220;Irish Trojan&#8221; Brendan Loy (who graduated from both). But after he ended his blog, we lost contact, and then the 2016 election changed him.<\/p>\n<p>After Saturday, there will be eight teams the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2012\/05\/no-golden-domes-for-clyde-or-jack\/\">Irish have never played<\/a>, three of which are in the Big 12. But now is the Cyclones&#8217; chance, in ISU&#8217;s first Florida bowl game ever, in front of maybe the biggest TV audience since at least the 2011 Oklahoma State game if not ever&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>WITH\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CycloneEQUIP\/status\/1206665372667129856\">BLACK HELMETS<\/a>?!?!?<\/p>\n<p>Sigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>October 11, 2015: Notre Dame&#8217;s stadium expansion includes academic facilities and its first video boards. I wrote before on this blog that Iowa State would never play Notre Dame in football unless the stars aligned for a bowl game. Well, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2019\/12\/the-matchup-i-thought-would-never-happen\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11695"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11719,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11695\/revisions\/11719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}