Saturday’s loss to Texas Tech is yet another case of Iowa State being unable to capitalize on a bye week.<\/p>\n
However, there is a little more to it. Of Iowa State’s Opponents after a bye: 2004 Oklahoma State (bye),\u00a02004 Kansas State (Colorado), 2005 Army (Baylor), 2005 Kansas (bye), 2008 Kansas (bye), 2011 Texas (bye), 2011 Oklahoma State (Texas Tech)<\/em>, 2012 Texas Tech (bye). The Part of this is due to calendar quirks: ISU has generally avoided having a game after Thanksgiving, effectively ending the season a week earlier. This is partly why there were no bye weeks in 2006, 2007, 2009, or 2010. The only post-Thanksgiving home games this century prior to this year were 2001 Iowa (W) and 2004 Missouri (L-OT).<\/p>\n In short, technically you can’t lose to the bye, but in practical terms, it seems like just that.<\/p>\n EDIT 10\/2: The week before last year’s Oklahoma State game was also a bye. This kind of messes with the original premise. However, OSU didn’t have a bye the previous week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saturday’s loss to Texas Tech is yet another case of Iowa State being unable to capitalize on a bye week. However, there is a little more to it. Of Iowa State’s seven eight games after bye weeks in the past … Continue reading seven<\/del> eight games after bye weeks in the past nine seasons, five opponents were also<\/em> playing after a bye week.<\/p>\ntwo<\/del> three teams that didn’t have byes the previous week are, coincidentally or not, ISU’s only victories in that group. In fact, ISU’s five<\/del> six post-bye-week wins since 2000 came against teams that did\u00a0not<\/em> have a bye the previous week, although 2001 Ohio had played on a Thursday.<\/p>\n