Iowa State football vs. AP ranked teams

Compiled by Jeff Morrison, Iowa Highway Ends (last updated 4/21/22)

The Associated Press poll started in 1936 with 20 teams, shrank down to 10 for a while, and has ranked 25 teams since 1989. Iowa State's performance against these teams is not good (but you already knew that). The win over Oklahoma State in the 2011 season was ISU's first over a team in the top six, although there were two ties in the past.

The first table lists the games ISU has played against AP Top 25 teams chronologically. Below that is a table with the games ISU played as a ranked team. These dates, rankings, and scores are taken from the ISU football media guide. These lists are sortable. Click on the headers to sort. The "@" for an away game is after the team name to help the sort function, although this does not always work perfectly. The Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas games will be split between home and away.

Since the first game against a ranked opponent in 1938 (Oklahoma) through the end of the 2021 season, Iowa State is 27-196-2 (225 games) against ranked opponents. Trends and highlights:

• Iowa State has played a ranked opponent every year 1965-present.
• 2004, 2009, 2013, and 2016 are the only years since 1971 without a top-10 opponent. (Perhaps not coincidentally, the first two were also bowl years.)
• Five weeks in a row vs. ranked opponents in 1973. Five ranked opponents in six games (seven weeks) in 2003. Seven ranked opponents in nine games (ten weeks) in 2011.
• Teams ranked 1-9 account for a bit under half of the total games played against ranked teams (101). This makes more sense when you remember teams weren't ranked 11-25 for decades.
• From 1938 to 2010, Nebraska and Oklahoma accounted for half of the total (88 of 174). The Cornhuskers were ranked when the Cyclones played them every year 1969-2003.
• 18 games have been played against #3s and 19 against #7s.
• ISU has played 14 ranked non-conference opponents not named Iowa. Eight were bowl games.
• The first and second wins against ranked opponents, Missouri and Oklahoma State in 1973, was the only time ISU defeated ranked opponents in consecutive weeks until back-to-back wins against Oklahoma State and West Virginia in 2018.
• ISU has beaten two ranked opponents in six separate years — 1973, 1976, 2005, 2011, 2017, and 2018 — and was 1-1-1 in 1981. 2020 was the first time ISU beat three ranked opponents in one season.
• Any bright spots in this subset of games? Well, if you define "bright" as ".500 or better", ISU is 3-2 against teams ranked #8, 3-2 against teams ranked #22, and 1-1 against Texas Tech and West Virginia.

The inspiration for this came from Matty B Productions, who did the same for Iowa football in a slightly different format. Rankings are from the Associated Press poll at the time of the game.

Iowa State football as an AP ranked team

This list shows results of the 36 games Iowa State played as a ranked team, mostly by AP but with College Football Playoff notes. Entries are duplicated from the above list when both teams were ranked. (Date is date of game, which typically is five days after the poll.) Through the 2021 season:

• Iowa State won its first game as a ranked team, #18 in 1938, and dropped out of the poll the next week. At the time the AP only ranked the top 20. ISU would not be ranked again for 34 years.
• In addition to that drought, ISU also had AP poll droughts of 21 years (1981-2002) and 12 years (2005-17). A future Cyclone born at the end of 1981 would not see a ranked ISU in their lifetime until their junior year ... of college.
• ISU is 27-29-2 as a ranked team, and 4-16-2 in games in which both teams were ranked. Three wins (2002 Nebraska, 2017 TCU, 2020 Oklahoma) were at home; one (2020 Texas) was away.
• ISU has been the higher-ranked team in a game in which the opponent was also ranked seven times, going 3-4. The first two (1972 Missouri, 1976 Oklahoma State) were losses. The third is the 2002 Nebraska game, when ISU was 19th in the AP but 21st in the Coaches Poll, and Nebraska was 19th in the Coaches Poll but 20th in the AP, making it a virtual tossup. The next three were in the 2020 season, and ISU went 2-1 in the set. The most recent is 2021 Iowa, when ISU played its third-ever game as a top-10 team and lost a 9-vs.-10 matchup.
• The tie against Nebraska in 1972 came after ISU missed an extra point kick with 23 seconds remaining.
• ISU was ranked seven polls in a row in 1972, six polls in a row in 1978, and eight polls in a row (seven games) in 2002.
• ISU was ranked 17 polls in a row (nine games) in 2020-21, from the third poll of 2020 to the fourth poll of 2021, which also included three of four all-time top-10 spots to the end of the 2020 season. The start of the 2021 season had two more top-10 spots (don't ask about the rest of it), for a total of six.
• The 2000 postseason poll and 2012 season mangle the poll-drought timeline somewhat, as ISU spent one week in the 2012 coaches poll and the following week in the first BCS standings but did not crack the AP Top 25.
• Polls where Iowa State was ranked, but did not play the week of that poll, are in blue.