Cyclone State: Iowa State’s Backloaded Big 12 Schedule

Iowa State was criticized this week by some (salty) Iowa fans for treating Cy-Hawk like our Super Bowl. It was a goofy thing—what has Iowa football accomplished in the last ten years that Iowa State hasn’t—but to be fair, it is a Super Bowl of sorts. Iowa State fans don’t need to be ashamed of that. Pretending the gap between ISU and Iowa is wide enough that we shouldn’t care? Pretending we’re so superior that we were assured of victory, and that this is comparable to beating UNI? That’s the sort of unwarranted arrogance we expect from the other side of the rivalry. That’s a charade so delusional I’m not sure it could be maintained.

The truth is, Iowa State trails Iowa in the broader Cy-Hawk picture. Iowa’s athletic department is stronger than Iowa State’s right now. Matt Campbell’s built this football program to an annual level comparable to that of the Hawkeyes, but he’s struggled to beat them. The all-sports Cy-Hawk Series goes back and forth, but Iowa keeps winning in wrestling, Iowa has the edge in football, and Caitlin Clark gave Iowa a major women’s basketball presence for the last few years. Only in men’s basketball does Iowa State enjoy superiority in national perceptions, and even there, the transition from Steve Prohm to T.J. Otzelberger was accompanied by an unfortunate Hawkeye surge. Iowa State is a perpetual underdog in wrestling and women’s hoops. The Cyclones need to more than hold our own in football for men’s hoops to be enough to tip the scales.

In the more immediate sense, winning the Cy-Hawk Game redefines the rest of the season. Start 1–1 (or 0–2, as has sometimes been done), and the rest of the year feels like a consolation prize, one with little margin for error. Start 2–0, and everything’s in front of you. In a bolstered Big Ten, Iowa’s in danger of missing a bowl game. In a tightly packed Big 12, Iowa State is thinking conference championship and playoff berth.

We don’t have Big 12 tiebreakers built into our college football model yet, so I’m going to focus more on the playoff piece of this than the conference title piece. The overall conference championship probabilities should be fairly accurate, but I’m worried the specific correlations between winning individual games and winning the Big 12 might be a little bit awry.

Here is every remaining Iowa State regular season game, Iowa State’s probability of winning it, and Iowa State’s probability of making the playoff based on the result. One note: These probabilities are all independent of each other. When we say the Cyclones are 13% likely to make the playoff if they beat Baylor and 2% likely to make it if they lose, we’re not considering how Iowa State did against Arkansas State or Houston.

Nothing on here should be too surprising, but there are a few things to note:

1. Three Games Left as an Underdog

This might change. The KU and UCF probabilities hover close to 50%, and the Big 12 Championship would likely feature an underdog Cyclone team were they to make it. (Making it as the second-place team is likelier than making it as the first-place team.) For right now, though, the visit from K-State and the trips to Morgantown and Salt Lake City are the biggest tests facing Iowa State.

The West Virginia angle might be surprising. Subjectively, we’d say that’s likelier to change than some of the others. Movelor, our model’s rating system, is impressed more by WVU’s performance last season than betting markets are. Movelor has the Mountaineers favored by 7.5 points in Pittsburgh this weekend. Bettors have that spread at 1. Still, if the ISU/WVU game were played today, indications hold that West Virginia would be the favorite. The question is how big a favorite they would be.

It’s heartening that the Utah trip isn’t looking like a guaranteed loss. 28% is better than 1-in-4. Cam Rising’s hand should be healthy by then, and so much season can play out along the way (our model does account for this), but from where we stand right now, that’s a game it’s believable the Cyclones can win.

2. Farmageddon Could Be Massive

The West Virginia game exhibits lower playoff leverage (i.e., a smaller gap between Iowa State’s playoff probability with a win and with a loss) than the Kansas State game. There are two reasons for this:

The first is about what quality of loss each would be. All things equal, it’s better to lose on the road than at home. Also, because our model is adjusting teams’ ratings based on their results in each simulation, simulations in which Iowa State loses to WVU are simulations where WVU has a better season, probably ending the year in the top 25 themselves. A ranked road loss shouldn’t derail too many playoff-contending teams if it happens in isolation. A 10–3 Iowa State who lost at West Virginia and Utah then lost again in the Big 12 Championship? Probably not making the playoff. An 11–2 Iowa State whose only losses came in Morgantown and Arlington? That’s a possible playoff team.

The second is about what the win or loss would mean for the opponent. Kansas State is one of the Big 12 favorites. West Virginia isn’t. If Iowa State beats West Virginia, it’s great for Iowa State but doesn’t pull any contenders downward. If Iowa State beats Kansas State, Kansas State is a lot less likely to make the Big 12 title game. This is true of the Utah game as well, but the Utah game isn’t as winnable, at least from what we know right now.

3. An 8 or 9-win Season Is the Likeliest Result

We know this, but it’s worth acknowledging: Even after beating Iowa, Iowa State’s likeliest 12-game outcome is an 8–4 record. That means a .500 record in conference play. We said the Big 12 is tightly packed, and we meant it. After Arizona State’s win last night, twelve of the conference’s sixteen teams are projected to finish the season at least 6–6 overall. None are projected to finish the year better than 9–3. That’ll change tonight if K-State takes care of business against Arizona, but even then, the Wildcats would only project to go 6–2 in the Big 12. (K-State/Arizona is technically a non-conference game.)

4. Cincinnati Is the Biggest Must-Win

Depending where you draw the line, every game looks like a must-win right now for playoff inclusion. That’ll clarify more as the wins hopefully stack up, but at the moment, losing to Cincinnati would be more impactful than losing to Arkansas State. Cincinnati’s the better team, but that’s the easiest Big 12 win, and Big 12 wins count more than nonconference wins. An at-large bid is possible, but an automatic bid is the more probable playoff route.

5. A 5–0 Start?

It happens in 51% of our simulations. If the Cyclones get that far, the playoff probability goes up to 17%. Go on to win in Morgantown, and that number jumps to 31% with two home games ahead.

The schedule is backloaded, and while that doesn’t come close to guaranteeing Iowa State starts 10–0 or anything like that (that’s only 7% likely), it does make for a strong possibility the Cyclones are at least in the Big 12 race going into the final two weeks of the regular season. Iowa State starts conference play 5–2 or better in an even 50% of our simulations. Whether it’s a storybook season or a near miss, there’s a very good chance of late-season relevance. That’s what you get when you beat Iowa to start the year.

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We’ll get back to the shorter-term picture next week, having learned something about Arkansas State from the Red Wolves’ trip to Ann Arbor this weekend. In the meantime…

Which Direction Is ISU Volleyball Headed?

Wrestling may be more important within the state of Iowa, but nationally, no lower-money sport Iowa State plays commands more attention than volleyball. College volleyball continues to grow as an industry. It’s not football or basketball, but it’s an emerging medium-money sport. Volleyball is a big deal.

It’s a big deal, then, to be good at volleyball, and under Christy Johnson-Lynch, Iowa State’s consistently fielded strong teams. Only three times in Johnston-Lynch’s 19-year tenure have the Cyclones missed the NCAA Tournament. Only once have they finished with a losing record, and that was in the shortened 2020 season. Still, it’s been twelve years now since the program reached the Sweet 16, and the same twelve years since the Cyclones lost fewer than ten games.

As college volleyball rises, is it passing Iowa State by?

It’s a little early to tell what this year’s team will be. Picked to finish sixth in the Big 12, the team has maybe slightly underachieved expectations so far, but not by enough to start flashing warning lights. The losses came to Illinois and UNLV, neither of whom is even receiving votes right now in national polls. But the Illini are 6–0, and the UNLV loss came in Las Vegas. Beyond those games, ISU’s taken care of business, beating projected middle-of-the-ACC Wake Forest at home and comfortably handling an Iowa team Wednesday night who was picked to finish 18^th in the Big Ten.

The encouraging thing for the program is that it can still land players like Nayeli Gonzalez, a sophomore outside hitter from San Antonio who was the lone freshman (or sophomore!) to earn First Team All-Big 12 honors last year. It’s also encouraging that Iowa State retained Gonzalez against a growing transfer portal/NIL market.

Right now, though, the team is aimed at the bubble, and ending that Sweet 16 drought still seems like a proposition a year in the distance. Volleyball’s a sport where programs cycle in and out of power, more like basketball than football in terms of year-to-year turnover at the top. It’s also still small enough that national powers aren’t out of reach. But the danger of missing the tournament is present, and the drought looms large. It would be a shame to have built a strong ship only to fail to capitalize on the rising tide.

This weekend, Iowa State’s in Vermillion for a round-robin against South Dakota, UTEP, and Montana State. It’s on South Dakota’s home floor, but UTEP might be the toughest competition. The Cyclones should be the favorites in all three.