The Reaction:
Dammit.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
It’s fair to have missed Mike Rose, and West Virginia’s offense isn’t terrible by any stretch, but Rose shouldn’t have been missed that much. The worst part? 21 second-half points. Uncharacteristic late-game struggles. Now, because of that, a season in flux.
The Big Picture:
Iowa State is no longer in the driver’s seat to make the Big 12 Championship. They’ll likely need to beat Oklahoma in Norman to qualify, otherwise needing two of the three of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Baylor to reach three conference losses, and then likely needing some tiebreaker luck. And that presumes Iowa State will beat Texas and TCU at home and Texas Tech in Lubbock, none of which are sure things.
The season stumbled when the Cyclones couldn’t beat Iowa. It hit the ground hard after the loss in Waco. It was resurrected again with the Oklahoma State win, but just one week later, the Cyclones couldn’t beat West Virginia in Morgantown. Potentially bowl-ineligible West Virginia. And this senior class, which was supposed to do so much, and has done so much, is poised to reach a much lower ceiling than we thought. This is fair—the ceilings we’d hoped for were high, high ceilings. But it’s also sad. Because who knows when the next opportunity this good will come Iowa State’s way? And while the five-straight-bowl-games-for-the-first-time thing is nice, it’s not guaranteed to last.
Relevant Results:
Baylor beat Texas in Waco in a game that, as it turns out, would have really helped ISU had it gone the other way. Another second-half collapse from the Horns, who led by two possessions with as little as twenty minutes of gameplay remaining. Elsewhere in the Big 12, Oklahoma handled Texas Tech, Kansas State handled TCU, and Oklahoma State handled Kansas. Iowa lost badly to Wisconsin, raising again the disappointment of that loss.
Next Week:
Texas comes to Ames on Saturday night. In the race for second in the league, Oklahoma State visits West Virginia and Baylor goes to TCU. Kansas State, potentially in play for that spot if things get really messy (WVU’s also in play in that scenario), plays at Kansas. More and more meaningless Iowa visits Northwestern.
