By Cyote Williams | Times Vedette
College football made its triumphant return this week. While I still think it’s ludicrous that so many games are played at seemingly random days of the week instead of exclusively on Saturdays, the beginning of the season did give us arguably the biggest upset of the year already. UMass, which didn’t win a game last season — and hasn’t beat an FBS school since 2023 or beat a power conference school since 1978 — smoked Rutgers, 37-21.
What makes that even worse for Rutgers is the school paid UMass $1.55 million to play against them. It’s something larger colleges frequently do to convince smaller (worse) programs to essentially guarantee them a win. Well, even as a 29.5-point favorite, Rutgers got absolutely humiliated. The victory will stick in the minds of the fans of both teams forever. It brought back some of my favorite college football memories from over the years.
My first remembrances of college football are from ISU games my stepdad took me to when I was younger and he and my mom first started dating. I have plenty of memories of those games, but none sticks out more than watching Todd Blythe, one of the team’s best-ever players, snatch a game winner with one hand to beat Toledo in triple overtime.
Ask most any Cyclone football fan, and they can tell you where they were the night a middling ISU team blew up the BCS system, defeating No. 2 Oklahoma State in one of the most heralded upsets of all time. OSU clobbering the Clones seemed like a foregone conclusion, a quick stop on their way to the national title game. Brandon Weedon, a Heisman favorite, would surely pick apart ISU’s defense. He didn’t. An electric Jack Trice stadium proved to be too much for the Cowboys, and ISU running back Jeff Woody will never be forgotten by fans. That win resulted in fans storming the field, and it was my favorite college football moment of all time.
ISU pulled off another gargantuan upset, this time against No. 4 TCU. The Cyclones were ranked No. 25 heading into this game, so not quite the same earth-shattering upset as the one against OSU but a major one, nonetheless. Early in the Matt Campbell era, this game showed what the team was capable of doing. I vividly remember when ISU picked off TCU with 1:17 left in the game. An older Cyclone fan looked at my friends and me and said, “You better get down there,” seemingly knowing the field storming was coming. It was great advice. My friends and I high-tailed it from our seats and were on the field in what seemed like an instant.
The date of that game was Oct. 28, and my friends and I went out for Halloween parties immediately after. You can imagine how college students in Ames were behaving after a huge upset during Halloween.
Matt Campbell’s reign in the year’s following provided even more great memories. Sure, there were some bad ones, too. It’s almost a requirement for ISU sports to have some disappointments baked in. But focusing on the positives that stick out: the Fiesta Bowl win over Oregon; a win over No. 3 Oklahoma in Norman the same year as the TCU win; and ISU’s 10-win season in 2024.
This new season under Jimmy Rogers provides another opportunity for memories to become logged into my mind. The same goes for Hawkeye and Panther fans, and whichever team you support. I’m excited, and I hope you are, too.
Have a favorite college football memory of your own? Reach out to tell me, or give me any comments, suggestions or story ideas at cyote@dmcityview.com.