By Cyote Williams | Times Vedette
With summer sports in the rearview, and still a few weeks until fall sports get started, I have had the chance to run a little wild with this column. Soon enough, this column will be back to focusing on Panorama and ACGC. Until then, here are my thoughts on Iowa State University’s football team and Head Coach Matt Campbell.
I have fond memories of Iowa State sports growing up. Not a lot of them are about winning. Even though I am on the younger side, it is easy for me to remember a time when ISU was on the losing side of just about every sport. Sure, there was the odd upset and special moment here and there. But, for the most part, watching ISU was less about the product on the field and more about enjoying the company around you.
My earliest Cyclone football memory is of Todd Blythe’s one-handed grab in the back of the endzone to help defeat Toledo in triple overtime, 45-43. See the highlight HERE at 2:53. I was lucky enough to see this in person. Young me was convinced that Blythe was the greatest wide receiver ever and that ISU had a great football team. I was wrong on both accounts, but I was hooked for life.
That was 2006, and Iowa State went 4-8 that year. Paul Rhodes took over soon after. You might remember his “I am so proud, to be your football coach,” speech after ISU upset then No. 2 Oklahoma State, blowing up the BCS. It was an all-time moment. ISU is incredible at creating moments, but, as I said, not creating winning seasons. ISU went 6-7 that year, losing its bowl game.
A few years later, Matt Campbell steps in. The start was rough, 3-9 overall. What followed were back-to-back 8-5 seasons and a Liberty Bowl win. In 2020, despite a season strained by the pandemic, Iowa State made its first NY6 bowl game, the Fiesta Bowl, beating Oregon. In just a few short years, Campbell had turned ISU into a team where a bowl game appearance — not even a win, just an appearance — was seen as a major accomplishment.
Last season was easily the most successful in modern times, and, arguably, in the team history. The Cyclones won 11 games and the Pop Tarts Bowl against Miami, who had No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward at quarterback. It was an absolute shootout from start to finish, 42-41. A great moment. And, also, a great win.
That, to me, has been the biggest difference between Campbell and the other ISU coaches I have seen in my lifetime. The staff he has been able to keep, develop or hire continues to bring results. He finds diamond-in-the rough recruits and has started to attract more blue-chip prospects. He also helps get them into the NFL. And, most importantly, his teams win. Campbell’s 64 wins are the most in program history — one of the many records he has broken while being head coach
Coach Campbell’s coaching success has his name in the rumor mill every offseason, whether it be to join one of college football’s big dogs or the NFL. Nevertheless, Campbell stays put. He recently signed an extension to the tune of $5 million a year that will keep him in Ames until 2032. While $5 million is a good of reason to stay anywhere, Campbell can earn it, and plenty more, at bigger programs. He even took a pay cut during COVID so other sports programs did not have to experience cuts to their coaching staffs.
This reminds me of another college football coach in the state: Kirk Ferentz. Ferentz, quite frankly, is boring. His style of play. The teams’ colors. His press conferences. All of it. Boring. But Ferentz wins games, develops pro-talent, and he sticks around. If Campbell stays at ISU as long as Ferentz has at Iowa, the tide will eventually shift away from the Hawkeyes being the more recognizable football school in this state.
I’m not an ISU donor, but if I was, I would be asking Jamie Pollard if there is a plan to build a Matt Campbell statue in the works sometime soon.
Reach out with comments, complaints, story ideas and more to cyote@dmcityview.com