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With Big Rally, Near-Miss Against Powerful Florida State, Cyclones Prove They Deserve to Be Ranked Among Nation's Top 25 Teams |
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RON MALY Vol 2, No. 51, Kansas City, Mo. – My telephone rang early this morning. "So which team made a statement?’’ the guy asked. Without hesitation, I said, "Iowa State made the statement. Dan McCarney and his players showed that they’re capable of playing with the big boys.’’ After the Cyclones’ near-miss Saturday night against a Florida State team that was ranked third in the Associated Press preseason rankings and fourth in the coaches’ poll, I say they deserve to be at least in the top 25. Maybe even the top 20. I also think people in the school’s publicity department have no need to cancel the www.gosenecago.com website. Those critics who were laughing about Iowa State quarterback being mentioned as a Heisman Trophy candidate have no reason to be doing that now.Wallace still isn’t being mentioned in the same breath as such players as Heisman hopefuls Rex Grossman of Florida, Ken Dorsey of Miami and Byron Leftwich of Marshall, but he showed those sitting in Arrowhead Stadium and a national TV audience that he’s a talented quarterback. Wallace completed 22 of 33 passes for 313 yards and two touchdowns in the Cyclones’ 38-31 loss in the Eddie Robinson Classic. He threw an interception that resulted in a 48-yard touchdown by Florida State’s Alonzo Jackson, but it was Wallace as much as anyone who put the Cyclones in position to perhaps pull off the biggest victory in school history. Wallace thought he scored on the next-to-last play of the game. A touchdown then would have given Iowa State the opportunity to win with a subsequent two-point conversion, or send the game into overtime with an extra point. Wallace then came up a yard short on the game’s final play. So impressive were the Cyclones after Florida State, a 22-point favorite, stormed to a 24-0 lead that Seminoles Coach Bobby Bowden said, "I feel like we lost this game.’’ Iowa State kept Bowden’s blood pressure sky-high until he was finally able to claim career victory No. 324—which sent him past Bear Bryant and behind only Joe Paterno (327) in the Division I-A derby.
People who know college football have obviously noticed what McCarney has done in the past two seasons. Only 22 of the nation’s 115 NCAA Division I-A schools had a better record than Iowa State’s 16-8. Those people saw that McCarney’s 2000 team went 9-3 and beat Pittsburgh in the Insight.com Bowl. They saw that his 2001 team went 7-5 and came within a missed field goal of jolting Alabama in the Independence Bowl. Those same people probably let Iowa State’s brutal 2002 schedule mask the fact that McCarney has the makings of another very good team. Sure, I still think they’ll probably lose when they confront those tough road assignments later in the season at Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas State and Colorado, but I also continue to feel that this team will beat Nebraska, have an 8-5 regular-season record and go to a third consecutive bowl game. I think the Cyclones deserved more recognition than being put in the "others recieving votes’’ category of the coaches’ poll. They received 22 votes. They certainly deserved more than what they got in the AP poll, which was nothing. No votes. No mention. No sense. The polls mean absolutely nothing at this point in the season, when most teams haven’t even played a game. But I know I’d like the Cyclones’ chances against Michigan State, which is ranked No. 18 by the coaches and the AP. I’d also like their chances against Marshall, Louisville and Penn State, other teams in the top 25. Speaking of the rankings, Iowa State has never beaten a team rated as high as No. 3. On a much more sour note, the Cyclones have now lost 30 consecutive games to ranked teams. But McCarney, always the optimist, feels the day is coming when that streak will end. "There is so much character on this team now,’’ he said. "They deserve to get one of these wins. We played a top-five team and we’re going to have a lot more chances. But there wasn’t any celebrating or high-fiving in the locker room. There’s some maturity about this team—maybe a little more than I thought there was.’’ With Saturday’s Big 12 Conference opener against Kansas (11:30 a.m. at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames) on the horizon, McCarney added that he was "proud of the comeback’’ and the heart of the team. "I feel bad for our team, but we won’t accept losing,’’ he said. "I think we’ve got a chance to have a good team.’’ The 40,000 Iowa State fans among the crowd of 55,132 at Arrowhead Stadium did their best to urge the Cyclones on. Iowa State’s players, both on the field and on the sideline, kept gesturing to the fans to make noise—and those dressed in cardinal-and-gold did their best. "It was unbelievable,’’ McCarney said of the fans. "I’ve been around football for a long time—32 years now in Division I-A—with No. 1 teams, bowl championship teams and Rose Bowl champs. That was about as I’ve seen here.’’ Although plenty of the fans thought Wallace had scored on the game’s next-to-last play, McCarney didn’t immediately agree with them. "I had a real bad seat,’’ he explained. "I’ve got to trust the officials. I couldn’t see it. I tried to see it on the replay and couldn’t....It was a Big Ten officiating crew, and I thought overall they did a real good job. I know it’s one of the top crews out of the Big Ten, and I’ve got to trust their decisions.’’ McCarney said there were "no magic speeches’’ that spurred his players to their huge comeback. "There’s a lot of trust in that locker room from players to players, coaches to coaches and coaches to players,’’ he said. "There is a lot of character on this team.’’ Still, he said, he was "sick to my stomach about losing.’’ Here & There McCarney said he never saw the word "quit’’ in any of his players’ eyes. "I never saw them down—even when it didn’t look real good in the first quarter,’’ he said. "I had a feeling we could play with these (Florida State) guys, and we needed to hang in there and trust the plan.’’....McCarney was pleased with how his newcomers played. "We had three new offensive line starters, a new tight end, a new running back, and JaMaine Billups played the whole game after never playing defense his whole life,’’ McCarney said. The Cyclones’ rushing game has a ways to go. Starting tailback Michael Wagner ran for only 19 yards in eight carries. Hiawatha Rutland, who was No. 1 after spring practice, was the leader with 93 yards in 17 tries. "I thought Hiawatha ran hard, and so did Wags,’’ said McCarney....Craig E. Burroughs of Chicago, who said he has a degree from Iowa State, sat next to me in the Arrowhead Stadium press box. He said he’s planning to write a book about college football, but doesn’t yet have a publisher. "I’m in the process of watching every collegiate football team in America play at least once,’’ he explained. He drives to most of the games. "I’ve put 400,000 miles on my car in the last four years,’’ he said. Burroughs said he’s been turned down just twice for press box credentials to games—one Rose Bowl game and an Oklahoma-Northwestern early-season game a few years ago at Soldier Field in Chicago. "The thing that bothered me about the Northwestern game was that I have a graduate degree from there.’’ After introducing myself to Burroughs, he said, "Oh, sure, I’ve read your stories for many years.’’ Then, after giving me his business card, he said, "Send me an e-mail message sometime, Jack.’’....Everything you want to know about Florida State football is in the school’s press guide. Among those pictured are Clint Purvis, the team chaplain, Nick Menacoff, whose jobs include dormitory supervisor and public address announcing, and Major Billy Smith, who is in charge of protecting Coach Bobby Bowden on the sideline....By the way, Smith, who has guarded Florida State coaches for 39 years, missed his third game since 1964 Saturday night because of an illness.[Ron Maly’s e-mail address is malyr@juno.com ] |