Iowa-Iowa State football game is better than what Hawkeyes would get in “Alliance”

News alert: The Internet can mislead.

It may be woefully naive to say this, but I’d bet more Iowa football fans would rather continue playing Iowa State each year after 2025 than not. The ones in the “not” camp, though, seem to blast through computer screens with the heat of Iowa in August and the speed of Tyler Goodson.

The fact Iowa State needs dashing moves of its own to remain in a major conference pleases some in the Hawkeye crowd.

Would the Big 12 becoming a Mountain West Conference of the prairie be a bad thing for one of our three state universities, the city of Ames, and the state in general? Yep. But if you dislike your instate rival enough, you don’t care.

My tribe is superior to your tribe, you know. As if any college sports team or fan base is any different at its core from the next one.

Let’s say the alliance between the Big Ten, ACC and Pacific-12 conferences really happens. Would you truly want Iowa playing one ACC and one Pac-12 team a year at the expense of extending the Iowa State series?

Here’s what you would mostly get if the Hawkeyes were ever part of that three-league alliance: Arizona, Syracuse, Oregon State, Duke …

Here’s what you’d get in light sprinklings at the most: Clemson, USC, Florida State, Oregon …

Clemson has 2035 and 2036 games booked with Oklahoma, by the way. So rule out those years, Iowa.

Clemson isn’t clamoring to play the Hawkeyes. Alabama, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, pick an elite team outside the Big Ten. Have they ever mentioned a dream of one day cementing their reputations as big-time programs by playing Iowa?

You want to ditch Iowa State to play Oregon State or Duke for the Beaver-Hawk or Devil-Hawk Trophy?

When Iowa was playing eight-game Big Ten schedules and 12-game regular seasons from 2000 through 2015, who were the best non-conference teams it scheduled besides occasionally competitive Iowa State?

Kansas State, Arizona State, Arizona, Pittsburgh. Oh, and North Dakota State.

When it’s noted to Hawkeye comment-sectioners that Iowa State finished last season No. 9 in the AP poll and is No. 7 in this season’s preseason poll, that gets tossed aside faster than a face mask after someone leaves a doctor’s office.

It’s just a blip, they say. What happens when Matt Campbell leaves, they ask. They started asking that four years ago.

If Iowa beats Indiana and Iowa State downs Northern Iowa next Saturday, this year’s Iowa-ISU game easily will be the best on paper in the rivalry’s history.

It might even be the unofficial national Game of the Week. That’s knowing Oregon is at Ohio State the same day. The Cyclones handled Oregon in January’s Fiesta Bowl, 34-17.

The Fiesta is one of the College Football Playoff’s New Year’s Six bowls. Iowa State has now won one of those in the last 60 years. That’s pretty slim pickings, right?

OK, so how many highest-level bowls has Iowa won in the last 60 years? One, the Orange in the 2009 season.

Now, the Hawkeyes have done a lot of winning and spent a lot of time in Top 25s over the last four decades. But one major bowl win in 60 years means the Hawkeyes have to do the same thing the Cyclones must to ascend to national-program status. Namely, get to more big stages and win once they’re there.

Beating the No. 7 team on the road would be a big-stage win. The Hawkeyes haven’t won a road game against a team ranked that high since they took down Penn State in 2009.

Adding Iowa to Oklahoma, Texas and Oregon on the list of teams Iowa State has beaten in the last 12 months would be impactful in Ames, to say the least.

Had the Iowa-ISU series not been extended years ago, these two highly regarded teams wouldn’t have this potential blockbuster. Iowa could have played Oregon State or Duke instead. Everyone who would have preferred that is, to be kind, a silly rabbit.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com