Will Pollard get his $25,000 worth from his criticism of Big 12?

Bob Bowlsby had no choice, and Jamie Pollard knew what he was going to get.

You can't do what Iowa State athletic director Pollard did Saturday after Iowa State's football game at Oklahoma State. Oh, you can, but it makes the Big 12 Conference office seethe and it makes you look petty and a little bit weird to the nation. And, it gets you a $25,000 fine to go with a dressing-down from Big 12 commissioner Bowlsby.

Of course, the nation isn't as familiar with previous apologies to ISU from the league and games that got negatively affected by football and basketball officiating calls that weren't all they could have been.

What prompted Pollard's outburst was the overturning of a call near the end of the first half of the ISU-OSU game in which an apparent Cyclone defensive stop on 4th-and-goal was overruled by replay, and a touchdown was awarded to the Cowboys.

That gave Oklahoma State a 13-6 lead on its way to a 37-20 win.

The Iowa State point-of-view is that there wasn't the clear video proof required to overrule it. But the Big 12 has issued no such apology this time, and is standing by the call.

Pollard did the near-impossible Saturday by getting Iowa State national attention on a day when so many compelling games were played across the nation, and none of them in Stillwater, Okla. But it wasn't good attention.

'We've been on the short end of some controversial calls and it's hard to sit idle and watch ESPN, Fox, other announcers not debate, but to feel sorry for Iowa State because maybe there will be another apology for a call,” Pollard said. 'Coach (Paul) Rhoads and I have tried to deal with that internally and have tried to do it the right way. But it's no longer fair to put our student-athletes, our coaching staff and our fans in that position.”

Yes, a lot of ISU people are glad he sounded off. Yes, a lot of ISU current and former players are glad he sounded off.

'I'm privileged to have a boss that passionate about this athletic department and university,” Rhoads said Monday. 'All our student-athletes know what kind of man they have leading them. I'm appreciative of that.”

But you can't do what Pollard did and not sound bizarre, because the rest of the nation isn't totally dialed in to your past grievances. And, oh yeah, your 1-4 team just lost by 17 points instead of one score.

And you can't say this:

'We lost games as a result of calls that either we were apologized for or the media certainly felt we should have been apologized to. We can't get that back. That ends careers for football coaches, ADs and presidents and so something's got to be done.”

If you're trying to win the hearts and minds of anyone beyond your own fan base, you won't do it by complaining about how questionable calls affects coaches, athletic directors, and university presidents?

Pollard is nobody's fool, though. He had almost two hours between the time of the call-reversal he didn't like and his remarks to the media. He knew what the fallout would be, knew how the league would receive it, knew how the world-at-large would react to it. He decided it was worth it, to send a 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more” message.

Many in the non-ISU camp think it was designed to deflect attention from a football team that is 1-4 and has won just six of its last 25 games. I appreciate well-placed cynicism, but it doesn't fit here. People have short-attention spans, but they aren't that short. The 1-4 mark doesn't suddenly become forgotten.

No, I think it was the AD knowing he has a lot of frustrated and fed-up fans, coaches and athletes, and he chose that moment to be a populist, to be the voice for the voiceless regardless of the fallout. He works for Iowa State, not the Big 12 or the national media.

But sometimes you're just on the wrong side of an officiating decision and there's nothing sinister behind it. Sometimes it happens two, three, maybe four times in a row on critical calls or non-calls that you vividly remember.

If the Big 12 were guilty of consciously sticking it to Iowa State whenever possible, it would be one of the most illogical and incredible college sports stories of all-time.

But it would make for a heck of a '30 for 30” film, wouldn't it?