Cyclones and K-State go to Ireland to take over college football — for a day, anyway

The next weekend without college football will be in 2026.

The next weekend without the SEC and Big Ten in our face, however, is the coming one.

So let’s enjoy what has become a rare and beautiful thing, which is college football’s two oligarchs temporarily on the sidelines. Two Top 25 teams from outside their gated palaces square off on ESPN in the sport’s season-opener. It will be in a time slot (and a time zone) belonging to them and no one else in the college game.

Iowa State and Kansas State get it all started Saturday from Ireland, a most beautiful country. The only green the two teams will see, though, is the 100 yards of turf at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, the home of the Republic of Ireland’s national football team.

That’s soccer to those new to Ireland this week, particularly those who are 4,000 miles or so from their homes in Iowa and Kansas. American football is Saturday’s game of the day in Dublin, with a rivalry almost as old as the city’s football/soccer scraps between the Shamrock Rovers and the Bohemians.

The Bohs and Rovers have been meeting since 1915. The Cyclones and Wildcats have only been going at each other since 1917. They haven’t missed a year in their Farmageddon series since then. Not for world wars, not for a pandemic, not even the Great Railroad Strike of 1922.

Unfortunately, something more powerful than that will put a halt to the streak in 2027. That’s recent conference expansions. The Big 12 has just four protected rivalries, and ISU-KSU isn’t one of them. Sure, the two could meet in the league championship game, but the math says it’s unlikely in a 16-team conference.

As they say in Ireland, never bolt your door with a boiled carrot. So let’s enjoy the here and now. The now, anyway. This game is about 3,900 miles from “here,” if the here is Ames.

Still, the heavy thumbprint of the Big Ten was felt in the last week despite the fact they don’t start playing games until next Thursday. First, the NCAA issued punishment to Michigan for what the NCAA called “a sophisticated and well-sourced operation” to illegally steal opponents’ signs.

That was centered on Jim Harbaugh’s former pal, Connor Stallions, who was given a game ball after the Wolverines’ win over Iowa in the 2022 Big Ten title game.

Harbaugh was assessed a 10-year show-cause penalty, which would seem severe had he not already put Michigan in the rearview mirror to accept gainful employment as the Los Angeles Chargers’ NFL head coach.

The Big Ten borrowed a trick from the book of modern-day American politics by quickly creating a distraction from one of its celebrated football programs getting its reputation damaged. It leaked a story that it’s sending a suggestion up the flagpole for the College Football Playoff to expand to as many as 28 teams.

In the Big Ten’s model, it and the SEC reportedly would get seven automatic entries to five apiece from the Big 12 and ACC, two for non-Power 4 conference clubs, and two at-large berths. You know, just in case seven spots aren’t enough for the two big dogs.

Who wouldn’t be riveted by a November battle between Maryland and Washington for the Big Ten’s seventh automatic playoff spot, with the loser standing a good chance to get in the CFP, anyway?

It seemed like the CFP hit on a popular format with its 12-team event, which debuted eight months ago. So of course, the Big Ten wants more, more, more.

Iowa won’t play Illinois or Northwestern this season, but will travel to New Jersey and Los Angeles for conference games in the name of more, more, more.

Well, the Big Ten and SEC have to stand back for a week and watch Iowa State and Kansas State, with no one else playing during those three-plus hours. The game’s winner will shoot up the next set of rankings, past a few of the teams that have more money and clout.

The focus on the Big 12 will be temporary, of course, but the league always will have Dublin. Until the Big Ten and SEC annex Europe, that is.

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