With shortage of recent good news, Cyclones opt for tight-lipped preseason

AMES — Usually, college football teams don’t circle the wagons until they lose a game or two.

Invisible walls never go up at a preseason media day. That’s when all things are possible and positive. Everyone on offense, defense, special teams, the coaching staff and catering crew are available for interviews.

Except here Friday, when Iowa State’s minimalist media day followed a minimal amount of joy last season. That all was sandwiched by program-jarring news in the middle of last week.

The 12-game starting quarterback of last season’s 4-8 Cyclones, Hunter Dekkers, has left the team indefinitely. News broke Wednesday that criminal charges were filed against Dekkers in the ongoing sports wagering investigation involving college athletes in Iowa.

Dekkers is accused of tampering with records in the state's investigation. He allegedly wagered on his team’s 2021 game against Oklahoma State (he didn’t play in the game) and placed 26 bets on ISU sporting events.

Friday, the number of Cyclone players available to the media on media day was seven. That included zero quarterbacks. Also, zero assistant coaches.

So, new offensive coordinator, Nate Scheelhaase, wasn’t present to tell us what he has in mind for 2023. Campbell dismissed Tom Manning last December.

Please hold your “What, an offensive coordinator got fired in the state of Iowa?” comments. This is an Iowa State story. And, an eye-opener since Manning went all the way back to Mount Union College with Campbell, and was the only OC Campbell had ever employed at Iowa State.

After six deaths by paper cuts, er, six losses by one score, the Cyclones closed last season with a 62-14 shellacking at TCU.

“We took a significant step back a year ago,” Campbell said.

“There are still some areas we need to improve structurally.”

Yes, like scoring more than 16.3 points per game in Big 12 play after doing significantly better than that in each of Campbell’s first six seasons at Iowa State.

Having no bounce from last season is bad enough. But of all the players to lose to a gambling investigation, it’s your incumbent quarterback and you find out in early August? Like the fella once said, ain’t that a kick in the head?

So Campbell kept most of his players and all of his coaches away from fielding any kind of questions about anything, controversial or not.

“With some of the news that broke Wednesday, we didn’t know some of that,” Campbell said. “All of that is so new to us, and we’ve got a lot of new faces.

“I want our (coaches) to focus about caring about our kids and kind of getting ready for practice, and I want to make sure that I’m the guy that’s up here talking about the football program.”

But he couldn’t discuss Dekkers or the gambling investigation. “The reality of it,” he said, “is we just are not allowed to talk any of those things to you.”

It’s not a happy subject, obviously. It’s not an ideal scenario to open fall camp with three quarterbacks vying to be QB1, with no clue how things will shake out.

At least preseason expectations won’t weigh down the Cyclones. Not when your record is 11-14 after you were No. 7 in the 2021 preseason Top 25.

Maybe, however, this is the time to again buy stock in the Cyclones. They were ranked 23rd at the start of the 2020 season and promptly lost 31-14 to Louisiana to start their pandemic season. What followed was an 8-1 Big 12 season, a one-score defeat to Oklahoma in the league-title game, and a thorough beating of Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl.

As they like to sing along with Neil Diamond here after wins, good times never seemed so good.

But with Campbell and his team never more praised entering a season, 2021 was a flat 7-6. Which was a joy ride compared to last year.

Iowa State is back to being viewed as just another face in an overcrowded Big 12, a no-divisions league stuffed with four newcomers cutting in on the last dances of traitors Texas and Oklahoma.

The main concern of Campbell and Scheelhaase right now is to identify their next Brock Purdy. Maybe we’ll even get to interview him before Thanksgiving.

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