Even though there are several events left to play ISU has won the Cy-Hawk Series!

The always raucous rivalry between Iowa State and Iowa will take another step up with the return of former Cyclone men's basketball player Adam Haluska to the court he called home for one season.

The guard played for the Cyclones as a freshman in 2002-03, averaging 9.2 points per game for a team that reached the NIT.

But after the season, amid the turmoil and scandal surrounding the accusations that coach Larry Eustachy had partied with students at the University of Missouri, Haluska transferred to in-state rival Iowa.

Haluska was forced to sit out a season because of the transfer, missing a chance to play two seasons ago when Iowa came to Hilton Coliseum.

Now he's back.

Cyclone senior guard John Neal is the only current ISU player who played with Haluska, and the two remain friends. The two still talk once every week or two.

"I don't know if he's to excited to come back," Neal said. "I'm sure it's going to be a tough place to play."

When the ISU men's basketball team takes the floor against Fresno State on Saturday night, a familiar face will suit up against them.

Fresno State guard Donovan Morris was the teammate and roommate of ISU junior guard Curtis Stinson in prep school, and the game will mark their first action against each other.

"He'll be in town tonight, and I talked to him last night," Stinson said. "They played Buffalo and I talked to him about the game. I talk to him all the time.

Houston Bowl officials expect one of the largest crowds in the five-year history of the game if Iowa State is chosen on Sunday to face Texas Christian University in the Dec. 31 game.

"I'm already hearing from Iowa State fans who are asking about how to get tickets and about various events associated with the game," said Aaron Osborn, ticket manager for the 1:30 p.m. Houston Bowl that will be televised by ESPN2. "From that kind of response, and from what I hear about early ticket projections, we could be looking at a pretty huge crowd. Right now, I'm anticipating around 50,000. That would be great."

Former UW deputy athletics director and current Iowa State athletic director Jaime Pollard announced that Steve Malchow, a senior-level athletics administrator with the Badgers since 1990, has accepted a position to join the Cyclones athletics department staff.

“This is a great day for Iowa State athletics,” Pollard said. “Bringing Steve Malchow to ISU was one of my first priorities. To get him here from Wisconsin is a real coup for our program.”

Ames, Iowa — Never in 114 years of football has an Iowa State team done this.

With a 45-17 victory Saturday over Kansas State, the Cyclones have scored at least 37 points in three straight conference games. That’s a first — and it has happened after Iowa State started 0-3 in Big 12 Conference play, with two of those losses in overtime.

Iowa State nose guard Nick Leaders probably won't win a national player of the year award, but if someone is handing out a trophy for this college football season's iron man, look his way.

Unless something drastic happens, Leaders will be tied for the nation's lead in consecutive starts when the Cyclones face Texas A&M at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in College Station, Texas.

Leaders, a senior from Omaha, Neb., has started all 45 games since coming to Iowa State as a freshman. He can share the national lead with Virginia defensive lineman Brennan Schmidt because the Cavaliers have the weekend off. Five others are tied with Leaders.

Ames, Ia. — It took Iowa State football coach Dan McCarney all of about two minutes to express the sentiment of his team and of many of the 43,964 fans who weathered the 40-degree temperature Saturday afternoon at Jack Trice Stadium.

"The life's back in your body," McCarney said after the Cyclones overwhelmed Oklahoma State, 37-10, leading some to wonder if this is 2004 all over again.

Stay tuned, but for the second season in a row, Iowa State waited until its fourth Big 12 Conference game to get its first league win.

This sequel had enough plot twists to bring the Iowa State Cyclones to tears, or better yet cause them to punch holes in the locker room walls.

It sounds like a broken record, but Iowa State, for the third straight game, had victory slip through its fingers, falling to Missouri, 27-24, in a Big 12 overtime game at Faurot Field Saturday.

"We're cursed right now. It's crazy," said Cyclone running back Greg Coleman said. "You can't put your finger on it. Things come out of nowhere and we look at each other and say, 'Wow, did that really just happen?'

Check the statistics that show Bret Culbertson to be one of best place-kickers in the Big 12 Conference. Now envision being on the solitary island the Iowa State walk-on inhabits each time he performs in front of thousands of sometimes-hostile football fans.

"I'm not near athletic enough to do that," Iowa State coach Dan McCarney said.

Kick a field goal?

"I get nervous enough just trying to hold the ball," said Austin Flynn, the Cyclones' field-goal holder.

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Iowa State's veteran I-back, who has carried the football sparingly in recent weeks, could be watching from the sidelines Saturday when the Cyclones host Baylor.

Head coach Dan McCarney said Tuesday that Hicks is once again "questionable" with his still-unrevealed ailment, and he's now officially listed as a second-stringer.

"Stevie's like anybody with a nagging injury," said McCarney. "He's frustrated. He wants to get out there and help the football team. So do I. I want him back there, too. But we can't put him out there until he's ready to go. We tried that last week, and he wasn't ready."

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Even in the wake of a heartbreaking 27-20 double overtime loss on the road against Nebraska, the ISU football team wasn't spending time trying to find positives from the game. It was just trying to figure out how it let the game slip away.

"We came here to win," said ISU coach Dan McCarney. "Not to look good, not to be competitive, not to be almost, not to go into overtime and then wait for people to pat you on the back.

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As Dan McCarney made his way across the field at historic Michie Stadium Friday night, he was met by recently hired athletic director Jamie Pollard, and they congratulated each other on Iowa State's 28-21 nationally televised win over Army.

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Ten years ago, who would have thought we'd be wondering if the Huskers could handle Iowa State? Somewhere, Irving Fryar weeps.

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McCarney thinks his team — in the second half Friday — showed its true character.

"We won a game in a real tough environment against one of the most inspired teams to play football this weekend," he said.

The environment, and other factors, were tough. The game was on a Friday, throwing off the usual routine. The late start, 8 p.m. Eastern time, made the day seem ridiculously long. The travel to a remote, mountainous region with poorly marked roads was difficult. Iowa State, as a ranked team, was marked. And Army had nothing to lose.

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When the subject of Bobby Ross came up at an Iowa State fund-raiser this summer, Earle Bruce offered his opinion. The former Cyclone head coach told the present man in charge, "The best prepared head coach and staff in all his years of coaching was Bobby Ross and his staff."

Tuesday, McCarney made it clear. When Iowa State travels to West Point for Friday's 7 p.m. game against Army, he's ready to meet a coaching legend.

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ISU puts quick end to search by tapping Badger deputy

From LJWorld

Iowa State's upset of Iowa was met with something other than shock by Big 12 Conference coaches with ties to at least one of the universities Monday.

"It was not surprising to me," said Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, who coached at Iowa under Hayden Fry from 1979 through '88. "Just like Kirk (Ferentz) has done at Iowa, Dan (McCarney) has done an outstanding, amazing job at Iowa State.

"That win was not a fluke by any stretch."

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The news that Iowa State is now a ranked football team brought no champagne to Dan McCarney's office Monday morning.

He'd rather listen to his players pop shoulder pads than the cork on a bottle.

In other words, McCarney treated the Cyclones' rise to No. 24 in The Associated Press football poll as no big deal.

"I didn't even really pay attention to it," said McCarney during the Big 12's teleconference. "I don't get too excited and neither do the players."

McCarney can recall the last time Iowa State climbed into the top 25 all too well. Walking into Manhattan, Kan., as AP's No. 21 team, the Cyclones departed as 58-7 losers to Kansas State. The date was Nov. 9 2002, and they did not reappear in the poll until Sunday, leaving a gap of not quite three years.

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Defensive Player of the Week
LaMarcus Hicks, Sr., CB, Iowa State (Clarksdale, Miss.)
Hicks returned a second quarter interception 28 yards for a touchdown and also recovered a fumble in Iowa State's 23-3 upset of No. 8 Iowa. Hicks finished the game with three tackles and a pass break up as the Cyclones held their in-state rival out of the end zone for the first time in the series since 1978.

Special Teams Player of the Week
Troy Blankenship, Sr, P, Iowa State (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
Blankenship dropped three punts inside Iowa's 20-yard line in Iowa State's first win over an Associated Press Top 10 squad since 1992. His longest punt of the game was a 68-yarder into a 25 mile-an-hour wind. For the game, Blankenship averaged 41.4 yards on eight kicks.

Before Ohio State even kicks off against Texas, Michigan and Iowa have both fallen. That's the reality after an inspired performance by the Cyclones left the Hawkeyes wide-eyed with shock.

That's no casual turn of phrase — Iowa truly was shocked by the red-shirted storm that came barreling at them from all directions. Iowa State's defense, up and down the line, flew to the ball, hit the stuffing out of each Iowa player, and staggered the Hawks out of the box, setting a tone for the contest they managed to maintain throughout.

The easy response to this game will be to say that, given the struggles of the ISU offense against an exceptional Hawkeye defense that played extremely well, the absence of Iowa quarterback Drew Tate was the difference. Had Tate stayed in the game, some might say, Kirk Ferentz' team would have cranked it up in the second half and pulled out a win.

Nice try, contrarians. That argument can't — and shouldn't — fly.

The biggest refutation of that line of reasoning lies in the fact that Tate played in a fog — it's not even debatable — long before he suffered a concussion ... one that he'll hopefully be able to overcome as this season plays out. Before Tate's head got injured while trying to make a tackle in the second quarter (the fact that he, a quarterback, was trying to make a tackle obviously points to the interception he threw on the very same play), his head already seemed to be nowhere when he stood around, oblivious to the ball, when a bad snap bounced around just behind his legs. It sure wasn't the fast start Tate had against Ball State the week before, when the Hawks had 28 points before the first quarter was over.

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