No football here

Here's epic fail.

Iowa Corn is the new sponsor for the Cy-Hawk Trophy. Here is the link to the announcement from Iowa Corn. See a photo of the new trophy with that announcement? Nope? Me neither.

Today is the unveiling. And, courtesy of the Des Moines Register, there it is.

I've always kind of held to the idea of "there's no point arguing taste." But, c'mon.

This is epic fail.

This is not a football trophy.

This isn't better than this . . .

And that also was epic fail, but at least it was football-like in its epic fail.

Here's what Kirk Ferentz said about old Cy-Hawk, "Quite honestly, it looks like something that somebody made in their basement. It seems like a Soap Box Derby project or something like that."

New Cy-Hawk is the unholy love child of the old Capital One Bowl trophy and "Davey and Goliath" claymation. This is an honorable concept, but it fails to recognize the obvious.

We're celebrating a football game here, not a social construct of what we think the universal image of Iowa might be.

This looks as though it was conceived by the same TV producers who every fall shoot some cutaways of cornfields for Iowa or Iowa State football telecasts. Every fall. Set your DVR by it.

And yes, we are corn. And, yes we are farmers. And, yes that should be celebrated. If you peel back your family tree, you most likely will find a farm not that far removed from where you are today. For me, my grandfather was a farmer in southwest Wisconsin.

When your dad talks about castrating hogs when he was your age, you wipe the sweat from your brow, try to laugh it off and go back to playing Atari.

We are the state of Iowa. We are of the earth. I have cornfields within walking distance from my house.

Celebrating the roots that make us who we are is terrific -- in a mural or in town square or in the state house.

We're talking about a football game. This trophy should celebrate the three or so hours the players spend on the field gripping and grunting. This is their moment, not a moment to try to capture the essence of what is Iowa.

You've seen the sprint for the trophy. It's a release of energy. It's pure football joy. It's the one tangible the players get out of this. No matter what state the programs were in, they had this trophy to run and grab and hold up to the fans.

Remember in '08, when Iowa DT Mitch King made a lunge for the Cy-Hawk with about 10 seconds left on the clock? ISU players moved toward him, but he caught himself and backed away. After all, it was still the Cyclones' trophy, if only for another 10 seconds.

Remember '06? Iowa linebacker Mike Klinkenborg laid his father, Myron, to rest on Wednesday in his hometown of Rock Rapids. Myron died of a sudden heart attack the morning after the Hawkeyes pulled off the goal-line stand at Syracuse.

Three days after burying his dad, Mike Klinkenborg raised the Cy-Hawk trophy.

"I'm going to try to get back to reality," said Klinkenborg, who actually practiced the Thursday after the funeral. "But it's tough."

This also was the year of the billboard ISU AD Jamie Pollard put up right outside of Cedar Rapids on 380 south. ISU put "It's a Cyclone State" up for all of Hawk-dom to chew on. I thought it was a bold gesture. Game on, Hawkeyes. I think at its heart, it was sporting. It got Hawk-dom's attention.

Iowa coaches plastered the Hawkeyes' locker room with a photo copy of the billboard. Iowa's video crew had the Iowa equipment semi-tractor trailer smash through the billboard on the big Kinnick video screen during the pregame introduction.

"I'll just go on record and say I never said a word about a billboard," Ferentz said with a wry smile. "I never said a word, never said a word."

In '98, I was in my first year at The Gazette. My beat was Iowa State football. I remember sitting on the steps leading up to the ISU lockerroom and listening to the screams of absolute joy. This was my introduction to the Cy-Hawk trophy. It sat inches from my face as I listened to the celebration.

Here's what I wrote that afternoon when Iowa State reclaimed the Cy-Hawk after 15 straight losses to the Hawkeyes:

IOWA CITY - Attention please. Whoever is using the traveling Cy-Hawk Trophy as a doorstop at the University of Iowa, please return it to Kinnick Stadium, immediately.

Wipe it off, shine it up and make it snappy. After 15 years, the Cy portion of the trophy is no longer a rumor and wants it, demands it, pronto.

Who even knew there was a Cyclone horde? It took the Cy-Hawk Trophy with Saturday's stunning 27-9 victory over the Hawkeyes, a 28-point favorite coming into the game. If it wasn't for Kinnick Stadium's collapsible goalposts, the red-and-yellow horde would've made off with those, too.

"I didn't forget about the trophy," Iowa State Coach Dan McCarney said. "When we built our new Jacobson Building, (Athletics Director) Gene (Smith) built some beautiful new trophy cases, and frankly, other than Troy Davis' trophies, there isn't anything having to do with football.

"Finally, we've got something to take home."

They touched it, they felt it, they held it high. Yes, Virginia, or Coach Criner or Coach Walden - or whatever forlorn former Cyclones coach is paying attention - the 15-game losing streak to Iowa is over. The 0-30-1 slump on the road that dated to 1991 is snapped and the Cy-Hawk Trophy is real. And it's heading back to Ames.

"I didn't even know there was one," said tight end Damian Gibson, a fifth-year senior who's sat through a lot of Hawkeye celebrations. "What's it look like? You know?"

Well, sitting on the lip of a plastic yellow garbage can amid the celebration, it looked a little worn. A couple of the plates with previous scores were hanging by a single screw and none of the ones on the front listed Iowa State as the victor.

"We'd seen it on a transparency, but that was about it," said quarterback Todd Bandhauer, who passed for an economical 11 of 16 for 125 yards. "I kissed an actual trophy today. Not a transparency."

Those are mere chapters. The cover of the book would have a couple of fellas named Jack Trice and Nile Kinnick. I dunno, maybe do some sort of trophy incorporating the two greatest historical figures in the state's history of football and the two gentlemen whose NAMES HAPPEN TO BE ON THE STADIUMS.

Yes, we are corn. Yes, we are farmers. And thank the heavens we are. Many of our families have lived it and we continue to live it every day in our state. We celebrate that every day.

The Cy-Hawk Trophy should be about football, the game and the players.

This is epic fail.