4 Cy-Hawk Myths: Iowa doesn’t care

IOWA CITY - Back in the late 1980 and well into the mid-1990s, the juice Iowa squeezed from the Iowa State rivalry spewed like the last drops from a bottle of laundry detergent. Most of the time it was enough to get the job done, but you wondered how it would all wash out.

In 1996, Iowa Coach Hayden Fry used comments and guarantees made by then-ISU President Martin Jischke and Cyclones running back Troy Davis as motivation. Fry smiled as he said former Cyclones Coach Jim Walden 'became obsessed in beating us.” Fry really saved condescension for former ISU Coach Jim Criner, saying 'he was a little bit easier” to beat than Walden.

Through his 15 straight years of victories over the Cyclones, Fry regarded Iowa State as less than equal. Fry was 12-0 against both coaches and routed Criner by an average of 43.3 points in their meetings.

'I can't say it's more important than a Big Ten game,” Fry said in 1996. 'It's more important than the Tulsa game (oddly a loss for Iowa the next week), but I can't say it's more important than the Arizona game, because that was the first game.”

Nearly 20 years later, Fry's comments toward Iowa State have evaporated like hot air. Since 1998, Iowa State has beaten Iowa nine times. No longer do the Cyclones submit to also-ran status on Iowa's schedule. Passion has replaced indifference in Iowa City. In fact, at least among Iowa players, the rivalry script has flipped.

'Coach (Kirk) Ferentz sits us down and said, ‘This is Iowa State, and they don't like us,'” Iowa senior linebacker Quinton Alston said. 'This is our rivalry game - the Cy-Hawk Game - and it's a big game for the city and the state. So there's not much to talk about.”

Iowa has played five Big Ten schools at least 74 times, yet its in-state series against Iowa State has surpassed the others in trash talking and intensity, Alston said.

'There's no other rivalry quite like an in-state rivalry,” said Alston, a native of Sicklerville, N.J.

It always wasn't that way. The teams didn't play after 1934 until 1977 as Iowa kept the Cyclones at an arm's length. ISU officials routinely engaged Iowa counterparts for scheduling but were rebuffed. Legendary Gazette columnist Gus Schrader summed up Iowa's prevailing attitude in 1970: 'If you're an Iowa booster, you doubt the game is really worthwhile as a spectacle, and you suspect the Hawkeyes have much more to lose than they have to gain by giving the Cyclones what amounts to equal status in the eyes of the state's sports audience.”

But the series resumed and Iowa State won four of the first six meetings. Then Iowa took 15 straight and the battles became as unequal on the field as the perception Schrader identified in 1970.

ISU fought back under Dan McCarney and won five straight from 1998 through 2002. Iowa struggled in its transition from Fry to Kirk Ferentz, but as the teams entered the 2002 meeting, Iowa players were focused on their cross-state opponent.

'I just hate Iowa State,” Iowa linebacker Fred Barr said. 'I hate those guys. I can't stand them.

'They've been so cocky the last couple of years just because they've beaten us a few times. I mean if I even see red, it makes me sick.”

ISU beat Iowa 36-31 in Kinnick in 2002, handing the Big Ten champion Hawkeyes their only regular-season blemish. Iowa since has won seven of the last 11 meetings.

Ferentz hardly displays a public 'rah-rah” persona before any game. His levelheaded approach upsets some Iowa fans, who accused him after losses of not placing enough importance on the series.

But Ferentz's public comments and actions belie that perception. The program has placed Iowa State posters on doors in its football facility. Several years when Iowa reclaims the Cy-Hawk Trophy, the players sprint across the field to celebrate.

An examination of his pregame comments over the last decade shows his respect for Iowa State and the series.

'I think the bottom line is for any player or anybody that hasn't been associated with the game, they need to understand there is a different degree of intensity in this game. That's just the way it's going to be,” Ferentz said in 2009. 'It's the way it has been going 10 years back.”

Iowa's players typically offer cliches about opponents. But they have shown a propensity for opening up during Iowa State week.

'It's not the coach that I hate or the players, it's Iowa State,” offensive lineman Julian Vandervelde said in 2007. 'It's the entity that they are. It's the whole rivalry. I was raised an Iowa kid, and no matter what happens, I'm probably always going to hate Iowa State no matter who they're playing and who their coach is.”

'When people think rivalries, the first that comes up is Iowa State,” Iowa cornerback Shaun Prater said in 2011.

Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta had multiple chances to back out of the series. In 2007, the schools reached a temporary impasse about whether the series' contract ended in 2010 or 2020. Part of the issue stemmed from the home team giving up 20 percent of the gate revenues to the visitor. Barta and ISU Athletics Director Jamie Pollard worked out an arrangement where the home team kept all of its gate beginning in 2013.

A provision in their contract - which was extended through 2021 - allows for either school to drop the series if league scheduling becomes an issue. When the Big Ten announced its plans for a nine-game slate in 2016, Iowa had its chance to end the series. Instead the school worked with the Big Ten to keep Iowa State on the schedule.

Playing Iowa State means something to Iowa. It's more than just another game.

'It does matter,” Alston said. 'Any time you have a team that's an instate rival, you want to beat them. You want to be the king of your state.”

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