2010 Game 1: Northern Illinois vs Iowa State Preview

Date: September 2, 2010

Time: 7 PM

Location: Jack Trice Stadium, Ames, IA

Editor’s Note: As kickoff is on Thursday, this preview is being posted a day earlier than normal.

Welcome to the first WRNL preview of Iowa State’s 2010 football season.  Every Thursday we will post our preview and prediction of Iowa State’s upcoming game.  So sit back, crack a Natty Light or six, and get yourself pumped up for some good ole FOOTBALL in less than 36 hours.

A History: Northern Illinois vs Iowa State

 Iowa State holds the edge in the all-time standings, 2-1.

Todd Blythe was a key factor in the win over NIU in 2004, but he will be nowhere to be seen on Thursday.

 1993: Iowa State 54, Northern Illinois 10

2003: Northern Illinois 24, Iowa State 16

2004: Iowa State 48, Northern Illinois 41 

The 2004 victory was over a Huskies team that would end up going 9-3 and the 41 points scored by Northern Illinois were the most an Iowa State team has allowed in a victory.

Back It Up: A 2009 Rewind

As we all know, Iowa State finished 7-6 in 2009 and capped off the year with a 14-13 victory of Minnesota in the Insight Bowl.  It was Iowa State’s first bowl appearance since 2005 and first bowl win since defeating Miami (OH) in the 2004 Independence Bowl. 

Northern Illinois also finished 2009 with a 7-6 record but lost their final three games after rattling off a mid-season four game winning streak.  The final loss was to South Florida in the International Bowl. 

2010 WRNL Cyclone Season Predictions

With temperatures in the mid-50s these last few nights we have finally been given our sign that football is just around the corner. We are only one week away from Iowa State’s 7 PM kickoff against Northern Illinois in Jack Trice Stadium.

We are only a week away from this sweet, sweet image.

Recently we polled the WRNL writers and friends of the site for their predictions on Iowa State’s season and had them go game-by-game to explain how our beloved Cyclones will fare against their opponents this season.

Without further adieu I present to you the WRNL 2010 Cyclone Football Season Predictions.

All-Time Iowa State “Notorious” Team

Yesterday, our favorite Cyclone related web site that reports real news published an article about the Top 5 All-Time Cyclone Men’s Basketball players.  We found the list to be rather… timid… so we came up with our own.  These men all represent the ideals we uphold here at WRNL and would be a great fit for any beer chugging, hash smoking, amateur posturing rec league in the country.

Without further adieu, we give you the All-Time Iowa State “Notorious” Team:

PG: Tim Barnes – This man loved his hash. He loved his hash so much he only played one year for the Cyclones. Fortunately he is probably still around to supply our current athletes with all their “needs”.

No doubt chasing down some BK...

SG: John Neal – Made an entire career out of two shots. If I did that I would have a full time career as a Chippendale dancer.

SF: Sam Mack – You robbed a Burger King through a drive thru window. How can you not make this list?

PF: Kenny Pratt – It takes a special kind of man to play with the desire that Pratt did. It takes an even more special kind of man to try and fight two cops while handcuffed.

C: Andrew Skoglund – If you ever wanted to see what Andre the Giant looked like playing basketball… with less mass, less skill, and less French… look no further.

Coming off the Bench…

Big XII vs. NBA Free Agency: A Critical Comparison

With the LeBron sweepstatkes NBA Free Agency opening up tomorrow, we felt it was appropriate to look at how our beloved Big XII schools relate to some of the biggest NBA free agents that will be signed at 12:01 AM on July 1st after their obvious first second third fourth contact with an interested team.

Baylor = Rasho Nesterovic. Who? No one loves you, and neither do I.

Colorado = Jermaine O’Neal. You had your day in the sun but unbecoming acts (Colorado and their sex parties, O’Neal and his fists) rendered you irrelevant. Your former conference/team will be happy to get rid of you because of your pitiful results.

Iowa State = Tracy McGrady. Talented in some areas, pitiful in others. You have shown brief flashes of brilliance (2005 ISU football, McGrady circa 2001) but could never get over the hump, and have now slid in to the far reaches of relevancy.

Kansas = Dirk Nowitzki.  You’re white and pretty good at basketball.  You both have your fair share of disappointments, whether it be losing as a #1 seed to Golden State or…. Losing as a #1 seed to UNI.

BREAKING NEWS: Iowa State Rejects Big East Invite, Chooses to Join CFL

WRNL writer Norman Underwood has told me that unnamed sources high up in the Canadian Football League have been in discussions with Iowa State University Athletics Director Jamie Pollard about a move to the CFL for the 2011 season.

After numerous phone calls to various teams in the CFL I finally reached the Calgary Stampeders Chairman, John Forzani.

A Grey Cup instead of marble and crystal? Sure, why not?

Forzani was more than willing to discuss the merits of adding Iowa State to the CFL and stated, “Adding Iowa State University made the perfect sense for the CFL.  We have been trying to expand our footprint in the United States for many years and thought our strategy of signing Heisman caliber players such as Drew Tate, Ken-Yon Rambo, and Jon Cornish would pay dividends in the long run.”

“As it turns out, no one really cares about a half-wit, concussion prone quarterback and slow skill players who made little impact on their college teams,” Forzani added.

Barta Calls the Whambulance on Big 10 Expansion

We knew this was coming. Gary Barta finally opened his mouth about Big 10 expansion and served us up a plate full of stupid. It was really nothing short of brilliance coming from that side of the state.

What is Barta’s big problem? Apparently he is the only one on this damn Earth that finds the possibility of adding a Big 10 Championship game to be a bad thing. I guess playing teams like NIU in Solider Field to a crowd of 80% Hawk fans is more appealing than playing Ohio State and getting curb stomped so bad that it makes the guy from American History X look like Angelina Jolie.

Yeah, yeah I can hear it now, “But Iowa took Ohio State to OT in their own house last year!” That is nice and all but it happened during the middle of the “Tressel Timetable”. You see, Mr. Tressel likes to have all his Ohio State teams fit the same blueprint. Get overhyped going into the season, lose your marquee non-conference game, rally, lose again to an inferior Big 10 opponent, then wake up and rampage through the rest of the Big 10 like you should have from the start.