Saturday, October 19th, 2024

 Oh wow.  I am feeling a mixture of excitement and exhaustion right now after a long day of tailgating and a stressful football game.  The #9 Iowa State Cyclones came from 14 points down in the second half to defeat the UCF Knights, 38-35.  

It really did not seem to be Iowa State's day, but somehow the team found a way to win.  Iowa State gave up over 350 rushing yards, and Rocco Becht threw two interceptions which each resulted in a touchdown for UCF.  Still, the Cyclones kept fighting and were able to finally go ahead on a Rocco Becht 1 yard TD run with only 30 seconds left to play.  It was SO STRESSFUL.  With the win, ISU improves to 7-0, which is tied for their best start to a season ever!  

I took Nolan with me to the game, and this was his 11th ISU football game.  He has now seen the Cyclones defeat 3 conference foes, including UCF today, Kansas State in 2021, and Texas Tech in 2020.

Of course this was also my first football game against UCF, as they are in only their second season in the Big 12.  

During the halftime show today there was a fun drone show, which kept displaying different ISU logos.  

Nolan with the drone show in the background

Saturday, October 5th, 2024

 I'm pretty worn out right now, but I'm also pretty excited.  I took Maxwell over to Jack Trice Stadium today, where we watched an exciting win for Iowa State, 43-21 over the Baylor Bears.  

Baylor got out to an early 14-3 lead in the game, thanks to a pair of touchdown passes from Sawyer Robertson.  The Cyclones would bounce back to take a 19-14 halftime lead, after Caden Matson recovered a blocked punt and took it in for the score.  Iowa State pretty much dominated the second half, as Jaylon Jackson had a pair of rushing touchdowns.  With the win, Iowa State improves to 5-0 on the season, and it is their first 5-0 start since 1980!

Today's game was a "white out", where the fans were encouraged to wear white.  It was also a sellout crowd and a night game, so it was a very fun atmosphere.  One fun thing that happened during the game was I caught a shirt from the t-shirt cannon!  We were seated in the 11th row of section Y, so they really had to launch the shirt quite a ways to get it that far into the upper deck!

Today's game was the 9th football game that Maxwell has been to, and it was the second time that he has seen a game vs Baylor (2022 was the other).  This was the fifth time that I have seen Iowa State play Baylor.  That includes wins today, 2018, and in 2012.  Baylor came out on top in 2022 and 2005.  

Maxwell enjoying the game.

Here I have the shirt that I caught!