Sports : The perfect season for college football fans from our state

A few weeks before the college football season started, I overheard a discussion between Hawkeye and Cyclone fans.

It got me to thinking about something I read when I was 10 or 12 years old. Just before, or maybe after, a big ISU-Iowa contest, a columnist who loved one of the teams shared some thoughts about the rivalry.

But he ended his comments with something I always remembered.

“I am an Iowa fan in every game but one,” wrote the columnist, a die-hard Cyclone.

I probably had that statement in mind when it occurred to me that for those of us who live in Iowa (I will not call it the “Hawkeye” State, since the Cyclones seemed determined to have it called the “Cyclone” State at least for 2011).

In a perfect football season, Iowa would play Iowa State twice – once in September, and once in January, either in the BCS Championship game or another major BCS Bowl. In September, in my dream season, one of the teams – I do not really care which – would win in a double overtime game. Then at the end of the season, after Iowa wins the Big 10 title and Iowa State is the Big 12 champ, the only logical thing for the BCS and its computers is to put them back in the title game.

Yeah, it seems improbable – even laughable.

But there are lots of other states where more than one college team has been a contender in recent years. Alabama. Texas. Florida. Oklahoma. California. Even Michigan, although it’s been a while for the Spartans and Wolverines to succeed in the same season.

Why not Iowa? Kirk Ferentz has built one of the nation’s most consistent programs. And Paul Rhodes is continuing the improvement trend for ISU.

I once heard an ISU fan say, “I don’t care if we lose every game of the season, as long as we beat Iowa.”

I disagree.

I think every Iowa fan should be rooting for the Cyclones all year. That would make a loss to them seem less horrible. ISU fans should also be hoping the Hawkeyes do well. They would hate, at the end of the season, to look back and see it took three overtimes to beat a team that lost five other games.

Both Iowa and Iowa State came back from horrible starts to win their games this weekend. My dream season is intact. ISU is undefeated and Iowa’s only loss is its triple-overtime defeat to ISU.

Both Hawkeye fans and Cyclone fans should hope the team they were rooting against last Saturday wins next Saturday.

The diehards among you, of course, will want to put me on the spot. So, they ask, in this imaginary ISU-Iowa BCS title game, who would you root for.

Well it’s easy: The team from the college from the state I live in.