Top 10 Matt Campbell Era Wins: Honorable Mentions

Football season is rapidly approaching. The WRNL staff is getting excited. As we head towards the beginning of the 7th season with Matt Campbell as the head coach at Iowa State, we wanted to look back and rank our top 10 wins from the first 6 seasons. To do this, the staff was polled to give their personal 1-10 rankings. Win #1 was worth 10 points, #2 worth 9 points, and on down. The games that earned the most “points” are what we will look back on throughout this series. These are the games that received votes in the poll but did not crack the top 10.

2018 at Oklahoma State

David Montgomery was out with a shoulder injury. Iowa State was 1-3 overall and Zeb Noland was the starting QB. Oklahoma State was ranked in the AP Top 25. Things weren’t exactly in Iowa State’s favor. Then a little known freshman QB named Brock Purdy came off the bench to put up 318 passing yards, 4 TDs, 84 rushing yards, and a rushing TD. This was a classic Big 12 shootout. Purdy sealed the game with a 60 yard bomb to Tarique Milton to ice the game.

2021 at Kansas State

Iowa State’s first win in Manhattan in 17 years. Kansas native Breece Hall started the game with a 75 yard TD run on the first play from scrimmage en route to a career high 197 rushing yards. Fun fact, I was at this game personally. I met Breece’s junior high coach. Nice guy. Still roots for Breece even though he was at Iowa State. Manhattan was a fun college town.

2021 vs Texas

This will in all likelihood be Texas’ last trip they’ll ever make to Ames. The Longhorns announced their move to the SEC in July of 2021 that set off an unending stream of hate taken out on their football team on the field. Texas actually led this game 7-3 at halftime before the Cyclones completely overwhelmed them in the 2nd half. Final score: 30-7. Number of horns down displayed by the crowd: Too many to count. Shoutout to the kid who gave us a perfect GIF any time Texas does something arrogant and stupid.

2021 vs TCU

This is not a terribly memorable game, but the nostalgia was off the charts. Coach Campbell was emotional in the greeting the seniors before kickoff, and the most decorated class in Cyclone history finished their home careers with one last W. Breece Hall broke the NCAA record for consecutive games with a rushing TD for a perfectly signature moment.

2020 vs Kansas State

This game deserved some mention despite it being one of the weirdest entries on the list. Farmageddon 2020 was played in front of no fans. Kansas State had a bunch of dudes out with COVID. But still, Iowa State won 45-0. 45-0. It was 35-0 at halftime. It could’ve been 70-0 if we hadn’t let off the gas in the 2nd half. The game deserves an honorable mention because of the schadenfreude and pure delight of kicking the crap out of the Purple Kitties.

2016 vs Texas Tech

66-10. Lots of memes and fun jokes came from this one. Joel Lanning ran for 171 yards and 5 TDs. Whatever happened to that Texas Tech QB from this game?

2018 vs Drake

Matthias Schwartzkopf is a chaos agent. There will be no highlights posted in this article.