For the ISU football players, the nightmare has just begun.

ISU Athletic Director Jamie Pollard called the decision to let Cyclones coach Dan McCarney resign the toughest of his career, and while that may be true, the players have taken it almost like the loss of a father.

“It’s real tough,” junior receiver Todd Blythe said of the situation. “He’s like a dad to me. All these coaches. You’re with them all the time.

“You don’t see your family that much, but we see our coaches for hours on end each day. They’ll do anything for you.”

For Blythe, the coaching staff that brought him to Iowa State won’t be around with him to finish his journey during his senior campaign.

“For them not to be around next year is tough,” Blythe said. “I wish they could be with me to help finish this thing out, but that’s what we’ve been dealt and we’ll just have to move on.”

McCarney spoke in detail during the 40-minute press conference about the “Cyclone Football Family,” a concept that his players apparently took to heart.

Most players took the events hard, with few sticking around afterward to meet with the media, and McCarney said the rumors the team had to endure were a deciding factor in his handing down his resignation before the end of the season.

“I just didn’t think it was fair to my coaches or my players,” McCarney said. “These players give so much, and they’re so patient and so loyal, and they’ve given so much to this football program, for us to keep going on like we have wouldn’t have been fair.”

But Blythe said he would rather deal with all the speculation if it meant keeping his coach. And even though he may not agree with the decision, he said he understands the nature of the business.

“I’d rather put up with rumors every day than to have this actually happen,” Blythe said. “But that’s the nature of the game that we play. Wins and losses are all that count. For us in the locker room, it’s all about being a family, but to everyone else, it’s just wins and losses.”

Senior receiver Austin Flynn went even further and said the decision for McCarney to step down was the wrong one and that he deserves another chance.

“Coach Mac is the guy for Iowa State, and I didn’t think there is anyone else that can come in here and build the program and the facilities,” Flynn said. “With everything he’s done, he deserved to come back and try to bring it all back.”

Never, Flynn said, did he think McCarney would end up going out like this.

“I thought of him almost like a head of the university,” Flynn said. “I didn’t think it was possible for him to resign like this. I thought he deserved to be back.”

McCarney first announced the decision to his players before practice Wednesday afternoon, making for one of the toughest practices in recent memory for Flynn.

“We got in our stretching lines and it was dead silence,” Flynn said. “Usually guys are joking around, you could just tell something was missing. It was just a terrible two-and-a-half hours.”

Now, with two games left, the Cyclones must figure out a way to pull everything together and try to send McCarney off in style.

“I’ve been around a lot of other coaches that have resigned, been fired or stepped down and two or three times over the years, I’ve seen teams like that who lined up and could’ve beat the Super Bowl champs,” McCarney said. “They were that motivated and that loyal and that together.

“And I’ve seen other situations where the kids know that this isn’t the coach that will discipline me and he won’t be coaching me or worrying about my progress toward my degree or my behavior because he’s not going to be here. And then they splinter and they fall apart, and the team goes out and is an embarrassment to the program and the university. I’d be real disappointed if I saw that from my kids.”

Blythe said motivation for the last two games won’t be a problem at all.

“If you can’t find something to play for now, then you need to get out of the locker room and find somewhere else to play,” he said.