Like most Americans, football coach Dan McCarney didn’t know what to make out of the first plane crash on Sept. 11, 2001.

“You see the smoke and the fire, and everything is just shocking. You’re trying to figure out what the heck happened,” McCarney said. “You see the second one come in, and you know we are under attack. There was no doubt. Then you just started worrying about the safety of anyone and everyone in America. At that stage, all your thoughts are off the football game real fast.”

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, the athletic department cancelled its 11 a.m. press conference and began arrangements to hold the biggest sporting event in Iowa as planned.

Tragedy had struck in New York, just four days before the Iowa State-Iowa game was set to be played.

Practice went on as scheduled, and preparations began to be made in case the big game with the Hawkeyes would go on.

“There was a lot of uncertainty,” said Tom Kroeschell, associate athletic director of athletic communications. “First, you were going through the conference offices, because they were communicating with the NCAA, who was communicating with the highest levels. The first thing they told us was ‘we want things to go on as planned.'”

Kroeschell said there “really wasn’t a strong desire from anyone to play,” but the athletic department still went ahead, trying to come up with a contingency plan.

“We started talking about everything that would have to go into hosting this Iowa game in this situation,” Kroeschell said. “The security here — there were many things we didn’t know. But we were trying to do it.”

Kroeschell said the reality of the game being postponed set in during a staff meeting.

“We were in a meeting, and Pete Taylor said ‘This is a pipe dream, there is no way that we are going to play Saturday,'” Kroeschell said. “And that’s how it ended, really. By Thursday, they had postponed the game until the end of the season.”

The Big 12 conference gave word that games would be postponed on that Thursday. Until then, McCarney played it safe and continued to ready his team for the game.

He spoke with his coaching staff before holding practice on Sept. 11.

“We called our team close together and said some prayers for the people that perished and for the families who were left behind. We wanted everyone to stay strong, and we kept our preparation going, because we didn’t know anything yet,” McCarney said. “You can imagine being a student, being a football player . trying to go to practice and prepare [that week], much less the Iowa State-Iowa week.”

Iowa State beat the Hawkeyes, 17-14 on November 24, before losing to Alabama in the Independence Bowl.

In the eyes of McCarney, the world changed forever on Sept. 11.

“It’s just a different world we live in,” McCarney said. “It brings into focus what a great country we live in, and yet how important it is that we continue to defend the freedom of this country. It’s a scary world out there.”