Perfection. There is no other way to describe the Cyclones’ performance on Saturday. It was one of those games you dream about playing. It’s a game you look back on 30 years from now and say, “Yeah, we really did beat A&M by 28 on the road” or hopefully, “Yep, that was the game that turned Ames into a football town.”

It was supposed to be the same old story. Iowa State stumbles into College Station carrying the burden of so many near-misses, road losses and Big 12 North championships gone awry. Coach Dan McCarney was 8-34 on the road in Big 12 play and had never beaten a league team on the road that ended the year above .500. The Cyclones were dominated by the same Aggie team 34-3 a year ago, moving their record against the kids from Kyle Field to 0 and forever.

Unlike 110 years of ISU teams before them, these Cyclones came in and said a collective, Texas-sized, “Screw it. Let’s ball.”

Every Cyclone had an impact, but it was jersey No. 1 that set the tone. Ragged on and kept in check all year long, Todd Blythe had only 26 catches and one TD entering the game. By 5 p.m. he had 34 grabs and five TDs.

Perhaps bored by the proceedings, Blythe even caught passes with one hand, as if to say to the 90,000 tongue-swapping, butch-cut fans in attendance, “You ever heard of Indianola, Iowa? Well, this is how we roll.” Truth be told, there isn’t a whole lot of “rolling” in Indianola, but I bet that’s what Blythe was thinking.

The lethal, lanky one wouldn’t have shut up the entire town of College Station without some assistance from “Bret Meyers” and “Reggie Hicks,” as Terry Bowden called them. By the way, Terry Bowden has a striking resemblance to Peter Griffin and said A&M played in the “Big South Conference” … worth noting.

Tell me again which quarterback was supposed to be the senior, all-conference gunslinger? Well it certainly looked like he was in white and not maroon. Meyer was 20 of 32, for 371 yards and 4 TDs. If you put those numbers up in NCAA ’06, you feel guilty and move the level up to Heisman.

Stevie Hicks looked very fresh coming off his undisclosed injury, rushing for 124 and two TDs, as well as picking up linebackers on blitzes like Russell Crowe in “Gladiator.” You know the scene with all the chariots and stuff … glad we’re on the same page. It is the first time ever ISU has had a 300 yard passer, 200 yard receiver and 100 yard rusher in one game.

The defense did its thing once again, forcing three turnovers with a brilliant scheme. The Cyclone D has now shut down both Brad Smith and Reggie McNeal and turned Oklahoma State QB Al Pena into a walking turnover.

When you put all of that together, you get the most impressive and possibly most important win in ISU history.

The win in ’98 over Iowa was huge, but this program hasn’t had that one game where you get done watching it, you say to yourself, “If we play like that, we won’t lose to anybody.”

Now they have that game.

Saturday was football’s version of Fizer and Tinsley against UCLA in 2000. It was Cael Sanderson in football form. It was perfection.

– Brent Blum is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.