The football season is not lost and the ISU football team wants its fans to realize that.

Thousands of disappointed fans poured out of Jack Trice Stadium on Saturday after the Cyclones started their conference season 0-2, especially after starting their nonconference schedule 3-0, including a win over then-No. 8 Iowa.

Coach Dan McCarney said he understands the fans’ frustration, but they can’t throw in the towel quite yet.

“There’s a lot of things to play for, there’s a lot of things still available,” he said.

“This isn’t the last Saturday in November, this is still the middle part of October, so it’s a great opportunity for this football team.”

Fans, however, have already seen the Cyclones botch great opportunities against Nebraska and Baylor. McCarney, though, said he saw much of the team’s struggles coming, even through the cloud of Big 12 North championship talk.

“I live in a real world and I know what we go up against, coach against and play against each week,” McCarney said. “Then when we jumped off to the start that we did, then I’m sure a lot of fans out there thought, ‘Bring on the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Patriots, and we’ll be ready for them, too.’

“I live in the real world, and I know what we coach against and play against are some really fine teams in this league.”

Senior defensive lineman Nick Leaders said the fans haven’t had much to cheer about, and it’s not their fault.

“They were into the [Baylor] game until the end of the game, but towards the end, we didn’t give them anything to cheer about,” Leaders said. “We’re turning it over, they’re moving the ball down the field on us. It’s our job as players to get the fans into the game, it’s not their job to get us up for the game.”

To the players, the fans don’t go unnoticed, either.

“You definitely know that our student section is right there when we come out,” Leaders said.

McCarney said there is no easy answer right now. The Cyclones head back to the basics while they prepare for Brad Smith and the Missouri Tigers.

“We’ve got to go out and play the kind of football we’re capable of playing, and do the things we know we’ve got to do to win games,” McCarney said.

He also encouraged fans, though, to back away from the ledge.

“I get the sense sometimes, because we have a double-overtime loss and a tough, heartbreaking loss to Baylor that we’re 1-7. We’re not. We’re 3-2,” McCarney said. “We’re in that pack of teams that are 3-2, and three or four teams that are 4-1 right now.”

It wasn’t long ago the Cyclones had their backs up to an even bigger wall, and wound up as co-Big 12 North and Independence Bowl champions.

“The race is on; there’s still a lot to play for,” McCarney said. “It’s not like we haven’t been here before. Just a few short months ago we were here and we were 0-3 – not 0-2, but 0-3 – in the league. We turned it around.”