As the old saying goes, “A win is a win.”

Most of the time, I could not agree more. However, in the case of Cyclone football, the win against Army was almost unequivocally a loss. I actually laughed out loud when I read the team had fallen a spot in The Associated Press top 25 this week; it probably deserved worse. When comparing the game against Army to the game against Illinois State, it is easy for the line of badness to blur, but the Army game was worse in almost every sense.

After the nationally televised Iowa game, this game represented one of the few additional opportunities for the Cyclones to have a national audience. On a primetime game on ESPN2, available all over America and much of the world, the Cyclones looked completely lost on both sides of the ball. With no other major games being played, every coach, casual fan and pollster who felt like watching college football Friday got to see the Cyclones.

I’m still not sure who was more surprised by what they were seeing; the commentators or Cyclone fans. In what should have been a nice tune-up before Nebraska, against a completely out-matched opponent, we bumbled our way to one of the most hollow wins I have seen in some time.

Time and time again, the Cyclones were pushed around and physically dominated by a much smaller, much less talented Army squad – a team that has won two games in the last two years, and came into the game ranked 112th in offense. Army, before that game, averaged eight points per game. Instead of throttling the Black Knights, the Cyclones had their skins saved by the referee’s flag.

One of the greatest ironies of that game was, were it not for week-one goat DeAndre Jackson, we probably would have lost the game. Jackson had a key interception and almost single-handedly tipped the field for Iowa State in the second half with kickoff returns.

I do have to give coach Dan McCarney some credit for admitting at halftime that the team had been outplayed, out-hustled and out-coached. Although what he said was true, it was classy of him to admit it, as Bobby Ross did a whale of a job coaching his team.

This game leaves me – and a few of you, I suspect – scratching my head about our team this season.

Does Iowa State play down to its opponent’s level? Is it possible the Cyclones are really bad, and it just so happens that Iowa is also really bad?

Hopefully, the Cyclones are a work in progress, and they will gel more as the season wears on, because playing like that – much like that of week one – is a good way to lose five or six games.

The Cyclones have a tough game coming up against Nebraska, possibly the only team in the Big 12 with a spottier offense than Iowa State has shown, and it should be interesting to see if the Cyclones show up meaning business or if they show up to squeak by in a 16-12 stinkfest in Lincoln this weekend. Time, and coaching, will tell.

– Nathan Chiaravalloti is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Davenport.