Athletics director Bruce Van De Velde made several announcements on Wednesday morning regarding Cyclone football, and all of them he feels are in the best interests of Iowa State.

The first was a schedule change for next season. Van De Velde said the U.S. Military Academy did not want to come to Ames next season, instead wanting the Cyclones to return to West Point again.

“Army has a new athletic director and a new coach, and they wanted to ease their schedule a bit,” Van De Velde said.

The problem with that is, by contract, Army was supposed to come to Ames next season in return for the Cyclones going there this season.

Van De Velde did not want to go to West Point again since “that’s not the kind of football team we are” so he had to scramble to find a replacement team.

As was the problem this season before Illinois State agreed to come, Van De Velde couldn’t find a team interested in coming to Ames — they were all looking for a team to come to their town.

“We were very worried,” he said.

After making what Van De Velde described as “a 100 phone calls,” Eastern Michigan accepted the offer to play in Ames for $450,000. It was only going to cost the athletic department $125,000 to bring Army to Ames, but since Van De Velde was able to find a replacement team, Army, as per the contract, must pay the difference in cost, which is $325,000 to help bring Eastern Michigan here.

The game is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 2 and will be the Cyclones’ home and season opener.

Van De Velde said the University of Georgia had offered him $800,000 to have the Cyclones play there, but they did not want to return to Ames the following season.

In a related move, the Northern Iowa and Texas games have been switched for national television. The University of Northern Iowa was originally supposed to play in Ames on Sept. 23 while Texas would be the following Saturday. The two games have flip-flopped dates so the Cyclones’ game at Texas can be aired nationally.

Van De Velde wasn’t sure which network would be airing the game, but he thought it might be either ABC or FOX.

Head football coach Dan McCarney wasn’t sure how to view next season’s schedule except with caution.

“Anyway you look at it, this is going to be one of the toughest schedules we’ve ever had to endure,” he said. “But that schedule is so far off right now, it’s like it’s 10 years away at this point.”