Crazy things are happening this year. Improbable things. Even creepy things that are difficult to comprehend.

The Red Sox won the World Series, people are still buying Creed albums, and the Cyclone football team has just moved itself into contention to play for the Big 12 title. But stranger things have happened.

Haven’t they?

Iowa State was left for dead mere weeks ago, reeling from a QB controversy and 13 straight conference setbacks. The heartbeat of Cyclone Nation was as weak as the cheers coming up from its student section.

But life support has come in the form of three straight ISU wins, turning that faint pitter-patter into a frenzy of hope that is threatening to leap right off of the EKG.

Who could have foreseen a midseason U-turn like the one the Cyclones just whipped? Who is responsible for it? And, if it’s possible for Iowa State to compete on one of college football’s biggest stages, then what isn’t possible?

Maybe pigs will fly. Maybe Cosby sweaters will become fashionable again. Maybe, maybe, maybe …

If the Cyclones can become the Beasts of the Big 12 North, maybe we’ll finally find that loophole in the DPS parking system and manage to never get ticketed again.

Maybe the sun will come out a few more times before it disappears all winter and let us squeeze in a suntan that doesn’t rely on 180-watt light bulbs.

If the Cyclones can resurrect the season that looked dead only three weeks ago, maybe we can actually start to like school. Maybe CyRide will show up at our doorsteps just in the nick of time, and our group project partners will remind us more of the Tanner family than the Donner Party. Maybe we’ll remember our registration dates and get Human Sexuality and Intro to Beverages in the same semester.

If the Cyclones can pull the biggest worst-to-first role reversal since Gordon Bombay’s Mighty Ducks, maybe our social lives can take a turn for the better. Maybe the lines on Welch Avenue will pull a Red Sea in front of us and the cover charges will be lower than Kobe Bryant’s assists-per-game average this season. Maybe free-keg cups will come flooding in like prom proposals to Lindsay Lohan. Maybe we’ll meet someone who hates dancing and loves “Top Gun” as much as we do.

If the Cyclones can go from being the Bad News Bears to the ’85 Bears in the middle of the season, maybe our troublesome Internet will work on the very first try without so much as one natural male enhancement pop-up ad. Maybe our usually slovenly roommate, the one always leaving three-day-old bowls of Easy Mac on the coffee table, will suddenly go on a neat-freak streak as big as Monica Gellar’s. Maybe we’ll find a $20 bill in the jeans we just washed instead of a glob of Bubblicious and an exploded Bic.

If the Cyclones can go from zeroes to heroes as quick as Steve Urkel morphs into Stefan, maybe the NHL can call off the strike that’s quickly bleeding the league’s future dry. Maybe Brett Favre will announce that he’s never going to retire on the same day John Madden announces that he finally is. Maybe MLB will put the ‘Spos back in Montreal where they belong and tell Barry Bonds exactly where he can stick those steroids.

Maybe just for one pick-up game we’ll shoot like Jake Sullivan, board like Marcus Fizer and handle like Jamaal Tinsley. Afterwards, maybe we’ll party like Larry Eustachy.

If the Cyclones can go from chumps to champs like Seth Cohen in the first season of “The O.C.,” maybe we can worry less about which states are red and which are blue and just agree that we don’t need P. Diddy to tell us to vote. Maybe we can figure out where he seized the moral high ground from, anyway.

Maybe Nickelback will announce that they’re breaking up. Maybe Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck will, too.

Maybe we’ll hear Eminem’s “Just Lose It” and not get it stuck in our heads for the rest of the day.

Maybe, maybe, maybe …

And maybe, just maybe, the Cyclones will be at Arrowhead in early December to play for the Big 12 crown and a spot in a BCS bowl. After all, stranger things have happened.

Haven’t they?