Iowa State’s 2004 football campaign has been about as crazy as seeing Dennis Rodman at a Clinique sale, but one thing is for sure: Dan McCarney should be the Big 12 Coach of the Year — end of story.

A month ago, the Cyclone Nation was calling for McCarney’s head. Fans wanted him out. They said he’d never take us to the next level. They said he’d maxed out his potential at Iowa State. They said he was crazy for not starting Austin Flynn over Bret Meyer. THEY were wrong, and now he’s a serious contender for Coach of the Year.

In one season, McCarney has taken a 2-10 team to one that’s a contender in the Big 12 North. Is it because the Big 12 North is unusually soft? Maybe. Is it because Iowa State has gotten some good breaks? Hardly. Is it because Iowa State has a dedicated head coach who puts everything into his program and cares about it’s players and fans like they’re his own family? Definitely.

Let’s look at the adversity McCarney and his team have overcome this year.

• A quarterback controversy. We all know he was dead-on there after Meyer dumped 345 yards on the beloved “Blackshirts” of Nebraska.

• A potential All-Big 12 kicker who has anchored the special teams for three years goes down with a freak hip flexor injury. After going through three kickers who couldn’t hit an extra point, McCarney found the next Heisman Trophy winner in most ISU fans’ book, Bret Culbertson.

A month ago, when this place was starting to look like the Iowa State of the ’80s, McCarney again turned this thing around and got ISU fans excited about football.

His men have rattled off three straight conference wins and with two games left they have a chance to play for the Big 12 championship. Who would have thought that was even possible at the beginning of the season? The answer is nobody.

If Iowa State would somehow qualify for the Big 12 championship game, that means McCarney has taken a group of inexperienced freshmen and sophomores and gone from worst to first.

The great thing for ISU fans is that things are only going to go uphill from here. This year’s senior class is arguably the poorest recruiting class in the McCarney era. This year’s freshman class is arguably the best. Even better for Cyclone fans, more than half of them are redshirting.

Cyclone fans will miss Ellis Hobbs, but there are plenty of young guns waiting in the wings; for instance, Bobby Chalk, a redshirt cornerback, runs a 4.4 40.

LaMarcus Hicks will be around, and an already salty DeAndre Jackson will have two years left. A stout linebacker named Nick Frere, who contended to crack the starting lineup this year, will help fill the void of losing Brandon Brown. A couple of hard-hitting safeties, Brandon Hunley and Adam Carper, are both redshirting and looking to replace Nik Moser and Steve Paris in two years. Watch out for a guy named Travis Ferguson and Collins Eboh on the defensive line to replace Tyson Smith at defensive end next season.

On offense, Meyer and Todd Blythe will only get better with more reps. The depth at running back is unreal with Stevie Hicks, Jason Scales, Tyease Thompson and a redshirted Brandon Gunn.

Jon Davis and Milan Moses will be a great supporting group of receivers for the emerging star Blythe. The tight end position hasn’t been used much by Iowa State in the last few seasons, but that will change in the future as two top 50 tight ends, Trent Flander and A.J. Haase have both verbally committed to this year’s class. From the looks of things right now, McCarney has found a gem in kicker Culbertson.

No matter the outcome of the next two games, ISU fans need to realize the rebuilding period we experienced last year is over, and the reloading period will begin. Just look to the past. Throughout Coach Mac’s career, when his back has been against the wall, he’s performed his best.