As Darren Davis kicks off his senior season and continues to climb through the Iowa State record books, it becomes easier and easier to forget about his big brother, Troy.

Okay, that’s not altogether true. It may never be easy to forget about the former Heisman Trophy candidate. And why would we want to?

The Cyclones’ all-time career rushing leader brought more publicity and excitement to ISU football than any or all of the five wins the team accumulated during his tenure.

With Darren leading the charge in ’99, however, we may not miss Troy quite so much.

During his three seasons in the cardinal and gold, Troy racked up an amazing 4,382 rushing yards and 5,177 all-purpose yards but led the Cyclones to just five victories in 33 chances.

Darren sits at the 2,722-yard mark in career rushing and has well over 3,700 all-purpose yards at this point.

More importantly, however, Darren has been involved in eight Cyclone victories and has ISU at 2-0 for the first time since the Jim Criner era.

With a win next week against UNLV, a team soft against the run, ISU would be 3-0 for the first time since 1981 and Darren would be on top of the world.

The elusive senior managed 112 yards against Indiana State before succumbing to leg cramps.

On Saturday, Darren battled through the same cramps and the Iowa Hawkeye defense for 235 yards, nearly eclipsing the 244 yards he racked up against the same Iowa team a year ago.

“Darren was gutsy tonight,” McCarney said of his star tailback. “Nobody knows, unless you’ve had cramps before in your legs how painful that can be.

“But he kept going to the sidelines, pouring the fluids in, getting his legs back and going out there, knowing we needed him badly to win this game.”

Darren scored the contest’s first touchdown on an 11-yard run around in the first quarter and set up ISU’s final score on a 54-yard carry late in the third quarter.

But it was the hard-nosed 170 yards in between that kept the Cyclone offense on the field, ate the clock and handed ISU its second straight win over the Hawkeyes.

“I don’t know how he does it, to tell you the truth,” Cyclone quarterback Sage Rosenfels said.

“How many carries did he have? Forty-five? It seemed like a million. We kept running the same plays over and over, but they were working,” he said.

With nine games remaining in his collegiate career, Darren faces several milestones.

For starters, this year he could become the only Cyclone back ever to eclipse the 1,000-yard mark in three seperate seasons.

In addition, Darren has his eyes on the career rushing and all-purpose yardage marks.

With 2,722 yards on the ground, Darren sits behind only Mike Strachan (3,010), Dexter Green (3,437) and Troy (4,382) in the career rushing annals.

To reach the amazing milestone, Darren would need to average 185 yards per game the rest of the year, a difficult but not unattainable goal.

The career all-purpose yardage record sits within even close striking distance at 5,177 yards, held again by Troy.

Darren is currently third on the charts at 3,725 yards, also trailing Green (4,065).

He needs to average just 162 total yards in each of the remaining nine contests to reach that record.

“He’s a senior, he’s a winner and that’s what winners do,” offensive tackle Bill Marsau said. “That’s what we expect of him, and we knew he’d do it.”

But all personal glory aside, Darren has the opportunity in ’99 to lead his team to a winning record and, perhaps, the first ISU bowl game in 21 years, two accomplishments Troy never even came close to.

Finally, Troy was 0-3 when leading his team against the Hawkeyes, compared to Darren’s 2-1 mark.

And, of course, that’s the only game that matters anyway.

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Ron Demarse is a senior in liberal studies from Muscatine.