Good ‘ol US News and World Report just released its annual issue showcasing America’s best colleges and universities.

On that list, the University of Iowa managed a ranking of 15th among top public universities, and UNI was ranked second among top regional public universities. And where, might you ask, was Iowa State? Nowhere to be found.

What is up with that? Can this be true? Are we being fooled by the administration?

No, wait. This isn’t right. It is just a really, really bad dream and we will all wake up from it really, really soon.

But what if it isn’t? What if it’s true, and we are not nearly as good as we think we are?

Hold on, let’s calm down. Maybe it’s just a misprint.

That has got to be it, some new guy at the magazine left us out purely by accident, and right about now he is getting his butt chewed for it, and we will be seeing a retraction in the mail and a big, huge public apology from US News and World Report.

But what if it doesn’t happen? What will we do?

How could this happen? Is it because they have us confused with the Hawkeyes?

Maybe it’s because we call ourselves the Cyclones and our freaking mascot is a Cardinal.

You don’t think it has anything to do with the football team not going to a bowl game in more than 20 years?

Is this part of our punishment for losing to Minnesota? Or maybe it is still the curse from the NCAA tournament last year when we lost to UCLA. (Jacy Holloway was pushed.)

Is it the whole Veishea thing? Or maybe we can blame it on Catt Hall.

No matter what the reason, it just doesn’t seem like true justice for any school recognized as the finest land-grant institution in the country to not be ranked among what some call the best in the land.