The Iowa State football team heads south for their last game of the season against Kansas State. Kansas State is 8-2 overall and 5-2 in the Big 12.

They have fallen only to Nebraska and Colorado.

Iowa State Head Football Coach Dan McCarney expressed praise for Kansas State’s program.

“Kansas State is obviously an excellent football team, with a great program, and is a classic example of what we would like to do here at Iowa State with our program,” McCarney said. “Bill [Snyder] has had a lot of years to recruit. His coaches have done a lot to recruit talent from all over the country, and when you look at some of the players on the field that they have, that are some of the best in college football.”

Excellent recruiting, along with a great record, casts doubts on a win for the Cyclones.

“They have a tremendous home record down there,” McCarney said. “They won 33 games in a row against unranked opponents down in Manhattan, and they don’t look a whole lot different than they did last year when the beat us 49-7 here in Ames.”

But McCarney is not intimidated, and pointed toward the positives.

“We’re only a 21-22 point underdog instead of a 40 point underdog this week,” McCarney said. “We’re looking forward to the challenge ahead this week. It’s going to be a big football game and will be the last chance that we get to be together as a football team, before our seniors depart.”

Even with the outcome of the football season, McCarney believes the 2-8 overall record doesn’t tell the whole story.

“Even though we didn’t get as many wins at home as we might have liked to have had this year, I think that it has been very exciting, close, and competitive, other than the Nebraska game last Saturday,” McCarney said, pointing out that even though nobody is satisfied with the record, people are pleased with the work ethic and efforts of the staff and the players.

McCarney is already looking forward to next year.

According to McCarney, artificial and natural turf practice fields and an enlarged press box are in the planning stages for next year.

McCarney cited a need for modern facilities to remain competitive.

“We can’t wait and sit around for another 20 years for the next improvement from a facility standpoint. We have to keep up with all the top programs in America, if we are going to play them each year, and we have to have the same types of things at hand,” McCarney said. “We have great academics, a tremendous town, a staff in place that I think is really outstanding, and all the facilities are beginning to get into place that we need.”

One new feature on campus that McCarney is already taking advantage of is the new Jacobson Building.

“Now we get to walk them through the commitment and the new facilities and the atmosphere and the environment that they are going to have and spend the next four or five years in,” McCarney said.

And as the facilities improve, so does the team.

McCarney said there will be a lot of potential recruits coming down in the first week of December. “We’ve got over 20 kids coming in and hopefully most of their parents. It is a big basketball weekend, and we’re going to give those kids a real good taste of Cyclone fans over at Hilton Coliseum.”