In my hometown there’s a little gas station (one of two in the town) called Andy’s Mini Mart. Every morning all the local yokels head to Andy’s for their morning coffee and “insightful conversation.”

On weekend mornings, that means football.

I happened to stumble into Andy’s this Sunday morning, well it was more like crawled, after a fun night on the town Saturday. I expected the usual, “How about those Cyclones?” or “Iowa State has a football team?” followed by a loud roar of laughter from the coffee crowd.

You see, to my hometown the words football and Hawkeyes coincide — they’re like peanut butter and jelly to most of the over-40, middle aged men that are in that “when I was in the big game of ’68” phase.

What I heard when I walked into Andy’s yesterday morning surprised the hell out of me. I heard comments such as, “That McCartney guy sounds like he knows what he’s doin, huh” and “Those Cyclones might give Iowa a run for their money this year.”

Needless to say, I was shocked. Here were the hapless heroes of the Hawkeyes actually saying something nice about the Cyclones! The town in which almost every automobile has a black and gold license plate was being nice to a Cyclone fan and saying the team with the new coach and the new attitude looked promising!

Needless to say, I was shocked. . . wait a minute, I already said that. Well, you get the point. This kind of thing doesn’t happen very often at Andy’s.

Another reason I couldn’t believe it was the Cyclones had just lost to Texas Christian the very night before! A 27-10 score against the Southwest Conference champs is nothing to be ashamed of at all, but the boys at Andy’s love it when the Cyclones lose and they love to rub it in when I walk in. Trust me, I didn’t go into Andy’s much last fall for a reason.

Maybe it was the right time of the month for them. Maybe it was reverse psychology — or maybe it was something else all together.

I started to think about it. . . the Cyclones do have a lot to look forward to. That McCartney guy is a hell of a coach and a motivater. Troy Davis is leading the nation in rushing. We’ve got cool uniforms now. Walden’s gone.

The team is looking pretty good; maybe this is the year we beat Iowa. It’s been 13 years; hell we’re due.

Even though we lost to TCU, it was a close game up to halftime. Plus, it was in Fort Worth. If it had been in Cyclone Stadium with the roaring fans like there was last Thursday against Ohio, maybe the Cyclones would have been able to capitalize on alllllll of those Horny Frog turnovers.

And then again, maybe not.

The point is that the local yokels at Andy’s Mini Mart respect the Cyclone football team now and it made me feel good. News like that should make every Cyclone fan feel good.

Jason Howland is a senior in journalism from Riceville. He is Sports Editor of the Daily.