It’s 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, and I’m sitting here alone in the Daily office. I’m not sure why I woke up this early or why exactly I decided to go to work three hours ahead of schedule.

It’s quiet here, and that’s good for thinking about things. Right now I’m thinking of this weekend’s football game.

I left Cyclone Stadium with a familiar feeling Saturday afternoon. And even though I’d experienced this feeling during many past seasons, I couldn’t quite isolate my mood. I suspect that many other fans, players and coaches felt the same way.

This year, however, was a little more personal for me. This is my fifth and last year at Iowa State. I’ve seen the football team suffer three defeats at the hands of the Hawkeyes in Cyclone Stadium. One year I even ventured over to Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City with the same result.

Five years in school and five losses. I realized Saturday that I will graduate from Iowa State without ever seeing a football victory against the Hawkeyes, as will everybody else who graduates with me — including the players themselves.

Saturday’s loss doesn’t mean that the season will be a failure. It doesn’t mean that Coach McCarney is doing a poor job. Nor does it mean that the players aren’t playing well.

It’s not about any of that.

It’s about a school that athletically speaking has almost always lived in the shadow of its more renowned counterpart. It’s about students who tell distant friends about the college they attend and all too often get the response: “Iowa State? You’re the Hawkeyes, right?” And it’s about a team that seems to always be facing an uphill battle on and off the field no matter how hard it tries.

I keep trying to tell myself that football is just football. It’s just a game.

But I can’t quite convince myself. It’s more than just a game to me and I suspect thousands of other ISU fans. Every time the team takes the field, it is representing our school. And like it or not, whether you’re a fan or not, the team projects an image of Iowa State to outsiders.

And at no time in the season is this more true than during the Iowa-Iowa State game. It’s the one time during the year when nearly all eyes are on the state’s two largest schools, but for as long as I can remember, Iowa has always reaped the glory, while Iowa State quietly goes to the locker room with another loss.

It really shouldn’t be that way. At least not every year.

A lot of Iowa fans don’t seem to understand why Cyclone fans take this game so personally. For Iowa, it’s just another game, one minor step down the road to a bowl appearance. But for Iowa State, it’s an annual test, a test that it’s never expected to win. From a coaching standpoint, this is just one of 11 games out of the football season. But from an Iowa State fan’s perspective, it’s often the only game that really matters.

And nevermind point spreads, national rankings or player match-ups, every Cyclone fan that watched the game on Saturday was wondering the obvious question: Is this our year? And once again, as I was leaving the stadium Saturday, I got an all too familiar answer to that question. And it’s not an answer I liked.

So as I sit here in my office and wrap up this column, I can’t help but think that my college experience will be missing something. I won’t ever know what a victory over the Hawkeyes feels like as an undergraduate. And one more loss gets written down in the record books.

But still I cling to the fact that I know someday it will happen – maybe a lot sooner than most people think. Someday it will be our year. And even though I will no longer be at Iowa State, you better believe I will be just as happy as all other Cyclone fans everywhere. No team is more deserving of this win. No victory has ever been more overdue.

Troy McCullough is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Pleasantville. He is the Daily’s editor in chief.