With Matt Campbell passing Dan McCarney for the most wins as a head coach in Iowa State football history, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at how exactly Campbell has turned the culture of a program that was once riddled with losing seasons, to one that has started to make a shift in the right direction.
To start, Iowa State has played college football since 1892. That’s 132 seasons.
In all of that time, the Cyclones have never won 10 or more games in a single season. It has also been over 100 years since Iowa State’s last conference championship, back in 1912 when the Cyclones were in the Missouri Valley.
It’s been a brutal century, but now the tide is starting to turn for the better. With Iowa State’s most recent win against Houston, Campbell won his 57th game as head coach of the Cyclones and has surpassed McCarney for the all-time wins record.
Campbell has the 2024 squad out to a 4-0 start, the best since 2000, which was McCarney’s best season as head coach. That also means this is Iowa State’s best start in my lifetime.
McCarney managed to win nine games in that 2000 season, and I think Campbell can one-up him in that wins category as well.
What I like most about Campbell’s mindset is that he knows the goal is to win every game, but the bigger, overarching goal is to build the players into better human beings.
His promise to his players is an opportunity to play college football at the highest level, but it has to be earned. Since Campbell has taken over, the culture change has been unreal.
In his eight seasons as head coach, Campbell has made six bowl games and has six winning seasons. In its entirety as a program, the Cyclones have made 18 bowl games all time.
Though Campbell’s bowl record is 2-4, the fact that he has been able to lead Iowa State to them says something.
What I found most crazy was the 2021 season and how people were upset that the team finished with seven wins. Granted, it came after the Cyclones were a touchdown away from a Big 12 title a season prior, but the fact that fans of a team that could barely win four games a year historically were upset over a winning season, I think, says a lot about the type of winning culture Campbell has brought to Ames.
Campbell is also a three-time Big 12 Coach of the Year winner in 2017, 2018 and 2020. It’s an award McCarney won once, and no other Iowa State head coach has ever won.
Not only has Campbell brought a winning culture to Ames; he’s also brought national recognition.
From 2016 through the present day, the Cyclones have been ranked 34 times, with Campbell’s first AP Top 25 appearance with Iowa State coming in 2017. From 1938-2015, the Cyclones were in the AP Top 25 just 40 times.
Think about that.
In not even a decade, Campbell has nearly tied the number of times Iowa State was ranked over the span of nearly 80 years. That’s almost unbelievable.
Another thing Campbell has done so well is retain coaches. Jon Heacock, Taylor Mouser and Eli Rasheed all left Toledo to join Iowa State with Campbell, and he never forgets to credit them along with all of the other coaches and staff for helping build this team into what it is today.
Having coaches, staff and players that care about a program and want it to succeed is always important, and it is a hard thing to do now with the transfer portal and NIL deals.
The future is bright for Iowa State football and I’m so excited to watch it unfold.
