Iowa State football trying to recapture upward trajectory after two disappointing seasons

ARLINGTON, Texas ― Fighting gravity takes time.
Take, say, a rocket ship. From conception to takeoff, the process takes years. There’s design, followed by prototypes followed by tweaks followed by tests followed by more of just about everything before the thing takes flight.
It’s hard, sometimes tedious, work that can pay off with a trip to the heavens. Even after success, though, it usually ends with a forfeit to gravity by way of a fiery crash back to Earth. Then, you build another one and go again.
Building a football program isn’t all that different.
After a steady buildup and a season of unprecedented success, Iowa State football and coach Matt Campbell are experiencing the reality that exists for nearly every single program. Gravity can be overcome, but it's hard to stay aloft forever.
“We’re going to have some of that life cycle as a part of our program,” the eighth-year Cyclone coach said last week at Big 12 football media days. “I feel like our sustainable success is to build, develop and build programs the old-fashioned way.
“That’s not always flashy and not always easy. It becomes a challenge at times ― for players and coaches, to be honest with you.”
After inheriting a complete rebuild at Iowa State that led to a 3-9 debut season, Campbell’s next three seasons saw the Cyclones build their ship to the stars through improved talent, navigating adversity and amassing experience. They achieved liftoff in 2020, winning the first New Year’s Six bowl and appearing in the first conference championship game in school history.
That was as high as the Cyclones would fly before the descent began, however.
A preseason top-10 ranking in 2021 gave way to a frustrating 7-6 season despite what may have been the most talented Cyclone team ever. What followed was a 4-8 2022 that saw the Cyclones go 1-8 against Big 12 competition.
After touching the stars, the Cyclones found themselves grounded.
It’s certainly not a unique story across the sport. Just look at perhaps Iowa State’s closest comparable competitor in the Big 12, Kansas State. The Wildcats’ first Big 12 title in 2003 was followed by back-to-back losing seasons. It took another 10 years for them to land another title ― and another 10 years after that for a third. It's a script that has been performed all over the country for decades.
Special seasons are that because they’re rare. Only in a few places can the trajectory go up and to the right seemingly forever.
Making the Cyclones’ situation interesting is that Campbell came up at a pair of those places.
Campbell went 54-1 and claimed three national championships as a player to go with another two titles as a coordinator at Division III Mount Union. At Toledo, the expectation is to compete for conference championships, and Campbell had three teams finish atop the MAC division standings.
“Mount Union was different,” Campbell said. “You were fortunate to get the best players year in and year out ― probably a lot like the Alabamas and some of those people. At Toledo, in the Mid-American Conference, year in and year out, you get the best players.
“That’s a lot different than this model.”
Campbell proved the model at Iowa State once and is now undergoing the process of trying to prove it again.
“It’s the only way at our place,” Campbell said. “I wish there was another way. Football is a developmental game and we’re a developmental program.
“But I think that’s some of the things I love about our place, and we haven’t really backed away from that.”
That included something of an offensive overhaul this offseason, with Nate Scheelhaase being elevated to offensive coordinator and new assistants guiding the offensive line, running backs and wide receivers.
“It was frustrating,” wide receiver Jaylin Noel said of the Cyclones’ punchless 2022 offense, “but we knew it was on us as a whole as an offense. It was something we had to take on our shoulders.
"It’s something you can look back on every workout, every film session, anything during fall looking back on it knowing you don’t want that outcome again this year.”
Taking the gravity of college football as inevitable, every rise is accompanied by a fall. That descent, though, doesn’t have to be fatal. In fact, it can simply be treated as a fact of football life. The downs are guaranteed, the ups only come with work, determination and fortune.
“I don’t accept (losing),” Campbell said, “but I also have perspective and reality of having sustained success. That was always my goal. To give this place sustained success. Not just be a flash in the pan. I feel we’ve done a great job of proving that.
“But you’re going to have to constantly prove that. I’m not naïve to that.”