“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m sure every Iowa State fan (even those in denial about their fanhood) has seen this video of Iowa State celebrating after their victory at Nebraska on Saturday. But I wanted to post it here, so I would always have a place to see it.

(Obviously if you subscribe via email or RSS Feed, you will have to go to the website to see the video.)

I don’t want to pile on to Chizik. It is obvious now that he clearly wasn’t the right fit here. Whether or not he succeeds at Auburn or how completely classless his departure from Iowa State was, the only thing that matters is that Iowa State now has absolutely the right guy as our coach.

Paul Rhoads says in that video that he is “So proud to be your football coach.”

I am so proud that Paul Rhoads is our football coach. Passion and enthusiasm are back in the Iowa State football program after a 2 year hiatus. It feels so good to see those two old friends again.

After the 5k concluded on Saturday – Sara, Jen, Karolina & Dionne huddled up to discuss where we should eat.

I asked Derrick what was going on over there. He explained the situation.

I stuck my head into the huddle and said, “You know what is the most important feature of the restaurant we eat at?”

They asked me to elaborate.

“A place where we can watch the Iowa State game.”

At first I thought my point had fallen on death ears, but Dionne also wanted to watch the game and Jen wanted to make Derrick happy, so we ended up at Legends in downtown Des Moines watching the game.

While we were walking to Legends, Jen (the Super-Wife) even offered to go get the car on her own so that Derrick and I could continue to watch the game after we were done eating.

So the 6 of us huddled into a booth at Legends and watched the first half of Iowa State’s first victory in Lincoln since 1977. First victory since 1977 despite missing their 2 best offensive players. Despite losing their nickel back with a broken leg. Despite having to separate healthy players from players with the flu for the ride over. I saw somebody write that ISU beat Nebraska on Saturday with 1/3 the talent and 5 times the heart. That heart comes from having a coach that actually cares.

Watching the first half with us was a good primer for Sara since she is going to go to the Iowa State-Kansas State game in Kansas City with us next year. She is big time excited about this new adventure and is counting down the days on her calendar.

As Jesse Smith pulled down an interception (the 8th Nebraska turnover of the game)I received several text messages. Including one from Tim, who was in Memorial Stadium indicating that it was “quiet” in the stadium.

I got a text from Bill (who lives in Omaha) saying that he was in a Best Buy “full of angry”.

Corey sent me a text message proclaiming that this game reinforced his theory of “The X”. Corey believes that the Kansas-ISU game was “The X”. After that game, Kansas would decline and the Cyclones would rise. Kansas did win that game, but since then they are 0-2. ISU is 2-0. I am a believer in “The X”.

I received a text message from Colleen that said simply: “Wow.”

I got a text from Baier proclaiming it to be one of the “5 biggest wins in Cyclone history”.

I got a text from Jesse asking if I “believed it”. Of course I believed it. I predicted it.

I got a text from Shannon saying that she broke the 1 day Little White Lye Soap sales record. I texted her back that it was a “truly great day”. She asked if that meant the 5K had went well. I responded that it had went well, but more importantly, ISU had beaten Nebraska. She merely texted back that she had “heard that”.

Then I talked to Jason and Derrick on the phone. It was a great day to be a Cyclone. Actually every day is a great day to be a Cyclone, but this day was a little bit greater than the norm.

I had sent a text message to Jill saying that Derrick and I had evened out the estrogen overload by making our party watch the ISU victory over Nebraska and now I was “so happy it hurt”. The response came back that this must the “good kind of hurt”.

Iowa State definitely put the good kind of hurt on Nebraska.