So It's Getting Slow Around Here... for Closet ISU Fans...

[HawkGold]

As a kid in the 70s and solidly a Hawk fan I took some notice of ISU which I quickly outgrew. I do have some questions for the secret ISU Fans.

1. The QB I think was oft injured ...Tryone or something like that. Was he any good?
2. Who was the ISU play by play guy. Remember thinking he was pretty good the 2 times I listened. He sounded a lot like the current IU Hoosier guy.
3. When ISU was playing for the Orange Bowl and was run over by Terry MIller/OSU, was the Big 8 that good or was it that bad to have some many teams competing for the Orange Bowl?
4. Dexter Green seemed like a good guy. Was he? How good was he really?
5. Besides smile a lot, could Donnie Duncan actually coach if he was somewhere else?
6. If Majors had stayed 5 more years, would ISU be different?

 

[Fryowa]

As a kid in the 70s and solidly a Hawk fan I took some notice of ISU which I quickly outgrew. I do have some questions for the secret ISU Fans.

1. The QB I think was oft injured ...Tryone or something like that. Was he any good?
2. Who was the ISU play by play guy. Remember thinking he was pretty good the 2 times I listened. He sounded a lot like the current IU Hoosier guy.
3. When ISU was playing for the Orange Bowl and was run over by Terry MIller/OSU, was the Big 8 that good or was it that bad to have some many teams competing for the Orange Bowl?
4. Dexter Green seemed like a good guy. Was he? How good was he really?
5. Besides smile a lot, could Donnie Duncan actually coach if he was somewhere else?
6. If Majors had stayed 5 more years, would ISU be different?

Who’s ISU?

Never heard of her.

 

[HawkGold]

Who’s ISU?

Never heard of her.

Nice touch!

 

[Northside Hawk]

As a kid in the 70s and solidly a Hawk fan I took some notice of ISU which I quickly outgrew. I do have some questions for the secret ISU Fans.

1. The QB I think was oft injured ...Tryone or something like that. Was he any good?
2. Who was the ISU play by play guy. Remember thinking he was pretty good the 2 times I listened. He sounded a lot like the current IU Hoosier guy.
3. When ISU was playing for the Orange Bowl and was run over by Terry MIller/OSU, was the Big 8 that good or was it that bad to have some many teams competing for the Orange Bowl?
4. Dexter Green seemed like a good guy. Was he? How good was he really?
5. Besides smile a lot, could Donnie Duncan actually coach if he was somewhere else?
6. If Majors had stayed 5 more years, would ISU be different?

The Big 8 that year (1976) was loaded. The top five teams in the conference were probably among the top 15 or 20 in the country. And ISU was one of them.

Mike Tryon was constantly injured, which caused Bruce to keep turning to Terry Rubley and John Quinn.

Dexter Green at the college level was good. He was kind of a cross between Akrum Wadley and Jordan Canzeri, but was even smaller than Wadley. He was strong and durable enough to handle a 30-40 carry load, like Canzeri.

Forget Johnny Majors, what about Earle Bruce? But Woody Hayes had an unfortunate incident in the 1978 Gator Bowl that cost him his job, and Brutus came calling for the Ohio native and high school legend Bruce. Here's the real interesting question. Had the ISU job opened up six weeks earlier, would Hayden Fry or Jimmy Johnson been interested? My gut feeling is yes for Hayden, and Johnson was an ISU assistant under Majors and I believe Bruce.

Imagine how the landscape of Iowa athletics could have looked if Iowa State had hired Fry or Johnson in 1978 and Coach K in basketball two years later (which is a fascinating story in its own right) But neither happened, because that's how certain things are meant to be.

 

[99topdawg]

Who’s ISU?

Never heard of her.

She's the one that puts her shirt on when she has a bad hair day.

 

[hawkoz]

I grew up 40 miles from Ames in the 1970s and 1980s. I do not know a single name you have mentioned. Iowa State Football was not on the Radar in my household or even among all of my Childhood Friends in the mid to late 70s. We spent many weekends following Michigan and Ohio State. My dad took me to 2-3 Iowa Football games per year during the Cummings era and we dreamed of the day might "get good like Ohio State". I don't have a single recollection of anything Iowa State football-related until my eldest sister was a Freshman (1977) at Iowa and came home with a T-shirt that said "Iowa State, the Udder U" it was a poke at the hick farm school in Ames. I was only 10 years old and I seemed to remember being surprised the State of Iowa had a college that was big enough to play against Iowa.

 

[HawkGold]

I grew up 40 miles from Ames in the 1970s and 1980s. I do not know a single name you have mentioned. Iowa State Football was not on the Radar in my household or even among all of my Childhood Friends in the mid to late 70s. We spent many weekends following Michigan and Ohio State. My dad took me to 2-3 Iowa Football games per year during the Cummings era and we dreamed of the day might "get good like Ohio State". I don't have a single recollection of anything Iowa State football-related until my eldest sister was a Freshman (1977) at Iowa and came home with a T-shirt that said "Iowa State, the Udder U" it was a poke at the hick farm school in Ames. I was only 10 years old and I seemed to remember being surprised the State of Iowa had a college that was big enough to play against Iowa.

Funny and maybe true, but they were serious questions. Just some of those things I never found out about but was curious. The play by play guy actually seemed pretty good. During the OSU ISU game I was helping my dad rewire the old montgomery wards house and it helped pass the boredom as he worked and I watch and played go for.

 

[99topdawg]

Funny and maybe true, but they were serious questions. Just some of those things I never found out about but was curious. The play by play guy actually seemed pretty good. During the OSU ISU game I was helping my dad rewire the old montgomery wards house and it helped pass the boredom as he worked and I watch and played go for.

Is the play-by-play guy you're talking about Pete Taylor? He's the only one I remember other than that whiny guy they have now.

 

[HawkGold]

Is the play-by-play guy you're talking about Pete Taylor? He's the only one I remember other than that whiny guy they have now.

I don't know. I just remember reading about Dexter in the Big Peach and their success got my attention so I listened to 1 game (steam rolled by OSU and Miller). The guy sounded good and just like the IU current guy. So maybe. He wasn't whiny. Working with my dad wasn't fun and the Hawkeye game was over and wanted a distraction.

 

[HawkGold]

Is the play-by-play guy you're talking about Pete Taylor? He's the only one I remember other than that whiny guy they have now.

Ya that's him.

Remembering Pete Taylor: 2002 Football at Iowa

The date was Sept. 14, 2002 in Iowa City, Iowa. It was Iowa State at Iowa. Unrated Iowa State had won four straight over the Hawkeyes, but Iowa was favored o...

www.youtube.com

 

[99topdawg]

I don't know. I just remember reading about Dexter in the Big Peach and their success got my attention so I listened to 1 game (steam rolled by OSU and Miller). The guy sounded good and just like the IU current guy. So maybe. He wasn't whiny. Working with my dad wasn't fun and the Hawkeye game was over and wanted a distraction.

Just to be clear, I wasn't implying he was whiny. John Walters is whiny. Very whiny.

 

[Northside Hawk]

I don't know. I just remember reading about Dexter in the Big Peach and their success got my attention so I listened to 1 game (steam rolled by OSU and Miller). The guy sounded good and just like the IU current guy. So maybe. He wasn't whiny. Working with my dad wasn't fun and the Hawkeye game was over and wanted a distraction.

The Des Moines Register's Big Peach (which really did feature peach colored newspaper lest someone doubted) was probably one of the ten best Sunday sports sections in the country in it's heyday. Unbelievable college football coverage, solid NFL Sunday preview information, those famous "sequence action photos" of scoring plays, and talented writers like Buck Turnbull, Maury White, Ron Maly and a young Marc Hansen.

White in particular became a virtual folk hero when Iowa basketball made its spirited final four run in 1980 and is widely credited with coining the phrase "fabulous few" when describing that injury plagued 1980 team. It was a play off the "fabulous five" that was used to describe Bucky O'Connor's 1950's teams.