THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
When we were kids growing up in a small town in Kansas, my brother and I would put on our helmets and pads and go out in the front yard and play football. He would be the Kansas State Wildcats and I would be the Kansas University Jayhawks (I always thought they had the coolest nickname because it had my name in it). If we were lucky, it would be raining and we could get really muddy, and we'd run around and tackle each other and play until it got too dark. Then our mom would hose us down and we'd go inside, have a bath and drink hot chocolate and watch TV.
When I was 12 we moved to Wisconsin, and my favorite teams became more Midwestern than grain belt, but those childhood memories came floating back to me when I found out that Kansas State (ranked 17th in the country) would be playing their Big-12 Conference rivals Iowa State (No. 22 in the rankings) in the season-opening Aer Lingus College Football Classic on the 23rd of August in my adopted hometown of Dublin, Ireland.
My brother and I were born in a speck of a town about a two-and-a-half-hour drive west from Manhattan in central Kansas, the home of KSU. There isn't much of anything anywhere around Manhattan, rising out of the endless wheat fields just off of Interstate 70, which traces almost a straight line the 850 miles from Denver to Kansas City to St. Louis. "The Little Apple", as it is known, has a population of 54,000, and KSU has an enrollment of 24,000, so to say Manhattan is a college town would about sum it up.
As is much the same with Ames, Iowa – home of the Cyclones – which sits just north of Iowa's capital, Des Moines. Once you get on Interstate 35 heading north out of Ames, you can set the cruise control and hardly touch the steering wheel for three or four hours, or see anything much other than cornfields and pig farms, until you get to Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can do the same heading south to Kansas City.
In these parts of heartland America, college football reigns supreme and has for generations. Folks around the big universities follow their teams religiously and are often fans for life. Ames, Iowa has a population of 66,000 inhabitants. Jack Trice Stadium, where the Cyclones play their home games, holds 61,500 fans for a football game. [For comparison, that's the same as the Chicago Bears' home Soldier Field, and larger than the stadiums of Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City in the English Premier League – ed.]
I've been to Ames twice in the past five years, actually, accompanying my wife on trips to the corporate headquarters of the company she works for. But we've been there in the summer when the stadium sits hulking and lonely in the midst of the sprawling, emptied campus, brooding with the echoes and potential energy of both past and future gamedays.
And now, here I am, surrounded by throngs of purple-clad Kansans (I can't shake the feeling that I, or maybe more likely my brother, could have been one of them in some alternate universe where my family never moved away) and cardinal-red bedecked Iowans who have made the trip over to Ireland in their droves. Now we are all heading into Aviva Stadium in South Dublin, with the air of anticipation and hint of the surreal that comes from transplanting a slice of Americana out of its natural habitat.
The very first football game between Kansas State and Iowa State took place back in 1917 (Iowa State triumphed 10-7 in Ames, for the record). The teams have gone on to meet every year since, making this the 109th meeting – the seventh-longest active streak in major college football.
In the first 108 meetings, Iowa State won 54 times and Kansas State 50, with four finishing in a tie. The Cyclones prevailed in five of the past seven matchups prior to this year – including a 29-21 win in Ames last season – after K-State reeled off 10 consecutive victories between 2008 and 2017.
While opening the college football season in Dublin has become somewhat of a tradition recently, this being the fourth consecutive year and seventh time since 2012, never before has there been a true conference rivalry matchup or a showdown between two nationally ranked teams kicking things off across the pond.
In fact, this particular rivalry is even big enough for its own name. Before their neutral-site meeting at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium in 2009, someone looking for a catchy headline decided to call the showdown "Farmageddon" and the moniker has stuck. It also morphed into "Snowmageddon" two years ago when six inches of the white stuff fell during the game in Manhattan, with this year's rendition being referred to as Farm O'Geddon in some (not entirely serious) circles.
And while mixing references to corn and wheat with potatoes may be amusing, this was a serious matchup between teams with conference championship and major bowl game aspirations, featuring two of the league's best quarterbacks in Avery Johnson (Kansas State) and Rocco Becht (Iowa State).
"We had reservations about taking a home game out of our community and our economy," K-State head coach Chris Klieman – whose team had to sacrifice a home game – said. "But … it just gave our kids an opportunity." And so here they were, 4,140 miles from Bill Snyder Family Stadium in Manhattan, playing a match up in Ireland that would go a long way towards setting the tone for the entire season.
The Wildcats finished 9-4 last season, with a win over Rutgers in the Rate Bowl (it was known as the Copper Bowl back in my day). Thirteen starters returned from that team to make the trip to Dublin, including junior quarterback Johnson, a fleet-footed run/throw threat from down the road in Wichita, Kansas, who set a team record with 25 TD passes in 2024, and running back Dylan Edwards who set a K-State bowl record with 196 rushing yards in that Rate Bowl win.
It marked the third-straight season with at least nine wins for a KSU program that has gotten used to success in recent years under Coach Klieman, who brought a 48-28 record at the helm of the Wildcats to Dublin.
So expectations were high among the K-State faithful who had made the long trip to Ireland, and those expectations were not without support from the national pundits, who ranked their team as the 17th best of the 136 top-tier college football teams in the country in preseason polls.
But the Iowa State fans had reason for optimism as well. They had 11 starters back from a team that posted an 11-3 record, made a Big 12 Championship game appearance and won the Pop-Tarts Bowl (the Citrus Bowl back in the day) over then-15th-ranked Miami.
They have a pretty good quarterback themselves in Becht, who came into the season opener riding back-to-back seasons of throwing for 3,000+ yards, one of just 12 FBS [the highest level of college football] QBs who could make that claim entering the year. He also brought in a streak of 18 consecutive games with a touchdown pass, the longest current streak in all of college football.
So the scene was set as 47,221 raucous college football fans took their seats – well a lot of them stood for most of the game, actually – under a steady Dublin rain. My eyes told me the stadium was split about 50-50 between red and purple, and the – very LOUD – roars from each respective fan base as their team took the field were roughly equally deafening to my ears. Kansas State was the designated home team, so they got the bigger marching band, the mascot (someone with a very large cat head on top of his body, known as Willie Wildcat, apparently), more cheerleaders and the urging of the stadium announcer.
As the game kicked off the rain started pouring down, so much so that the paint on the field and yard line markers got fainter and fainter as the opening quarter wore on. Iowa State's opening drive stalled and they punted on 4th down.
K-State's star running back, the aforementioned Dylan Edwards, settled under the soaring pigskin on his own 10-yard-line with Cyclone defenders bearing down. But instead of making a fair catch, he tried to make something happen. By the time he made the catch, two defenders were on top of him, knocking the ball loose, and the Cyclones recovered the fumble on the 8-yard line. To add a massive injury to insult, Edwards appeared to twist his ankle and would not return to the game.
Losing their best running back ended up being the worst of it however, as five plays later, on 2nd down on the one-yard line, Iowa State running back Abu Sama couldn't handle a wayward pitch from Becht and the two teams had lost two fumbles in the first two minutes of the game in the wet Irish weather.
"It was downpouring in the first half, so it was hard to get a grip on the ball," K-State's Johnson said after the game. "Couldn't get anything started, couldn't get anything going."
After the ISU fumble, K-State punted, then Iowa State punted, and K-State punted again before the Cyclones finally opened the scoring on a sweet 23-yard TD pass from Becht to wide receiver Dominic Overby, capping a four-play, 49-yard drive and keeping Becht's TD pass streak alive.
The Wildcats didn't take much time to respond, however, as they took the ensuing kickoff and marched 65 yards in eight plays, with QB Johnson scampering into the end zone from 10 yards out to tie the score at 7-7 early in the second quarter.
The rest of the quarter swung back to the slog, with the Cyclones losing another fumble, the Wildcats turning the ball over on downs, then losing their second fumble of the game, topped off by ISU missing a 49-yard field goal.
Overall, not the most auspicious half of football ever played, but entertaining nonetheless.
After punts on the opening two drives of the second half, the field started to dry out and things started getting interesting. K-State looked to be on the move, going 51 yards in nine plays, but on 4th and nine from the ISU 33-yard line, Coach Klieman elected to go for it rather than attempt a 50-yard field goal. Johnson's pass fell incomplete, and Iowa State took over on downs.
11 plays and 61 yards later, including a conversion on 4th down, Becht found Brett Eskildsen on a pretty touch pass in the end zone for a 24-yard TD strike.
But once again, K-State wasted little time replying, needing just five plays to go 75 yards, capped by a slick pump fake/double move combination that allowed Johnson to hit a wide-open Jayce Brown, who strolled into the end zone for a 37-yard TD to knot the score once again, 14-14.
Iowa State running back Carson Hansen then got to work, grinding out runs of 15, 15, 8, and 7 yards to get the Cyclones to the K-State 16-yard line, where Kyle Konrady nailed a 34-yard field goal on 4th-and-5.
Then came one of the pivotal plays of the contest. On 4th-and-2 from their own 29, K-State head coach Klieman again rolled the dice and kept his offense on the field to go for the 1st down with eight minutes still left in the game, rather than play it safe and punt trailing by three points.
The decision backfired massively, as Iowa State safety Jamison Patton came screaming in to drill Johnson inches short of the 1st down marker. It took just four plays for the Cyclones to cover the 29 yards to the K-State end zone with Becht punching a seven-yard TD run through the Wildcat defense.
"They made a couple of plays, and we didn't," Coach Klieman said after the game. "I would do the same thing again based on how the game was going. Give them credit, they made the stop."
"Ball in my hand, 4th-and-1 I've got to find a way to get a yard," Johnson said, "keep that drive alive and not put our defense in a bad spot, so take full accountability for that."
But wait! Hold the presses...
On the very next play, Johnson redeemed himself by hitting Jerand Bradley streaking down the left sideline on a 65-yard touchdown bomb to cut the ISU lead back down to three, and we suddenly had ourselves a ball game once again with six minutes left on the clock.
After a 34-yard kickoff return, the Cyclones took over at their own 37-yard line. A couple of runs from Hansen plus 17- and 7-yard completions from Becht, and Iowa State chewed up the field and slowly drained time off the clock. Then Becht was stopped for a gain of seven yards on 3rd-and-10 to bring up 4th-and-3 from the K-State 16-yard line with 2:25 remaining on the clock.
What to do? Kick a field goal and give the Wildcats the ball with 2:00 left and a chance to win the game with a touchdown? Or go for it and risk giving K-State a shot at a field goal to tie or to win it with a touchdown?
Iowa State's head coach Matt Campbell made the call to take his own roll of the dice and go for it. "I just felt really confident that we had just done a great job on the last 3rd down conversion," he said later. "If they had to go the length of the field, I thought we played pretty good defense."
Becht set up in the shotgun, took the snap and dumped it to Hansen, who found himself with some space in the left flat. He picked the pass out of the air and beat the linebacker in coverage to the sideline and turned upfield with one man to beat. He spun from the defender and lunged for the end zone – TOUCHDOWN!
Or was it?
Upon further review, the replay official determined that Hansen's right forearm had hit the ground at the 2-inch line. Either way, it was a gutsy play with solid execution from the Cyclone offense to convert on 4th down.
Now they would surely punch it in and take the 10-point lead. But then the Wildcats would get the ball back with 2 minutes – another quick score and an onside kick, and it could all go up in smoke. So a little arithmetic from Campbell and the coaching staff and they realized that with Kansas State having burned their final timeout earlier, they could run out the clock if they didn't score.
So Becht held himself back and took a knee three times. The clock ticked down to zero and Iowa State had done it: held on for a 24-21 victory in Ireland.
Coach Campbell was asked later if he'd ever been as happy to see one of his players fall just short of the goal line. "Yeaaah, you know, ahh … no, probably not."
"Man, the quarterback's yelling at me 'cause he wants to score at the end of the game," he went on to say with a smile, "But it's situational football at its best."
And that's what makes sporting events so fascinating, isn't it? All those instances, actions, breaks, nuances, decisions, reactions, plays made and plays not made that all add up to make up a game, but which always seem to come down to a handful of pivotal moments that swing the outcome one way or the other. I never get tired of it.
And it seems that college football teams and their fans don't get tired of coming all the way to Dublin, Ireland, to watch their teams play either. So why do they do it? The word I keep hearing is 'experience'.
"It was awesome. The last three days I'm just so grateful that it came together to get an experience like this," Coach Campbell said after the game. "I will say this, it [winning] has certainly made our time in Ireland – I think we would all say we would come back now – but it was a great experience. To be able to win the game, you know, for these guys, the next 40 or 50 years of their lives they are going to be able to come back and bring their families back someday and say, 'man I was part of something really special' so I think that means a lot to all of us."
Cyclone QB Becht agreed, "It's pretty cool, the game that they put on here. It's definitely an experience to be here and play in this game."
Lineback Caleb Bacon (great name for a kid from Iowa) echoed the sentiment, "To come into a stadium like this…was an unreal experience. Just being out in front of – I don't know how many people that holds – but it felt like it was 100,000 the way they were screaming. It was just an awesome experience."
Teams who are thinking about coming to Ireland talk to the programs who have been over before. When Klieman was mulling over moving the game to Ireland, he polled his colleagues at Nebraska and Northwestern who played in Dublin in 2022. One of the coaches called it "the greatest experience their kids have ever had." So teams know what they are getting into, and they continue to come.
I, for one, am glad to hear it. I find it amazing to have big-time sporting spectacles brought from my native American shores to the fields of my adopted homeland, especially when they have this much buzz and excitement.
Texas Christian University and North Carolina are signed up for next year's meeting in Dublin before I get to cheer hard for my Wisconsin Badgers when they take on Pittsburgh in 2027.
Keep them coming, is what I say.
