Date Posted: 2009-12-07

The Iowa State football team has received a bowl bid, but it hasn’t met its goal.

The Cyclones expected to win a bowl game, not just play in one, before the season started and that’s exactly what they plan to do against Minnesota in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 31 (5 p.m., NFL Network).

“The mission isn’t accomplished, yet,” ISU coach Paul Rhoads said.

The only thing left to do is get a postseason win.

The Cyclones have checked off virtually everything on their "to do" list this season.

Snap their road losing streak. End their Big 12 road losing streak. Stop the 10-game losing streak they entered the season with.

They even beat Nebraska on the road for the first time since 1971.

“We are blessed to be in this position, and we are going to take advantage of it,” quarterback Austen Arnaud said.

The Insight Bowl, which has the sixth Big 12 bowl selection, took the 6-6 Cyclones over an 8-4 Missouri team that beat ISU in November.

Center Reggie Stephens wasn’t thinking about the Cyclones leapfrogging the Tigers on Sunday because he couldn’t get over the fact he’s headed to Arizona.

“This has been a long time coming for us to get to this,” Stephens said. “Especially us seniors and it would be great to go out on top like that.”

To pick up a bowl win, the Cyclones will have get by the 6-6 Golden Gophers. Minnesota has struggled to move the ball down the field after losing its best playmaker in wide out Eric Decker. Decker had surgery to fix torn ligaments in his left leg in November and is out for the season.

The Golden Gophers only average 295.8 total yards and allow 24.6 points a game.

Arnaud said the Cyclones should match up well with a Big Ten team because like the Cyclones, teams from that conference, tend to rely on running the ball and defense to win games.

And Arnaud thinks that those similarities are a good thing for an ISU team looking to win in the postseason for the first time since 2004.

“The attitude it takes to win a bowl game is much needed here,” Arnaud said. “We are going to have to focus and not take anything for granted.”

Bowl goals aside, making the postseason is quite an accomplishment for a program that won five games in the previous two seasons. The Cyclones lost their final 10 games last season and last December, when Gene Chizik left for Auburn, dejected fans called in to talk radio shows and asked on message boards how long it would be before the Cyclones could get to a bowl game.

It turned out they were only 12 games away.

“We are thrilled to death to be playing in a bowl game, to be practicing in December and have the opportunity to play,’ Rhoads said.

And the Cyclones plan to make the most of it.

“They are not satisfied with the opportunity to play New Year’s Eve night in Tempe, Ariz.,” Rhoads said. “They are working as hard as they can to be in a position preparation-wise to win a bowl game.”

Benton expected back for bowl
Rhoads said that cornerback Ter’ran Benton is practicing and should play in the bowl game. Benton broke his leg at Nebraska. He was also involved in a car crash in Oklahoma around Thanksgiving.

Bobby La Gesse can be reached at (515) 663-6929 or rlagesse@amestrib.com.