Iowa State Football Understandably Not Seen as a Top 25 Team

Should the Iowa State Cyclones be considered a Top 25 team?

Nov 9, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Iowa State Cyclones helmets on the bench during the first quarter against the Kansas Jayhawks at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. | William Purnell-Imagn Images

Following a wild offseason, the Iowa State Cyclones will be excited to get back on the field and start what will be a new era for the program. 

After a very successful decade with Matt Campbell as the head coach, the Cyclones will now have the talented and hungry Jimmy Rogers taking over. Following just one year as the coach of the Washington State Cougars, the new coach of Iowa State will be looking to make his mark on the program. 

Unfortunately, Rogers did not inherit the best situation. This was expected to be a very talented roster for the 2026 campaign, but instead, a majority of their players went into the transfer portal and left the school. 

With Iowa State not being the biggest spender, they had to get creative, adding talent in the transfer portal. The Cyclones will be hoping to have a lot of depth that will create some competition, and hopefully, some players will develop. However, with a whole new roster, it is going to take time to gel, and whether or not this will be a successful season is yet to be determined. 

Sam Khan Jr. and Austin Mock of The Athletic (subscription required) recently predicted what the Top 25 will look like in college football, and the Cyclones unsurprisingly didn’t make the cut. 

Iowa State Could Have Tough Year

Iowa State football head coach Jimmy Rogers | Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Following an offseason full of change, expectations for the Cyclones are going to be hard to predict. This is a team with an entirely new coaching staff and a new roster as well. 

Based on what Rogers was able to do in a somewhat similar situation with the Washington State Cougars, Iowa State could be a competitive team despite all of the changes. However, while Rogers was able to play some tight games against good teams with the Cougars last year, the schedule will be challenging for the Cyclones week after week in the Big 12. 

If the team didn’t have their roster gutted, they likely would have been able to be placed in the Top 25 projections. The Penn State Nittany Lions, who brought over a lot of the talent from Iowa State, were ranked 23rd, and that would have been a fair range. 

Now, in order to climb up in rankings this year, the Cyclones will have to start out well. This is a program that started out (5-0) last season, and that would be a great way to kick off the Rogers era.