Incredible Iowa State Pop-Tarts Bowl Win Highlights Surprising Postseason | Deadspin.com

In the era of the College Football Playoff, it’s easy to write off traditional bowl games as meaningless. Just don’t tell that to the Iowa State Cyclones.Incredible Iowa State Pop-Tarts Bowl Win Highlights Surprising Postseason | Deadspin.com

A Pop-Tarts Bowl matchup between Iowa State and the Miami Hurricanes had every excuse to devolve into a glorified spring game. The Cyclones’ dud in the Big 12 Championship Game and Miami’s Thanksgiving weekend loss at Syracuse denied both teams a spot in the 12-team Playoff, setting the stage for what could have been a forgettable bowl game.Incredible Iowa State Pop-Tarts Bowl Win Highlights Surprising Postseason | Deadspin.com

Meanwhile, the game itself garnered the attention of college football pundits and social media users more for its ludicrous brand placement gimmicks—an edible mascot and a trophy with a built-in toaster oven—than for its on-field product. The pageantry and history of the Rose Bowl Game, it was not.

Instead, the Cyclones and Hurricanes delivered one of the most thrilling games in this first postseason of the expanded Playoff era. Iowa State’s 42–41 win marked this year’s 12th bowl game decided by a one-score margin.

The slate included Navy’s 21–20 Armed Forces Bowl win over Oklahoma, featuring Blake Horvath’s program-record 95-yard touchdown run; Kansas State’s 44–41 defeat of Rutgers in the Rate Bowl, highlighted by Dylan Edwards’ 196 rushing yards; and two-, five-, and six-overtime marathons in the Famous Idaho Potato, Hawai’i, and GameAbove Sports Bowls. These games provided more compelling football than any of the Playoff’s first-round matchups.

To be fair, bowl season didn’t need the Playoff’s expansion to dilute the postseason. One need not search archives long to find newspaper columns from as far back as the 1980s lamenting the proliferation of bowl games.

In more recent times, the growing prevalence of player opt-outs—by those preparing for the NFL Draft—preceded changes to NCAA transfer rules. Post-pandemic bowl games featuring lineups that hardly resemble the regular-season squads are not uncommon.

For Iowa State, however, the Pop-Tarts Bowl provided a backdrop for the Cyclones’ own piece of history—one largely untouched by such roster turnover. With Rocco Becht’s goal-line touchdown carry for his fourth score of the day, Iowa State secured the first 11-win season in the 134-year history of the program.

Cyclones coach Matt Campbell emphasized the significance of this milestone during the bowl’s introductory press conference on Dec. 8, saying:
“What made Iowa State really special is our ability to have great resiliency. I know our kids are super excited about the opportunity to finish off.”

In much the same way, it’s easy to dismiss bowls in the present age; one could chalk a sentiment like Campbell’s up to naivety. We live in a brave new college football world dominated by NIL money and marked by floods of transfers throughout the offseason.

But it became apparent Campbell was not spouting empty rhetoric when Iowa State’s upperclassmen committed to the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

Jaylin Noel’s dedication proved vital to the win. The senior wide receiver caught eight passes for 117 yards and a crucial touchdown late in the third quarter, cutting a 10-point Miami lead to three.

“This meant the world to me, for me to be able to be a leader on this team,” an emotional Noel said about the bowl being his last game with Iowa State. “I had to play for them. Those guys come in every day and look up to me. If I wasn’t going to play, that’s just not what leaders do.”

“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Noel said of the bowl game being his swan song at Iowa State. “I love this team so much. I love Coach [Campbell] for everything he’s done for me. And this team means the world to me. There’s no better way to go out than [as] a champion.”

Bowl season means more opportunities to go out as a champion, whether the trophy is the Playoff’s cylindrical golden prize or a Pop-Tarts Bowl trophy with a toaster on top. It’s part of what has made college football special for generations, and this year’s bowl games suggest the postseason can retain some of that mystique even in this new era.