Jake Brend and Rob Gray fill in for CW and Blum to discuss position matchups for Farmageddon before diving into what they learned about quarterbacks this week, Tyler Miller’s journey into fatherhood, and ranking road games to cover. Presented by Mechdyne.

Probably doesn't need its own standalone thread, but I don't know if we have a Big 12 football-specific thread. Maybe this could be woven into a ***official season thread*** if someone plans to start one.

Anyway, this is CBS Sports ranking of most-difficult to easiest of XII schedules for 2025.

(this graf edited) I might rank ISU a bit higher, but probably a lot of fan bias, and more I review, it's probably ranked about right. Some of the perceived more challenging are at home (or neutral), but I do think point spreads are going to be tighter than last season's. Blum/Brend/CW did line guesses on pod the other day and a lot of projections seem close to where I might put 'em.

Hope you can watch!

Watching tonite you might spot my daughter and I. Doing a New York bucket list. Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Katz Deli, and TDS today. 911 museum and Colbert tomorrow, and Yankees and Broadway show Thursday. Give me your bucket list.

Continuing our LP series that encompasses releases in years ending in “5.”

For part 3, post your favorite LPs released in 2005 and/or 2015. Those years only, NOT the entire decade.

Include 2-4 sound clips. Please do not post link to the entire album. Others who admire the LP may want to post some songs from it.

In addition to the tracks, we encourage you to expound on why the album is meaningful, including personal history of your relationship with the record and its music.

If someone posts an album on your list before you get to it, you still may reference it, but use different song clips.

Choices should focus on studio albums. Avoid greatest hits/live LPs/compilations. We’ll allow it, but it should be a definitive element of an artist’s body of work that isn’t otherwise generally available from studio output.

If you’re more singles-oriented, you may substitute top singles from either of those years.


“On That Note” is presented each week on Cyclone Fanatic by @MeanDean, @cyclones500 and myself.


Part 2

As I am getting desperate for football to start, I’m going full into the League’s Cup games. Anyone else following this? Last year had some fun matchups that filled the sports this time of year.

Columbus and Toluca to kick it off soon

I have a situation that I am curious about.

I have an old person that is renting a place and has been approved, etc. The rental company requires that you use an app to pay the rent. The old people in question think that this is equal to giving all of their money to some rental company. THERE IS NO REASONING WITH THEM.

Is there any tax implications if they write me a check and then I pay the rental company. Basically I'd be a pass through. It's $2500 per month, so significant and I think it would be fine, but I don't know much about taxes.

My soon-to-be 1st grader has a great aptitude for math. He can do double digit addition and subtraction in his head. He understands there can be negative values. Knows at least small numbers multiplying and dividing. We got a lot of practice calculating during basketball season calculating how much ISU was ahead of their opponents.
Did a little research and found a Beast Academy puzzle book for first graders. I like it because it had a lot of breadth in skills without getting too far ahead and confusing him. He can do the puzzles but they do take more work than just a simple calculation. Now it is work and dad hasn’t been to great at finding what motivates him. He can do them, just may take a couple tries. I was never great at math and find it amazing he does so well.
I don’t want him to lose the skills. I taught him to throw a ball at 4 one winter. By summer it was like he never touched a ball. Still trying to get that one back.

Wife and I planning a trip to Chicago Sept 11-14. Plane to arrive by mid-day on the 11th. Going to Cubs game on the 12th during the day, but everything else is open at this point. Looking for some recommendations for where to stay, cool stuff to check out, and places to eat. Looking mostly downtown with an easy way to get to Wrigley for the game. If there is a place to the watch the ISU game on Saturday, that would be a plus (if I can convince wife to watch it).

On Tuesday’s CFTV, Jake Brend has more from Monday’s media availability with Wide Receivers coach Noah Pauley. Pauley talks about how receivers earn their reps and targets. There’s also an update on Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel at Texas Training Camp, big weeks for Brock Purdy and Tyrese Haliburton, and how Conrad Hawley grew at Iowa State.

I'm sure that some have already read that Iowa Brewing in Cedar Rapids is closing. The first rumors were out this past spring. By now it is no great secret, but those locally saw that it was still Iowa Brewing and still open (so a chance to think it was all a hoax). The owner has had a very successful run. His Oja and other beer/ales sell well. But he is at retirement age, and another CR brewery (ClockHouse Brewing) made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He has spent the time since this spring selling off the product he has had on hand, and I suspect that will continue into when ClockHouse finally takes over on Wednesday July 30, 2025. But TODAY IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO VISIT THE BREWERY AS IOWA BREWING.

No one knows exactly the plans that ClockHouse has for their new acquisition. Will they keep it much the same? Or will they maintain and improve it as a production and storage space? My belief is that Clockhouse will eventually move all (or nearly all) production and storage to the Iowa Brewing space, and enlarge their tasting space and make it more compatible with the other business in that building (Black Sheep Social Club). But this is only the opinion of someone not affiliated with either of these breweries or that other business.

Jake Brend welcomes former Chief Energy Officer Conrad Hawley to the CF Summer Series to discuss how he ended up at Iowa State, why he loves being part of a team, his favorite memories as a Cyclone, and more.

KCCI announced Sandberg's passing with a picture of him in a Phillies hat. He came into the league as a player for Philly and left as a manager for Philly but come on. Thoughts?

It has been all too quiet in this forum over the past 2 days, and I was surprised that no one has mentioned the news that Iowa State is facing a $147M shortfall over the next several years. On hold now are the $25M Hilton Coliseum upgrade as well as the $20M wrestling facility. This is terrible news, and I wonder how it will affect recruiting for athletes when we are competing with other schools that have upgraded facilities for both training as well as performances.

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He'd been fighting prostrate cancer for the past year and a half.

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I discovered Tom in high school, but he started perfoming in the late 50s. I invite those of us who remember his work to post our favorite works by him, and encourage those who have not heard of him to give them a listen.

I'll start:
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
The Elements
Who's Next?
Oedipus Rex
Masochism Tango
Vatican Rag
Fight Fiercely, Harvard

Sorry - choosing one was too hard.

Going through VHS tapes of my fathers and found one labeled 99-2000 men and women’s basketball highlights. Wow…so fun to watch and what flashbacks to two amazing teams.

Brent Blum is joined by Jake Brend on a Williams & Blum Sunday to recap Iowa State Football Media Day and the men’s basketball availability with Jamarion Batemon. The two then set the line for all 12 of Iowa State’s regular season games. Williams & Blum is brought to you by Mechdyne in the Northwest Bank Studios.

I thought that there was a thread on this, but apparently not. Big XII highlights of ISU from ‘24, minus the Iowa game.

About the time Rocco was hitting Noel deep downfield against Baylor, I realized that I had tears running down my face.

The ‘24 season was great. It was memorable. It was awesome.

Could we do it again, please? Only this time, without the injuries.

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And have a service that you would recommend? Kid is moving for grad school but her new car is an EV and I don't want her trying to drive it that far.

Rumors on Reddit he is stepping down for health reasons.

I know we have various threads on here that get into this issue somewhat (mostly the CR Gazette one)... but wanted to kind of put it all in one place.

There are 3 major things negatively affecting ISU Athletics and its future right now... and it puts us in a very precarious situation I'm afraid. They are....

1. NIL - financially for obvious reasons

2. Wendy Wintersteen retiring - who knows who gets that job and what their view on athletics will be? Wintersteen by all accounts has been great.

3. When will JP retire? - not too much talk on this, but this would probably be the BIGGEST of the 3 issues IMO. JP has been amazing for ISU Athletics. I don't agree with him on everything, but nobody can refute what he has accomplished for ISU Athletics... maybe the best AD in the country. He has to be thinking about retiring soon I would think... and his replacement will probably make or break us.

And... with all 3 of these things lingering over us... who knows what that will do to people like Matt Campbell, TJ, etc... and their futures? I just really feel like the next handful of years will really determine the future of our athletics program.