I was with my buddies in the student section as usual, we were about 15 rows from the field, in pretty damn good seats. We were expecting to get smoked, but I was surprised we hung with them as well as we did in the first half. Then when Okie State scored to go up 24-7, some of my friends lost hope. My roommate actually left so he could go start partying. We convinced another one of our friends to stay was considering leaving to go home for Thanksgiving break. I was expecting the game to go downhill from there. I have seen a lot of Iowa State football games against good teams go well for a quarter or two and then just collapse into a blowout. Then comeback and insanity ensued. I can't remember ever go as crazy as I did when we tied the game with Gary's TD catch. I was hugging people I didn't even know. In OT, soon as Benton made his pick, the entire student section started pushing forward to the field. Woody scored. Chaos. I didn't find one of my friends on the field. I was giving high fives to everyone in sight. The one person I did find was my cousin who is a drum major in the marching band.
He is the one on the ladder. After about an hour on the field, I headed back to my dorm and proceeded to get slamburgered. Some of my friends stayed and tailgated afterwards, and one of my friends' cousins busted out a bottle of champagne for the occasion. The most gratifying feeling about the whole thing was that my phone was blowing up all game long. I went to high school in Minnesota and proudly wore my cardinal and gold at school. People were confused as why I was such a big supporter of a school that most people don't even realize shares a conference with schools like Texas and Oklahoma. I received countless texts from people asking if I was at the game and that they were pulling for the Cyclones. Still to this day, people ask me if I was there when they learn that I go to ISU. Everybody knows about Iowa State now. It was a perfect night to be a cyclone and one that was long awaited for.
It was clearly the biggest upset of the year.