It’s not happening. We need to face the music. I keep reading posts about us having a top 10 football program. C’mon. Let’s be real. We are NOT a top ten program. If you believe that because we are ranked in top ten, then you must also believe that we have the worst P5 basketball program. We cannot have it both ways. It doesn’t work that way.
Programs are built over time on sustained results and tradition. As of right now, we have neither.
Iowa State has been ranked 66 weeks in the AP poll, which is 85 years of AP polling. That is less than one week, per year, in which they are considered one of the 20 or 25 best teams.
Four times (3 in the last year, including this preseason) they were in the top 10, with an all-time high of 7th this year.
In 82 of those 85 years, not a single week were they considered to be one of the ten best teams in the nation, and only one week in 2002, two in 2020, and the one week so far this year.
In 70 of those 85 years, there wasn't as single week in which they were ranked at anytime.
Their 66 poll appearances is good for 10th place in the current Big 12 conference, dead last by 43 weeks behind Kansas, who is 9th in the conference. Iowa State, historically, is the worst team as far as rankings in the Big 12 all-time, and it is not even close. They have been ranked 5.6% of the weeks, with an average ranking of 18th when they were ranked.
Sustained results are what builds a program. We are running, and may have already run, out of time.