My opinion is that Paul Clark got very bitter and jaded about covering Iowa State and that was the downfall of that place.
Meh, I don’t know if that was it. I liked Paul and his coverage and the opinions he offered. I think a bigger problem there is that after a while there weren’t a lot of new members. A lot of that probably had to do with closing the free boards and the rise of Cyclone Fanatic.
The overall level of coverage here has surpassed what either of the other sites ever had. Williams and Blum might be the two most well known Cyclone personalities in sports media. This site has added a lot of great features and coverage over the years with people like Stansbury and Rob Gray and Jay Jordan’s pieces.
What’s happened with Cyclone Report is kind of sad. Bill Seals is doing a good job but the boards are pretty much the same group of posters who have been there for years. Pretty sure the vast majority are over 50 and a lot are in their 70s. A lot of longtime members have disappeared though and they really aren’t being replaced, so the number of voices is getting smaller. Kind of reminiscent of small town Iowa unfortunately.
If you think about it though, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that the main fan sites for a school would be part of a recruiting site network. I think fan bases gravitated to them because that’s what was available but the kind of coverage CF provides is more in line with what the average fan cares about. We care about recruiting obviously, but it’s not our main focus.