I thought the UT was a big game. We lost and it will bother me for a long while, but a nut kick it wasn’t.
Regarding the Texas game: I've developed a strange perspective about that one, given overall season performance and (especially) recent results since then. UT loss "feels" like it was a blowout loss. Eye-test, it wasn't pretty, but final score was 17-7. So — Iowa State's worst outing so far was a 2-score game vs. a conference opponent.