Confirmed: Iowa and Iowa State to End Rivalry (satire)

As was first reported by the Off Tackle Empire’s little brother, Wide Right & Natty Lite, we can now confirm that the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State Cyclones will in fact be ending their longstanding rivalry after this season. While Iowa State Athletic Director Jamie Pollard has stated that the decision to end the series was based on the fact that the FCS Northern Iowa Panthers were a better fit for the Cyclones, it seems that the decision wasn’t actually in his hands. We reached out to Iowa’s own AD, Gary Barta:

“After winning 12 games last year, we received a lot of criticism about our non-conference scheduling. Coach Ferentz and I spoke at length about how to increase our strength of schedule and add some more quality wins, and after a certain point it became clear that we were going to have to drop our schedule’s weakest link.”

“Keeping the spirit of an in-state rivalry was important to us, so we decided to look within our borders for a team that consistently puts a better product on the field than we typically find in Ames. Our number one priority was making sure we add wins that are more impressive than beating Iowa State. It turns out that wasn’t very hard, so we decided to begin a new, more quality rivalry with NCAA Division III opponent Grinnell College.”

“We chose the Grinnell Pioneers for a number of reasons. First, we feel like [Grinnell Coach] Jeff Pedersen is capable of acting like an adult on the sidelines and not like a 9 year-old hopped up on Mountain Dew whose mom just took away his XBox. I don’t know Matt Campbell that well, but after 7 years of Paul Rhoads we aren’t taking any chances. Our games are actually on television, for Pete’s sake. Second, we wanted an atmosphere of knowledgeable fans at our games rather than a gaggle of loud stooges exclaiming how they’d be a respectable football program if only the rigors of the Big 12 football schedule [editor’s note: LOL] weren’t holding them back. And finally, we felt that while the water quality in Grinnell isn't as good as it is in Ames and Grinnell’s basketball players aren’t the upstanding citizens that Iowa State’s are, it's nice to have a rival that has academics that mirror ours. We also like that they have majors that don't require you to put your arm elbow-deep in a cow.”

“Jamie Pollard actually fought tooth and nail against this when I informed him of my decision. When I suggested he fill the gap in his schedule with FCS Northern Iowa, he started blubbering about how embarrassing it was that UNI had beaten them twice in the last 10 years. Jamie is a little weasel though, he’ll try to turn it into a positive.”

This is great news for Hawkeye fans. Dropping the Cyclones from our schedule will only help boost our national perception. It took Iowa State almost 4 years to win as many games as Iowa did last year alone. Iowa can now look to their actual Super Bowl on Black Friday against Nebraska, and begin pretending that Iowa State doesn't exist as the rest of the country already does. As for the Grinnell Pioneers: I look forward to our blossoming rivalry. It will be nice to play an in-state team that isn’t a total embarrassment to the game of football.