Why is Iowa State football hitting the road to play a game at Ohio in the 2023 season?
Travis HinesMARSHALLTOWN – A quick glance at the 2023 Iowa State football schedule doesn’t immediately betray any oddities.
There’s the opener against Northern Iowa. There’s the Cy-Hawk game. There’s a non-conference game against a MAC team and then nine Big 12 Conference games.
A closer inspection, though, reveals an “@” that stands out.
That MAC game isn’t at Jack Trice Stadium, but rather in Athens, Ohio against the Bobcats, giving coach Matt Campbell and Iowa State the rare road game against a non-Power 5 opponent.
“It’s sheer economics, is what it comes down to,” Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard said Monday at a tailgate tour stop. “To just buy (a home opponent), the going rate right now is $1 million, $1.2 million, maybe more, but that’s one year. You have to double that because you don’t get Ohio the next year.
“We get them for free because we’re going there. If you’re going to buy somebody, it’s really a $2.5 million decision, not a $1 million decision.”
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It’s not a new scenario, nor one that Iowa State is alone in, but it does seem to raise eyebrows each time the Cyclones hit the road to face an opponent from a less prestigious conference.
The Cyclones played at UNLV in 2021, though that was viewed more as a treat than a chore by Cyclone fans given how many made the trip to the Las Vegas Strip. Previously, Iowa State played at Akron, Toledo and Tulsa in the last decade.
Texas Tech (Wyoming), Kansas (Nevada) and Oklahoma (Tulsa) are fellow legacy Big 12 programs with lower-profile road games this year.
The situation allows Iowa State some additional budget flexibility.
“If you look at all our ticket prices and stratify it down, people would have to pay a lot more per ticket (if there were another buy game),” Pollard said. “And people just wouldn’t do that. To bite it off, we’d have to say we’re going to spend a million dollars to do that.
“If I went over and asked (Campbell) and said if we had a million next year to spend, that’s not where he would spend it.”
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Beyond whatever recruiting advantage playing in Campbell’s home state and a place Iowa State mines for talent consistently, Campbell does see some football benefit to playing a non-conference road game with the Cy-Hawk game at home this season.
“I played at Ohio University,” the former Toledo coach said. “It’s a hard place to play. In the MAC, it’s probably in the top two or three gameday environments. You’re going to go into a place and a buzzsaw of a crowd. It’ll be our first travel game of the season.
“With our young football team, it will be a really good opportunity for us to understand what playing on the road looks like and feels like, the intensity that has to come with the focus and precision from the start of it and it’ll be another great teaching opportunity.”
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In a roundabout way, Iowa State’s financial preference for avoiding buy-games every year is a major reason why Campbell is a Cyclone.
Iowa State had the same arrangement with Toledo in 2014 and 2015. Campbell famously said he became enamored with Ames after his trip to play the Cyclones as the head coach of the Rockets.
“After we played the Cyclones in Ames, I called my wife and said, 'You simply would not believe this place,'" Campbell said in the press release announcing his hire at Iowa State back in late 2015. "Their fans, the game-day environment and facilities are all incredible. I could see us living in Ames and me coaching the Cyclones someday.’"
Now, Campbell is in his eighth season at Iowa State, but once again coaching on the road against the MAC.
Travis Hines covers Iowa State University sports for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him at @TravisHines21.