AMES — There had to be an overload of thoughts, memories and emotions flooding Matt Campbell’s mind as he made the walk from his office in the Bergstrom Football Complex to the Jacobson Athletic Building last December.
Campbell trudged alone that dark evening to deliver the news to athletics director Jamie Pollard that he was ending his 10-year run leading Iowa State football — an era that almost comically outperformed the preceding century of Cyclone football.
Maybe, as each step took him further from the last decade and closer to his new future at Penn State, he thought about those first days on the job or the Big 12 title games or the Fiesta Bowl or the million little moments that come to define a generational tenure like his.
I doubt, though, that he was contemplating that once that walk was complete, he would be starting what would become one of the more relentlessly transformational periods of recent Iowa State athletics.
That, though, is exactly what happened.
It has been an absolute flurry of activity — lots of good, some trying and plenty to be determined — over four months that continued April 16 when Iowa State announced a reorganization of its wrestling program with a women’s team added to the department.
“It was the right move to add women’s wrestling,” Pollard said, “and we’re proud to do that.”
As though the department adopting a new sport for the first time in 30 years wasn’t enough, Iowa State also announced ninth-year coach Kevin Dresser would move into a newly created director of wrestling position overseeing women’s wrestling and men’s wrestling, which will now be led by former Dresser assistant Brent Metcalf.
“Kevin has set the bar,” Metcalf said. “We must now raise it.”
If you’re feeling dizzy, don’t fret, that probably just means you’re a Cyclone fan. You’ve been through a lot these last four months.
Even if you lived it, it’s probably worth recapping, either because you’ve probably memory-holed some of it or simply haven’t yet been able to process it all.
The same night — Dec. 5 — Campbell’s Iowa State tenure ended, Jimmy Rogers’ began. With Campbell still saying goodbyes in his office — or, technically, it may have been Rogers’ at this point — Pollard and Iowa State announced it had hired Rogers as his replacement.
Two days later, on Dec. 7, Iowa State announced it would decline a bowl invitation given the uncertainty surrounding both the coaching staff and the roster amid the change.
The next day, Dec. 8, Rogers was formally introduced as the 34th Cyclone football coach.
Less than two weeks later, Rocco Becht, one of the most successful quarterbacks in program history, announced he would enter the transfer portal. Which began the flood of Campbell-era Cyclones hitting the exits.
In all, 55 players elected to transfer, with more than half joining Campbell in Happy Valley. That left Rogers to bring in an incredible 82 newcomers to the program, most coming from lower levels of college football through the transfer portal.
Your favorite coach? Gone. Your favorite players? Hittin’ the bricks. Your favorite football team? Completely transformed.
All in little over a month’s time.
Then, a few weeks after that, a debacle would begin to unfold that would result in the elimination of the women’s gymnastics program.
First came the school’s Feb. 5 announcement that the team’s home meet against West Virginia would be canceled because the Cyclones did “not have enough student-athletes available to safely field a team.” Three days later, Iowa State canceled the remainder of the gymnastics season.
A month later, the program was eliminated, with Pollard and the school citing continued issues within gymnastics across multiple coaching staffs. The exact nature of the issues — both those that resulted in the cancellation of the season and those that preceded it in earlier years — remains mostly a public mystery.
It was the first time Iowa State had discontinued a sport in 25 years.
Then, just weeks later, the historically successful and popular Iowa State women’s basketball team saw a disappointing season end with a first-round NCAA Tournament loss, followed by nine players — including Algona native and national superstar Audi Crooks — leaving through the transfer portal.
The unsteadiness of the program was enough that Bill Fennelly, coach of the Cyclones since 1995, issued a statement announcing his return for the 2026-27 season and a video message from Pollard expressing support for Fennelly and the program.
You get all that?
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising to see Iowa State’s athletics department undergo so much change, tumult and uncertainty at a time when the broader college sports industry is undergoing extreme change — both in its breadth and speed.
Exploding media-rights contracts, revenue sharing, unlimited and unfettered transfers and the money available to student-athletes via name, image and likeness opportunities have fundamentally changed the makeup of collegiate athletics over the last five years.
“College sports is tough,” Dresser noted. “We might as well just call it pro sports.
“Let’s just call it what it is.”
Still, it is breathtaking to see all that’s happened at Iowa State, which is to say nothing of a men’s basketball team reaching the Sweet 16 for the third time in five seasons and having to push away high-profile suitors for its coach, T.J. Otzelberger.
Trepidation always follows change, and while we’ll have to wait out the results for the football, women’s basketball and men’s wrestling programs, the future of women’s wrestling seems to arrive with unbridled optimism.
“This is not only a historic moment for our university,” said coach Alli St. John, who will lead the Cyclones’ new program when it debuts in 2027-28, “but for the sport of women’s wrestling.”
Given Iowa State’s tradition of success in men’s wrestling and the state of Iowa’s embrace of women’s wrestling, there’s real hope that this program can compete at the absolute highest levels immediately.
“I’m confident that women’s wrestling fits Iowa State University like a glove,” Pollard said.
That may very well be true, but there is a flipside to the enthusiasm and optimism for the future of Iowa State’s 18th sport.
For it to arrive, gymnastics had to depart. Or, rather, be kicked out.
“I’ve always viewed being the athletics director like being a head coach, and each of the sports are our players,” Pollard said. “If I was the basketball head coach, I’d have 18 players on the team, and when the 11th or 12th player is in the assistant coach’s office every day and parents are calling the head coach every day, at some point and time the head coach probably would say to that member of their team, ‘Maybe it’s time that we not have you on the team any longer because you’re a distraction to the rest of the team.’ That’s what I would liken what happened in gymnastics, if there was an analogy.
“It just got to a spot where that sport, for whatever reason — whether it was administratively, coaching, student-athlete — doesn’t matter. It wasn’t fitting at Iowa State in the way the other 17 sports were. And that’s unfortunate. It is unfortunate. That’s what happened, and so as the head coach, we decided to dismiss one of the team members and now we’re adding a new team member through the transfer portal.”
To make room for women’s wrestling, Iowa State will renovate its former gymnastics training space on campus at Beyer Hall. The gymnastics equipment will be sold off. The raised floor will be demolished. The walls painted over.
Before long, eight wrestling mats will move in. Stationary bikes and weights will populate the room. Maybe a sauna, too.
Then, at some point, the change — for better or worse — will be so complete, so overwhelming, it’ll be as though there was never any change at all.
Except for, perhaps, a fading memory of how things were, and how it all changed so much, so fast.
Iowa State columnist Travis Hines has covered the Cyclones for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune since 2012. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Wild 4 months of transformation continue for Iowa State athletics | Hines
Reporting by Travis Hines, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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