AMES, Iowa – The ISU Letterwinners Club will host its annual reunion weekend, Oct. 16-17, by honoring a pair of outstanding football teams in school history.
The two Iowa State football teams to be recognized for their achievements this weekend will be the 1965 Cyclones (50th anniversary) and the 2000 Insight.com Bowl (15th anniversary) Cyclone squad.
The 1965 Iowa State football team finished fourth in the Big Eight and ended the season with a 5-4-1 record, narrowly missing out on a bowl bid. Heading into the final game of the season at New Mexico, the Cyclones were 5-3-1 and a win away from securing a Sun Bowl berth. However, the Cyclones lost a close 10-9 decision to the Aztecs in the season-finale.
Iowa State led the Big Eight in passing in 1965, averaging 141.8 yards per game behind the arm of Tim Van Galder. Van Galder, who later started for the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals, will be in attendance for his ISU Hall of Fame induction Friday night.
Van Galder was one of five members of the 1965 team who later went on to a career in the NFL (Tony Baker, Eppie Barney, Larry Carwell, Dick Kasperek).
The 2000 Iowa State football team will go down as one of the greatest in school history. The Cyclones shocked the nation by amassing a school-record nine victories (9-3, 5-3 in Big 12) and winning the school's first bowl game with a 37-29 victory over Pittsburgh in the 2000 Insight.com Bowl.
The 2000 Cyclones were ranked 25th nationally in the final Associated Press poll, joining the 1976 ISU squad (No. 19) as the only two teams in school history to be ranked in the AP top-25 at season's end.
Four Cyclones who later excelled in the NFL (Reggie Hayward, J.J. Moses, James Reed, Sage Rosenfels) will be in attendance, as well as All-American center Ben Bruns.
Members of both teams will be honored during the ISU-TCU game on Saturday.