Iowa State-SDSU Game Cancelled

AMES, Iowa – After a two-hour and 24-minute delay, university officials cancelled Iowa State's season opener against South Dakota State at MidAmerican Energy Field at Jack Trice Stadium. There are no immediate plans for rescheduling.

Iowa State was leading 7-0 with 10:55 remaining in the first quarter when lightning halted the game. The Cyclones scored on their first possession with Kyle Kempt hitting Deshaunte Jones for a 55-yard touchdown. Per NCAA rules, the game is recorded as a "no contest." The score and statistics from the game will not be counted.

Iowa State returns to action next Saturday at Iowa in an Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series showdown. The game will kick off at 4 p.m. and be televised by Fox.

Jamie Pollard Statement:

"First and foremost, it's very disappointing that mother nature controlled what happened tonight. At the end of the day, the players' safety is of utmost importance. After talking to Coach Campbell and the SDSU head football coach, both coaches just agreed that given what we saw on the radar, staying and just prolonging the inevitable was not in the best interest of either team. What I don't want to get lost in tonight's events is that our crowd was absolutely awesome. That student section may have been the best student section in my 14 years here for a first game. That shows the excitement and the anticipation that we have for Cyclone football. Despite how we feel right now, we've still got plenty of weeks of football ahead of us. Unfortunately, I don't believe we'll be able to reschedule the game with South Dakota State. Their bye week and our bye week are on different weeks. The only time we share potentially an off week would be championship weekend in December. We'd like to be playing on that weekend, and they'd certainly like to be playing in the FCS Playoffs that weekend. My guess is there's a whole bunch of FCS teams in the Midwest in the same boat as us. They're going to lose a game tonight, so we'll have ample time to work through some of that over the next several weeks to possibly schedule somebody else to be here on October 20^th. Coach Campbell and I have talked about that and are in agreement that we would use that bye weekend if we could. I know some people ask what we do about fans, and refunds. That's one of those questions that's contingent on whether we reschedule a game or not. The players that were suspended, I have already talked to President Wintersteen and to faculty athletics director Tim Day and we're all in agreement that the suspensions were served. It was not the student athletes fault that the game couldn't be played because of the weather. Again, I just want to say I can't be prouder of our fans. What a day of tailgating, and again that student section… they were revved up for tonight's game and that was really cool."

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Players Mentioned

Deshaunte Jones

Kyle Kempt

Sponsors

Iowa State University Athletics