Hines: Imagining Iowa State football's best-case scenario for 2024 season

Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series. The first, on Iowa State's worst-case 2024 scenario, can be found here .

How do you discuss a best-case scenario for a college football team?

It would be easy to type “12-0 regular season followed by a conference championship game victory and a three-game coronation doubling as the College Football Playoff." It might even be fun for you to read, but, while technically possible for 100-some-odd teams, it’s probably only a true possibility for fewer than five teams nationally.

And I don’t think Iowa State is one of them.

But I do think the Cyclones have the chance to do something truly special this season.

Consider the things never achieved by the Cyclones:

• 10-win season
• Conference championship game victory
• College Football Playoff appearance
• College Football Playoff home game
• College Football Playoff victory

Sure, there’s some gimmickry there considering this is the first year anyone can host a CFP game, but, hey, it’s still a milestone now available.

I don’t know that I would pick any one of those possibilities as likely to happen, which is to say a greater than 50 percent probability, but I absolutely think they all fall in the real range of "best-case scenario" for Iowa State football in 2024.

But for best-case, a lot of things have to go right. So let’s talk about ‘em.

Beat Iowa

Kirk Ferentz’s mastery over Matt Campbell’s program at this point is rather astounding.

Even the really good Iowa State teams (except for the best one, 2020, that didn’t play the Cy-Hawk because of COVID-19) have gotten chopped down by the Hawkeyes. Only Campbell’s worst team since his debut Cyclone season (2022) has beaten Iowa. But I’m guessing the key to beating the Hawkeyes again isn’t to have a bad team.

Iowa has real CFP hopes in the new continent-spanning Big Ten, and this year's Cy-Hawk game is at Kinnick Stadium, so the matchup between the intrastate rivals will not lack for stakes even in Week 2.

If the Cyclones want to reach their ceiling this season, it’s hard to imagine them doing it without bringing the Cy-Hawk trophy back to Ames.

More: Hines: Iowa State football game-by-game predictions for the 2024 season

Protect home field

Jack Trice Stadium may not be the fortress that is Hilton Coliseum, but plenty of visitors' dreams have perished there, and it has helped keep plenty a Cyclone season afloat.

It has to be impenetrable in 2024.

The Cyclones have home games against North Dakota, Arkansas State, Baylor, UCF, Texas Tech, Cincinnati and Kansas State.

That’s got to be seven wins.

I imagine Iowa State will be favored in six of those games and potentially the seventh, which will be a monumental showdown against Kansas State in the regular-season finale. That game could have massive implications.

If Iowa State goes undefeated at home, a 10-win season not only becomes possible, but, potentially, probable. I also think a perfect Jack Trice record opens the door to even more than 10 wins, which, again, Iowa State has never achieved.

Win two Big 12 road games

So in this dream Iowa State scenario, the Cyclones go perfect at home and beat Iowa in Kinnick, giving them eight victories.

Winning half of the league road games – Houston, West Virginia, Kansas and Utah – seems like a reasonable next step to best-case.

That Houston game should be a slam dunk, while West Virginia and Kansas are probably coin flips. The Cyclones won’t be massive underdogs in Salt Lake City, but, even as we think only of unicorns and rainbows for this story, it seems a bit greedy to give them a W over the Utes.

More: Hines: What's next for Iowa State football in Year 2 with Rocco Becht at the helm?

So that means beating the Cougars (picked to finish 15 ^th in the Big 12) and either the Mountaineers or the Jayhawks.

The Cyclones get a gift with Kansas renovating Memorial Stadium and moving the game to the Chiefs’ home of Arrowhead Stadium. In my mind, that’s going to incentivize a few extra thousand Iowa State fans to attend that game who otherwise wouldn’t, helping neutralize (or flip) the Jayhawks’ home-field advantage.

Win two. Get to 10.

The postseason

Now, we’ve got the Cyclones at 10-2 overall and 7-2 in the Big 12. That’s not going to guarantee a spot in the Big 12 championship bout, but, for the sake of this best-case scenario, we’ll say that it’s enough.

Which means Iowa State is one of the two best teams in the Big 12, tasked with playing the other in 60 minutes of football. And in 60 minutes of football, anything can happen.

So in a best-case scenario for Iowa State, we’re congratulating the Cyclones on their first modern conference championship in football.

Make room in the trophy case.

And to follow that, a Big 12 championship probably puts the Cyclones as the No. 4 seed in the College Football Playoffs. Jack Trice Stadium misses out on a home playoff game in this scenario (the quarterfinals are played at bowl-game sites), but an 11-2, Big 12 champion Iowa State beats a 12- or five-seed on a neutral field.

So, say hello to your national college football semifinalist Iowa State Cyclones.

Savor that for a moment.

Imagine the confetti. Think of all that poor Busch Light condemned to end its days emptied and crushed in head-high heaps scattered throughout Ames. Consider, for a second, the endless trash you can talk to Iowa fans.

I hope you enjoyed that.

This is, though, the end of our road.

Even at 12-2, with a win in the Big 12 championship and another in the College Football Playoff, even the most ambitious among you will have a hard time picking Iowa State over a Big Ten or SEC champion. Or even Notre Dame, Florida State or one of the runners-up for the Big Ten and SEC.

So this is where I leave you, Iowa State fans.

A win over Iowa, a conference championship, a CFP victory and 12 wins – three more than any other Cyclone team in history – is the best you can hope for this year.

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 . F ollow him on X at @TravisHines21.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Hines: Imagining Iowa State football's best-case scenario for 2024 season