Williams Blog: Pick a cliché

By Chris Williams, CycloneFanatic.com Publisher

“Back against the wall.”

“Do or die.”

“Us against the world.”

“All or nothing.”

Raise your Internet hand if you love sports clichés!

Unfortunately, all of the above are very true for Iowa State’s football team, who will host 15^th ranked Missouri on Saturday with bowl eligibility on the line.

Win and the Cyclones will likely go bowling for the second year in a row. That’s a feat that hardly anyone gave Iowa State a chance to do back in August.

Lose and it will be time for me to annoy members of the athletic department to give me a date/start time for the 2011 spring game so that I can put a countdown clock for it up here at CycloneFanatic.com.

You fanatics will likely have a nervous week leading up to Saturday’s 6 p.m. kick. You’re not alone.

“I think that everybody this week is going to give absolutely everything that we have, even more than we have ever given before, especially for our seniors who deserve this,” sophomore linebacker Jake Knott said on Monday.

“This isn’t a regular season game for us. We need to win this game.”

How Paul Rhoads began his Monday morning press conference pretty much sums things up.

“The season comes down to this,” Rhoads said.

It is going to be difficult, especially without starting quarterback Austen Arnaud, who severely injured his knee during Saturday’s 34-14 loss to Colorado. Results of Arnaud’s MRI that was scheduled for today will be known later this week.