Hines: Iowa State football wins 11th game with Pop-Tarts Bowl ...

ORLANDO – The Pop-Tarts Bowl got the absurdity it deserved. 

A game that has embraced hilarity and lunacy off the field got plenty of it between the lines Saturday. 

A fumble on the day’s first snap. Eight-straight touchdown drives. A potential No. 1 overall pick calling it a career at halftime. A game-winning drive with the go-ahead touchdown on fourth down in the final minute. 

Who needs a sacrificial Pop-Tart or a toaster trophy when you’ve got all that? 

Sure, the game, at times, felt like a Saturday morning pickup game, and, at others, felt like a glorified scrimmage. But, for a lot of time, heck, most of the time, it sure was a lot of fun. 

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Once upon a time, bowl games provided the coda to a season or the springboard to the next, but No. 19 Iowa State's 42-41 win over No. 16 Miami felt like neither. 

It was a self-contained 60 minutes that won’t change much of what we thought about Iowa State’s 2024 campaign or how we think about what will come in 2025. 

It’s probably foolhardy to take this game too seriously, and not because of a person in a pastry costume being lowered into a giant toaster to meet its performative demise.  

No, there are plenty of other reasons. Like Iowa State having two players – top wideout Jayden Higgins and starting cornerback Darien Porter – going through warmups only not to play, presumably as opt-outs with both possessing NFL futures. The real coup de grace, though, was Miami quarterback Cam Ward, a Heisman Trophy finalist and potential No. 1 overall NFL draft pick, playing brilliantly in the first half and then sitting out the second, again, presumably as an opt-out. 

What do you even do with a game like that?  

You can’t draw any conclusions about which team, at full strength or what passes for it after a full regular season, is better. The scoreboard tells a story, but not a full one.  

You also can’t even really get upset with the players. They’ve got real money on the line, and college football has devalued its non-playoff postseason so much it’s hard to ask them to care about it when the sport itself hardly does. 

Just look at Beau Freyler. The Iowa State safety and captain has played through pain and injury his whole career. He decided to play in one last game for the Cyclones, and instead of walking off the field one final time, he had to be carted back to the locker room after suffering a leg injury. 

This is a violent sport, and the risk is real for players on the cusp of life-changing NFL contracts. 

So, what do we do with a game like this? 

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Enjoy it for what it is, I think. 

The first half of this game was absolutely bonkers. It was played with the same energy as a toddler who ate too many of the absolute sugariest of Pop-Tarts. It was an incredible amount of fun as the two teams traded touchdowns for the better part of two hours. 

The sugar high mostly wore off in the second half, but Rocco Becht’s quarterback sneak for the win won’t be forgotten anytime soon by Cyclone fans. The 11 wins the Cyclones end the season with set a new bar for the program too.

The Pop-Tarts Bowl has become a viral sensation and something of a cult classic for college football sickos for embracing the reality of its situation. It knows it’s not the Granddaddy, and doesn’t pretend to be. It’s the freaking Pop-Tarts Bowl. The name itself is silly, and the antics around the game match. 

It’s OK to admit when a game is a game and not much more. 

Something doesn’t need to have weight or stakes or meaning to be fun. To be enjoyable. To be memorable. 

The Pop-Tarts Bowl understood the assignment, and the Cyclones and Hurricanes did their part. 

It may not have any grand implications, but the game was a ton of fun. That’s exactly what it needed to be.  

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.