As you may or may not know, Iowa State is changing its uniforms to look more like Southern Cal.  Conspicuously absent from the new helmets is Cy, the cartoon cardinal blatantly stolen from Treynor High School and somehow meant to represent a vortex of inward-spinning counterclockwise winds.

Bye Bye Cy

The change didn't just ignite a redneck civil war; it brought us the most recent round of Iowa State wishful thinking.  ISU released its graphic designers to give us new artistic renderings of Jack Trice Stadium and Hilton Coliseum.  The results are a fascinating insight into the psyche of the Iowa State Athletic Department:

First, let's take a look at Jack Trice (not to be confused with the cop Wallace Franklin "jacked thrice").  Of course, the artists have ISU playing Iowa.  While there is no doubt the ISU/Iowa game is the highlight of the typical ISU fan's year, that is surely not the only reason they chose this artistic rendering.  The fact is nobody -- not even the most loyal of Ames football fans -- could imagine anything approaching a sellout with any other opponent.  On any other week, you could bribe every ISU fan with three whole Chizik nickels and still fill less than 75% of the seats.  Otherwise, it's typical Ames:  Parking spots held for season ticket holders left empty; antiquated scoreboard stocked full of burned-out lightbulbs and nearing collapse; corn already harvested from the surrounding student fields; denim, denim everywhere.

The more interesting case study is Hilton Coliseum:

Remember, the scoreboard is fictional, a creation of an Iowa State graphic artist (the logo never existed before this fall, Iowa State never led KU at home this season and was never up 48-44 in 2006-07).  It is, in essence, the Iowa State basketball fantasy.  Think about that again:  In its wildest dreams, Iowa State imagines being ahead of Kansas by 4 with just under 11 minutes to play and a scoreless-to-date Jessan Gray hoisting up another fruitless three-point shot while the guards look on helplessly and the frontcourt is blocked out by Sasha Kaun and company.  My, how the Natty have fallen...

That being said, I like the new logo.  Well done, ISU.

(HT: Clone Chronicles)