I also hope no one suggests that McCarney should be replaced.

Anyone who thinks anything of the sort is in trouble with me. Those people know nothing about the sorry football history at Iowa State.

Hey, I was sentenced to cover Jim Walden’s 1994 season. All 11 games. It was like being in jail from Labor Day to Thanksgiving. The team lost its opener to Northern Iowa and finished 0-10-1.

The players were in the habit of singing the school song after victories. Hell, it was such a lousy season in 1994 that they sang the school song after a 31-31 tie at Oklahoma State.

McCarney is the best thing to happen to Iowa State football since Earle Bruce, who coached the Cyclones to successive records of 8-3, 8-4 and 8-4 in the 1970s.

Sure, I’ll be the first to admit that McCarney likely won’t have a good record this season. Iowa State is 2-5 and probably won’t be favored to win another game.

So what? Don’t forget, this is a school not that far removed from being a coaching graveyard. This is the place where previous coaches tried desperately to have one or two winning seasons, then headed for greener pastures.

Ask Johnny Majors, who took the Cyclones to their first two bowl games in 1971 and 1972, then bailed out for Pittsburgh. Ask Bruce, who succeeded Woody Hayes at Ohio State after taking his Iowa State teams to bowl games in 1977 and 1978.

McCarney had records of 9-3 in 2000, 7-5 in 2001 and 7-7 in 2002. His Cyclones played in the Insight.com Bowl, the Independence Bowl and the Humanitarian Bowl in those years.

Please name someone who could come into Ames and do a better job than this man.

Case closed.

Complain all you want about the guy quarterbacking your favorite football team this season.

Quarterbacks with the abilities of Banks, who finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting last season after starring for Iowa, and Wallace, who was Mr. Magic for Iowa State, show up about once every 25 years around here.

The fact that they played within 125 miles of one another in the same season in the state of Iowa meant that the football gods were treating us to a rare look at something special.

Scales is the kid who ran for 448 yards and scored nine touchdowns in Valley’s 76-42 victory over Mason City.

A guy couldn’t use his two season tickets for Iowa’s game against Penn State. So he put them up for sale at face value on a Hawkeye website.

The job was Baghdad bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. At the top of my list of potential candidates were my very good friend Rob Borsellino and Diane Graham of the local paper. Others on my list were Dennis Ryerson, who has pitched his circus tent in Indianapolis; former Drake basketball coach Rudy Washington, and Mike Price, who last was seen in a strip bar in Pensacola, Fla., and was subsequently fired as Alabama’s football coach before he coached his first game.

Alas, none of my candidates got the job. I’m not sure any of ‘em were even interviewed, and I can’t figure out why. Information about what has happened has been leaked to me by a source who precedes it by saying, "I’m sure this came with a nice bump in pay."

The Times’ internal memo reads:

"To: The Staff

"From: Marjorie Miller, Foreign Editor

"I am very pleased to announce that Patrick McDonnell will be joining the foreign staff this month in the Baghdad Bureau.

"Patrick has had a long career with The Times—since 1985—covering a variety of beats, including the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration. He has done a great job during two temporary stints in Baghdad and has agreed to serve as co-bureau chief there with Alissa Rubin when John Daniszewski leaves at the end of the year to take up his long-awaited London post.

"Alissa, who is still theoretically based in Vienna, has graciously agreed to stay on the Iraq story through next summer. And we expect the story to continue at the current unrelenting pace for the coming year, which means we expect to keep about four correspondents on the ground at any given time."