Iowa State trying to build championship football program - KTIV News 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and Sports

The great thing about August...if you're a college football program...is that everybody's even.

Iowa State went 6-7 last year, losing the Pinstripe Bowl to Rutgers. But optimism was high at media day Thursday as the Cyclones were talking about championships.

ISU is picked to finish 8th in the Big 12 but the Cyclones have pulled at least one upset in each of the last three seasons, in which they were at least 20 point underdogs, including knocking off #2 Oklahoma State last season.

Iowa State has won three conference games in each of coach Paul Rhoads' three seasons. Not bad considering the Cyclones won three total conference games in the three years before Rhoads arrived.

"The expectation will always be to win a bowl game each and every season on our way to building a championship-level program," said Rhoads. "To build that championship level program, you've got to get out of the bottom of the Big 12 Conference. You've got to get out of the bottom of your league."

"We want to have a championship-level program," said running back Jeff Woody."We want to have more than a 6-6 season. We want to have 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 wins. We want to actually progress to being a team that gets picked to win the titles."

ISU is a two-point favorite for their home opener September 1st against Tulsa.