Tailgate Tour opens, house settlement looms, and transfer portal "closes"

Iowa State athletics kicked off its annual (but truncated) Tailgate Tour Monday in Ankeny. And I've got the deets.

May 20, 2025

Iowa State’s longtime director of athletics Jamie Pollard speaks at the opening of the Tailgate Tour Monday in Ankeny.

ANKENY — A sunless sky spitting rain glowered over my adopted hometown.

The meteorological gloom and doom clashed with the sunny side up (always) beginning of Iowa State athletics’ annual Tailgate Tour, which featured all the heavy hitters — AD Jamie Pollard, head football coach Matt Campbell, and head men’s basketball coach T.J. Otzelberger.

We talked about the ever-changing landscape of college athletics in the NIL and soon-to-be revenue sharing era, the Cyclone football team’s late August trip to Ireland to play archirval Kansas State (hey, I’m going, combining business with pleasure), and how the ISU men’s basketball team once again believes it’s struck gold in terms of perfect “fits” via the transfer portal.

Oh, and a few other odds and ends, as well.

Find some excerpts and links to my article(s) surrounding the event below in a grab bag format — and, as always, feel free to reach out with comments, suggestions, or concerns.

Thanks, Rob G.

A HOLDING PATTERN

Short term, Iowa State athletics is fully funded to compete at college athletics’ highest levels.

But long term? That’s a stay-tuned and fraught situation, Pollard said.

“Well, I wish I knew what that long-term part is,” he said. “You asked (about) the short term (and) we’re ready to go. Long term is a whole other kettle of fish.”

And a whole lot of money’s involved.

The Cyclones’ athletics program joins all other major outfits in needing roughly $20 million in added funds in order to comply with the revenue sharing model all but certainly be adopted by the end of 2025. Other expenses will undoubtedly accompany that — and the, ahem, loosely regulated world of Name, Image and Likeness (a.k.a NIL) isn’t going away anytime too soon.

That’s great news in a financial senses for most so-called “student-athletes” at power conference schools made possible because of the NCAA’s stubborn commitment to the formerly economically exploitative system it (and TV bigwigs) profited from handsomely. Lawsuits made all this happen — and the NCAA kept losing (rightly) in court, so the players can finally get paid.

But how to make up for such sizable budget shortcomings? There’s really only one way not just for Iowa State but for most athletics programs to bridge that gap — and not everyone is gonna like how that looks.

“Really, what needs to first happen in this state is the Board of Regents has to acknowledge that the 2011 policy (which restricted state funding of university athletics programs) can’t exist any longer unless they want us not to be at this level,” Pollard said. “Because if you can’t put any institutional money into athletics, then what are you really saying? So, that to me, (is) an education process that has to happen. And then there’s not one silver bullet that’s gonna solve the $20 million-plus problem, right? You’re gonna have to come up with a lot of different solutions, but you can’t start (finding) those solutions if you aren’t allowed to even have those discussions.”

Bottom line: Both ISU and Iowa athletics in particular serve as massive economic engines for Ames and Iowa City, respectively. Some combination of local and state funding would seem to be warranted strictly from a cost-benefit analysis perspective, but again, stay tuned on that.

“It’s a new frontier and we’re gonna have to make some choices that — again, if they were easy choices, they would have already been made,” Pollard said. “But they’re not bad choices. They’re just choices of acknowledging the value of athletics and the cost of if you don’t have it.”

EMERALD ISLE UPDATE

Pollard said Iowa State’s sold more than 10,000 tickets for the Cyclones’ season-opening Aug. 23 game against Kansas State in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, Ireland.

“K-State’s in that same neighborhood,” he added. “So the promoter is very pleased with where we’re at. We just had our ops team come back from over there and they had the same experience that (head coach Matt) Campbell and I had, which is our fans are gonna love this.”

Still, the logistics of playing a season opener that early (in so-called “week zero”) present some challenges, which Campbell addressed.

“As a routine guy, this has got me out of my comfort zone a little bit, but sometimes that’s good,” said Campbell, who led the Cyclones to double digit wins for the first time in program history last season. “And I think when we’ve had to do that it’s challenged us and we usually come out better because we just haven’t said, ‘Well, this is the way we’re gonna do (it).’ We’ve tried to research it and put the best plan together.”

Here’s a link to my full article on Campbell’s plans to adapt to this change of routine — and what it portends for the following week, as well.

IOWA STATE MEN’S BASKETBALL: (FULLY) RELOADED

The Cyclones lost some key components from last season’s 25-win team when standout guards Curtis Jones and Keshon Gilbert exhausted their eligibility and big man Dishon Jackson (among others) chose to transfer to Pitt.

Head coach T.J. Otzelberger and his staff hit the transfer portal with that in mind — along with retaining a strong returning core of Joshua Jefferson, Tamin Lipsey, Milan Momcilovic and Nate Heise.

So ISU plucked rim-running bigs Eric Mulder (6-8, an Oskaloosa native who played for Purdue-Fort Wayne) and Blake Buchanan (6-11, from Virginia), along with guards Mason Williams (via Eastern Washington) and Dominick Nelson (via Utah Valley) from the transfer portal.

All fully address needs the Cyclones must fill for the 2025-26 season — and Nelson was a late addition who could end up being a somewhat unpolished jewel of this transfer class.

He’s 6-4. He tied for 13th nationally in free throw attempts. And, oh, he was the WAC player of the year and should be able to fit in immediately as a guard who, um, likes to guard both the perimeter and driving lanes.

“I think what’s interesting is, if you look at the last guy we’ve added each year, like, the first year, the last guy we added was (leading scorer and rebounder) Izaiah Brockington,” said Otzelberger, who has guided the Cyclones to two Sweet 16s in his four seasons at the helm. “The last guy that we added two years ago (was) Curt Jones, right? So there’s been some of those (situations where) the last guy you add, you really need and really fits; can really fit in. I think with Dominick, that downhill, playmaking ability is certainly unique. … To be the conference player, it means your team has to win a lot, you have to play well, and then you have to be consistent over time.”

Sounds like a recipe for success (again) — and not just with Nelson. Otzelberger’s track record speaks for itself, even as injuries derailed what looked like a Final Four-caliber team last season.

QUOTE I’M PONDERING

This isn’t about sports, but it resonates with me:

“Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.” — author and historian Timothy Snyder

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Discussion about this post

Tailgate Tour opens, house settlement looms, and transfer portal "closes"

Iowa State athletics kicked off its annual (but truncated) Tailgate Tour Monday in Ankeny. And I've got the deets.

A HOLDING PATTERN

EMERALD ISLE UPDATE

IOWA STATE MEN’S BASKETBALL: (FULLY) RELOADED

QUOTE I’M PONDERING

Meet our writers

Newcomers: Here is a link to the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Sunday Roundup, where you can get a compilation of our members’ work published the previous week.

Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Roster

Des Moines Metro

Abena Sankofa Imhotep: The Imhotep Report

West Des Moines

Norwalk

Clive

Altoona

Bondurant

Ankeny

Christie Vilsack: Common Ground, Van Meter

Connie Taylor, Grandma’s Recipe Box, Des Moines

Eastern Iowa

Cedar Rapids

Oelwein

Iowa City

North Liberty

Davenport (Quad Cities)

Eldridge

Waterloo

Elkader

Boone County

Quad Cities

Northwestern Iowa

Storm Lake

Carroll

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Okoboji

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Rick Jost: Biz Whispers: Fresh Iowa Business News and Commentary

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