Before the 2000 season, the Iowa State football team lay dormant in college football for nearly 21 years.

The Cyclones had just five winning seasons in that span without a single bowl appearance.

In 2000, ISU changed its losing ways, making its first post-season appearance since 1978 with a win over Pittsburgh in the Insight.com Bowl.

The winning did not stop there for the Cyclones. In the two years following the bowl victory, they never finished below .500 and made two more bowls.

They looked to have finally found a consistent form of winning – then last season hit.

In 2003, ISU won just two games and finished the year 2-10. The season, largely plagued by injuries, came as a shock to then ninth-year head coach Dan McCarney.

“It was extremely tough last year, especially after resurrecting one of the nation’s biggest messes when we got here,” McCarney said. “It was the hardest season since I’ve been coaching.”

The Cyclones had once again fallen to the bottom of the college ranks and the Big 12 standings.

“It was real tough, real shocking,” said Erik Anderson, ISU senior linebacker. “We felt like we worked real hard, and then we had a few problems that just snowballed.

“We had three solid years and high expectations for a strong senior class. It was definitely disappointing,” he said.

This season has been a bit of a turnaround for the Cyclones after just two games, something McCarney is pleased with.

ISU, which has the second-toughest non-conference schedule in the nation, will finish its non-conference portion with an 11:30 a.m. Saturday home game against NIU. The game with the Huskies will be its third straight against a team that finished with 10 or more wins last season.

The Cyclones won its season opener over Northern Iowa, 23-0, and fell 17-10 to No. 16 Iowa.

“They started with some tough games, lost some players, and that’s hard to recover from,” NIU coach Joe Novak said. “After beating [Northern Iowa] and playing like they did against Iowa, I’m sure they came out feeling better about themselves.”

McCarney knows what it takes to win and said his team needs to become stronger defensively to begin winning again.

“There’s no question you need to start with the defense,” said McCarney of returning to its winning ways. “When we had some success here, we were playing some good, solid, fundamental defense. We’ve got to get back to that. Right now our defense seems to be a little more athletic and fast than a year ago.

“We’ve got to continue to build our football team with our defense.”

Through two games, the Cyclones are tied for seventh in the nation for total defense. They have allowed just 202 yards per game in the two contests.