2:16 left in the game. Meanwhile, Knott had a pretty quiet night, recording just one tackle and two defended passes for a team that eventually lost the game. However, it was something he said to me in our postgame interview that stuck with me for a little while.

“It was great,” Knott said. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Now, I would be a liar if I said I knew at that very moment that Knott would turn out to be the figure that he is today. But hearing him express that excitement for Iowa State when there was anything but excitement for Iowa State (the post-Chizik era) told me something about him.