Is Saturday the most important day in the history of Western Civilization?

As everyone knows, tomorrow is the most important college football game of the season, if not the century.  Specifically, Iowa and Iowa State renew their fabled rivalry by playing for the Cy-Hawk trophy.  As we noted last year, the Iowa Corn Growers Association attempted to turn the Cy-Hawk Trophy into a sort of advertisement.  The attempt failed.

The original Cy-Hawk trophy, which you can see here, was of a football player throwing a stiff arm while running next to a giant (for the runner) football.  While not art, the trophy (inadvertently?) suggested that the sport was more important than the individual. Once they started sponsoring the game the Iowa Corn Growers Association dumped the trophy.  Evidently the original trophy did a poor job of evoking corn growing.  This led to the second trophy.

The second trophy, seen here, contained no reference to football but certainly evoked corn growing.  It also evoked kneeling and hat wearing and proved to be a giant blunder for the game's sponsor.  It was such a blunder that is was never awarded.  Instead, this-the third trophy-was awarded to Iowa State for winning last year's game.  I think we can all agree that the third trophy does a poor job of shilling for the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

This year starts the reign of Cy-Hawk Trophy IV.  You can see a drawing of it here.  The trophy features the respective mascots for the schools, Cy and Herky, standing in a corn field holding a giant (for them) football.  Thus, the fourth trophy rectifies the obvious defects of the first two by: (a) referencing the game's sponsor; (b) calling attention to the two schools vying for the trophy;  and (c) referencing the sport being played for the trophy. 

According to this Big Ten Network story, the new trophy is the result of a vote in which the latest trophy received over 8,000 votes of the 10,282 votes cast.  What this vote percentage and vote total says about the rivalry between Iowa State and the University of Iowa is not explained.

Finally, it would be irresponsible blogging not to point out that the Hawkeyes are going to wearing a throwback uniform for the game.  The uniform can be seen here.  Some might call the uniform ugly.  I suppose the response to that is to point out that:

Correction:   I have learned that no one knows that this is the most important college football game of the season.  Also, no one, not even the participants in the game, believes this to be true.