Ames, Iowa ? Iowa State assistant Terry Allen knows where his loyalties will lie in Saturday’s game with Kansas. He’s less certain about his two sons.

Allen was fired last November near the end of his fifth season as the head coach at Kansas. He’s now the associate head coach at Iowa State, working for close friend Dan McCarney.

All his sons, aged 5 and 7, can remember is Kansas blue. Now they’re wearing the cardinal and gold of Iowa State.

“They’re going to be a little confused,” Allen said. “They’ve been cheering for Jayhawks. They’re Cyclones now and having them both show up might be a little bit confusing.”

Allen remains bitter about the handling of his dismissal, which came with three games left in the season.

But he insists Saturday’s Big 12 opener isn’t a grudge match.

“The reality of the situation is this game has nothing to do with me,” said Allen, an Iowa native and the head coach at Northern Iowa for eight years. “It’s about Iowa State bouncing back after playing their guts off against Florida State and starting Big 12 competition.”

After eight straight winning seasons at Division I-AA Northern Iowa, Allen’s teams never finished above .500 at Kansas. He said he deserved to be fired, but felt he should have been allowed to finish the season with his players.

“I felt bad for the football team because the way it was handled, it was like I abandoned those guys,” Allen said. “I have not been able to be real comfortable having a relationship and talking to the former players.

“I was forced to leave before my final games and they got hung out to dry.”

Kansas suffered a 49-7 loss to Iowa State in the next-to-last game in Lawrence.

Allen said he sneaked into the stadium to talk to the players before the game, then went home to watch it on television.

When Iowa State scored its first touchdown, after punter Tony Yelk ran 48 yards on a broken play, Allen said he went outside and raked his yard, ducking back in occasionally to check on the score.

Kansas’ new coach, Mark Mangino, has talked frequently about changing the mindset in the program and the need to foster a new attitude.

Though it would appear to be a knock on the previous staff, Allen said such talk doesn’t bother him.

“There’s probably not a head coach that takes over a defeated program that’s not going to say that,” he said. “I don’t begrudge Mark because of that. Anytime you go in and replace somebody who’s fired, you’re going to say you change the mindset. You have to let it go in one ear and out the other.”