By: Les Mwirichia
It wasn’t the Thursday night game that Iowa State fans expected to see at Jack Trice stadium as the Cyclones fell 17-7, in their Big 12 Conference opener against Texas.
Once again ISU had a tough time moving the ball offensively in the first half. Time and time again the Cyclones went three and out during their drives, finding it difficult to convert on 3rd down. ISU was 3-12 on 3rd down conversions.
“I’ll give Texas credit, I thought at the end of it, they played a good football game and I thought our guys played a good game too,” said Coach Matt Campbell. “I look at ourselves (coaches) and I look at our football team and I see areas for improvement, But I think the key is that in some critical moments, we lost our poise.” Campbell said.
Critical moments like 3rd down and even on 4th down when the Cyclones needed to convert. The Cyclones were 0-2 on 4th down attempts.
One key element that was eliminated early for ISU was was the their running game. Running Back David Montgomery who was averaging over 100 per game this season so far only ran the ball 9 time for 34 yards, averaging 3.8 yards per carry.
“I thought they did a good job trying to take him out of the game early and it’s a situation for us where we have to continue to find ways to get him the ball.” said Campbell “We have to find way to keep getting david involved, he is one of our best football players.” Campbell said.
It was a challenge getting the running game going and this affected the passing game and quarterback Jacob Park. Park went 24-48 for 246 yards. Park thew for the only Cyclone touchdown. He also threw three interceptions finishing with a low quarterback rating QBR of 18.1.
“It’s tough when they rush more guys when there are blockers.” Campbell said.
All-American receiver Allen Lazard finished the night with 5 receptions for a total of 63 yards
“They were able to just get a good pass rush and they were dropping a lot of guys too,” senior Allen Lazard said. when you can drop eight and rush three and get good pressure, it’s going to be very hard to be successful as an offense.”
But the offence was not the only part of this team that was struggling, the defence did too. Playing a total of 40 minutes on the field. Senior linebacker Joel Lanning finished the night leading his team with a career high total of 20 tackles.
“It was hard playing defence for that long,” said Lanning. “If it was my first time I’d probably be dying, luckily I’ve had experience with that,” Lanning said.
The Longhorns completed 11-23 on 3rd downs which is just under 50%. They finished the night with a total of 256 yards offensively.
“Penalties hurt us, we didn’t get off the field enough on third down like we should have, we were rolling as a defense for a while and the penalties hurt us, it’s part of the game, we’ll come back and fix it.” Lanning said.
Lanning was the quarterback when the Cyclones beat Texas 24-0 in 2015.
ISU has a week and a-half to prepare for currently ranked #3 Oklahoma. They play next weekend 10/7/17.
