Crucial fumbles doom Iowa State in 38-35 loss to Kansas State

MANHATTAN, Kan. — Iowa State was 91 seconds from surviving and was poised to run out the clock.

What happened in that final minute-and-a-half against Kansas State dropped the Cyclones to rock bottom in a season full of what-ifs with a substantial thud.

'I know I got myself thinking toward the end of the game if we make a few plays we've got this game in the bag,' said linebacker Luke Knott. 'It's a 60-minute game and there's a lot of things that happened over the course of that game.'

Two forced fumbles and two scores in the final minutes lifted Kansas State against Iowa State 38-35 Saturday. An explosion of offense in the second quarter propelled the Cyclones (3-8, 2-6) to a 21-point lead against the previously struggling Wildcats (4-6, 1-6) at halftime.

The inability to put together one scoring drive in the final 30:29 sank the hopes of beating K-State for the first time in seven tries. Iowa State had only one drive (4:51) in the third quarter, while Kansas State controlled time of possession to rally and make it a one-score game with 13:08 remaining.

Mike Warren — who rushed for 195 yards — fumbled midway through the fourth, but the ISU defense held K-State to a punt and two fourth-down stops.

Kansas State had one timeout — Iowa State had two — in the final 1:31, but the Cyclones elected to run the ball instead of taking a knee and punting with what would have been less than 10 seconds remaining. Warren fumbled on first down, which was recovered by the Wildcats in their own territory.

'We operate off a chart in a situation like that and we were just over the time on the chart,' said Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads. 'By running a play and taking off enough extra seconds with that play length, then you never have to punt the ball on fourth down. That's why that call was made.'

Iowa State players didn't question the decision to run in that situation, but the call did surprise them when it came in.

'I just… I mean… Yeah… That's kind of what everybody thought,' said quarterback Joel Lanning, who was 15-of-20 passing for 210 yards and three touchdowns, 'but Coach said different and we're going to listen to Coach and back him up and that's what he wanted to do. All we tried to do it just get one more first down and just made a mistake.'

Kansas State scored four plays later on a five-yard run by Charles Jones to tie the game 35-35 with 40 seconds left. Instead of kneeling the ball and settling for overtime, Iowa State once again elected to try to gain yards to send kicker Cole Netten out for a potential game-winning field goal, hoping it could pop loose for a few short bursts. Thirty seconds after Iowa State regained possession, Lanning was sacked for a five-yard loss, fumbled and the Wildcats pounced on it with 10 seconds left at the ISU 22-yard line.

The Cyclones fumbled eight times and lost four — three in the fourth quarter — and allowed kicker Jack Cantele to hit a 42-yard game-winner with seven seconds remaining.

'We had 40 seconds left of football and two timeouts that we were operating with,' Rhoads said of his decision to not kneel at the end. 'We wanted to see with a couple easy plays to see if we could get a drive started; to see if we could get a little bit of momentum.'

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