Hlas: An autumn of growing pains for Cyclones

AMES — The oldest coach in major-college football got the best of the youngest coach of a Power Five conference team here Saturday, but no one in either age group was particularly happy afterward.

Kansas State's Bill Snyder may have felt older than his 77 years after his team held on for a 31-26 victory at Iowa State after dominating the first half. The College Football Hall of Fame coach's team gave up 360 yards in the second-half.

The positives from this game? 'Final score,' said Snyder after winning for the 198th time in his 25 years as K-State's coach.

Meanwhile, Cyclones Coach Matt Campbell may find flecks of gray in his 36-year-old head of dark hair on Sunday morning. Yet again, his 1-7 team played a Big 12 team tough, but couldn't finish the task.

Against Baylor (45-42) and Oklahoma State (38-31), it was brutal fourth-quarter meltdowns. Here, it was a first half of nothing happening before the Cyclones threw the ball all over the place to get back in the game.

Iowa State passed for 260 second-half yards. Sophomore Jacob Park accounted for all of it, throwing for 250 and gaining another 10 by receiving after he lateraled to freshman receiver Deshaunte Jones and Jones fired the ball back to him.

Park bullied his way to the K-State 1. Then things went haywire. Iowa State ran four plays from there, and got blanked. The capper was a Park pass too high for running back David Montgomery to grab.

Montgomery was wide open. So was ample room for Park to trot in for the touchdown. The score remained 31-17, at least until the ISU safety on the Wildcats' next play.

'It was just a bad pass by me,' said Park. 'I threw it a hundred times in practice this week. I didn't make it when it counted.'

The safety, a Cyclone defensive stand, and a 76-yard touchdown drive made it 31-26 with 51 seconds left. But the Cyclones' attempt at a second successful onside kick in the half failed, and a losing record this season was assured.

At least they went down fighting. Iowa State's Chris Francis recovered his own onside kick to start the second half with his team behind 17-3. That, said Snyder, turned the game around.

The Cyclones awakened, and competed, though their defense still couldn't rein in junior K-State quarterback Jesse Ertz of Mediapolis (Iowa) High School.

Ertz passed for 151 yards and rushed for 106. He is yet another Snyder quarterback proficient in both arts.

But the story of this game from Iowa State's point of view was how they were a play here or there from winning.

In the second quarter on 3rd-and-8 at the K-State 41, Park threw a beauty of a bomb that Trever Ryen dropped. It would have been a touchdown. Earlier, Ryen was open on a corner route in the end zone, but starting quarterback Joel Lanning overthrew him.

The final self-inflicted wound was the messed-up pass on 4th-and-goal at the 1.

'It sucks, to be honest,' Park said. 'Especially when you're in close and it comes down to the wire and you walk off the field a loser. To be that close is terrible.'

It's almost predictable with teams of coaches who inherited a team on the fritz. In their first season, they fill a leak and another immediately opens. Their teams take one step forward, one back, one forward, one back. The lights don't all come on at the same time.

'Our M.O. is we've got to win close football games,' Campbell said. 'Unfortunately, so far this season we've lost close football games.

'It's not attitude or effort of our kids, not that we believe we can play in the fourth quarter. It's detail. We've got to be better at that. That's our niche here. That's how we're going to win football games.'

The last time I saw the Cyclones in person was their 42-3 loss at Iowa in September, and they were dreadful. They weren't dreadful Saturday. But 'not dreadful' isn't what Campbell and company are pursuing.

Better days are coming. Just not necessarily this year.

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@thegazette.com