ISU safety Cotton-Moya growing up as part of young secondary

AMES - Watching film on Sunday following a win over Toledo, Iowa State football players and coaches couldn't help but laugh at one play.

On a fourth quarter field goal attempt by the Rockets, ISU red-shirt freshman safety Kamari Cotton-Moya backed away from the line of scrimmage and began to do jumping jacks. He continued to do them all the way through the play, even forgetting to do his assignment on the play.

'He was trying to get the crowd fired up and kept doing the jumping jacks through the field goal block so that was pretty funny,” said senior defensive end Cory Morrissey.

Cotton-Moya's play against Toledo was anything but laughable, though. He led Iowa State in tackles with 12 - 10 of which were unassisted - and had two pass breakups. Coach Paul Rhoads called Cotton-Moya's performance 'his best game” so far.

Rhoads has seen Cotton-Moya, as well as the young secondary, grow up a bit. How close is Cotton-Moya to his ceiling at midway point of the season?

'I don't think he's close to it. I think it's a very high ceiling,” Rhoads said. 'There's a lot of little things about the game he doesn't understand yet. He's still understanding the playbook as opposed to the next step.”

Toledo is a team that succeeds consistently in its running game, so getting involved in that aspect of the defense was as important as ever. Doing his homework during the week was key and Cotton-Moya said it really helped him on game day.

'We had seen them on film that they were really explosive in the run,” Cotton-Moya said. 'We just had to settle down and play our game and stop the run.”

'We always know what each other is doing and he is definitely a playmaker,” sophomore linebacker Luke Knott said of Cotton-Moya. 'You saw that when he came up and made that big stick on K-State's quarterback and just all the other little things he does.”

Cotton-Moya was ejected early in Iowa State's season opener on targeting penalty, but has since been a fixture in the ISU secondary. He has 36 tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss.

Although there still is plenty to learn, Cotton-Moya's teammates have confidence he will continue to provide reliability in the secondary.

'He's taken it upon himself to get smarter and get better and obviously his production on the field has shown that,” Knott said.

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