Cyclones just good enough to beat Kansas 13-10

AMES - Zach Guyer took a deep breath, a comforting gusty wind at his back.

Forty-two yards stood between his foot and a potential game-winning field goal Saturday against Kansas.

It's up, and it's ...

“I hit the ground a little bit, so I knew it would be a little bit low,” the senior from Johnston said. “But it was right down the middle, so that was good.”

Good enough - with the help of a surging second-half Cyclone defense - to put away the Big 12 Conference rival Jayhawks, 13-10, with 4:30 left before a crowd on 51,575 at Jack Trice Stadium.

Guyer supplied ISU with its first game-winning field goal since Grant Mahoney drilled three to beat Nebraska 9-7 on Oct. 24, 2009, at Lincoln.

The three-year backup has hit six straight attempts.

“We had all the faith in Zach,” said Cyclone quarterback Jared Barnett, who rushed for a game-high 125 yards and overcame an interception and fumble. “And he nailed it.”

So did an intensity-fortified defense, which yielded just 73 yards in the second half and forced the Jayhawks (2-7, 0-6) to go three-and-out on their final possession.

“It was an energy level that allowed us to get off blocks better, to tackle better in the second half that you have to have,” said ISU coach Paul Rhoads, whose team played in front of its fifth home crowd in excess of 50,000 fans, a Jack Trice Stadium single-season record. “This is a hard game. It's a physical game. And if you're not prepared to play it that way every Saturday, you're not going to play it very well.”

Kansas - which tied the game 10-10 with 5:49 left in the third quarter on Ron Doherty's 19-yard field goal - hadn't allowed fewer than 24 points in a game all season.

The Jayhawks' defense keyed on the Cyclones' running backs and blanketed receivers, forcing Barnett, a redshirt freshman, to beat them with his feet.

Barnett's total of 125 yards on the ground proved to be the most for an ISU quarterback since Sage Rosenfels rushed for 140 in a 35-27 win over Colorado on Nov. 11, 2000.

“I just had to reset my mind after all the turnovers and make sure I was ready to lead the team down the field,” said Barnett, who is now 2-0 as a starter. “(The Jayhawks) really came out to play and they really made things difficult for us and for me.”

Kansas drove into ISU territory on its first five possessions, but missed two field goals - one was blocked by Cyclone linebacker A.J. Klein - and managed just one touchdown.

“We had opportunities to win the football game, but we didn't make it happen,” said Kansas coach Turner Gill, whose team fell for the seventh straight time.

ISU scored its lone touchdown an Aaron Horne's slippery 18-yard reverse that led to a 10-7 halftime lead.

Horne appeared to be stuck in a scrum at the eight-yard line, but emerged and skittered to the end zone.

“I don't know if it's clean to put all that grease we put on Aaron Horne when he got that touchdown as he slid through all those guys,”Rhoads said. “That was an unbelievable run.”

And another tight win - four of the Cyclones' have come by four points or less, despite two costly first-half unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on defensive backs Leonard Johnson and Ter'Ran Benton, three turnovers, and missing leading wide receiver Darius Reynolds, who was benched one game for violating team rules.

“A win's a win,” said fullback Jeff Woody, who salted away the win while gaining 45 of his career-high 61 rushing yards in the final 2:37. “By one or 100.”

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