Iowa State football players maintain belief in each other even as losses pile up

AMES — Iowa State continues to glean hope from its string of close losses — even as the pile of them has grown to five.

But that word — “close” — isn’t descriptive of merely the often narrow points gap between winning and losing.

It’s about who the Cyclones are, not what they’ve done while tumbling to 3-5 overall and 0-5 in Big 12 play in advance of Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. football game against West Virginia (3-5, 1-4) at Jack Trice Stadium.

“We definitely believe in each other,” ISU offensive guard Jarrod Hufford said. “That’s what’s special about this team, is the amount of belief we have in each other.

“Coming into this year, we lost Breece Hall, we lost Brock Purdy, we lost the tight ends. I don’t think a lot of people had (much) faith in us and we had faith in each other.”

The Cyclones still do, despite the pain of five consecutive setbacks by an average of 5.6 points. But for that wide-ranging steadfast belief to finally bolster better results, an elusive state of consistency must be achieved — and as ISU head coach Matt Campbell said on Tuesday, that’s “hard” when a handful of high-stakes mistakes have helped frame his team’s worst start since 2016.

“They haven’t let you down in terms of attitude and effort and, really, their continued strain to grow,” Campbell said. “And I think they know how close they are to really flipping this thing around and as long as there’s games on the schedule, and there’s time left to chase what (the team’s) got the ability to become, I think there’s a great sense of urgency right now in our offices and certainly in our meeting rooms.”

The Mountaineers feel the same way about their team, despite mirroring ISU’s overall record and notching just one win so far in conference play. West Virginia trailed seventh-ranked and unbeaten TCU by just three points with 4:12 remaining last Saturday, but couldn’t prevent the Horned Frogs from sealing a 41-31 win with a touchdown in the closing moments.

“I think (they) have a team that is certainly veteran and a team that’s played a lot of really good football in their time there,” Campbell said.

The Cyclones don’t have as many veterans dotting their two-deeps, but the ones who are there — including safety Anthony Johnson, linebacker O’Rien Vance, wide receiver Xavier Hutchinson, defensive end Will McDonald, and a handful of others — have continued to teach a youthful roster how to improve even as positive results prove hard to come by.

“You’ve just got to show up week-to-week and play your best, leave your best out there, because this game is anybody’s in college football,” graduate transfer receiver Dimitri Stanley said. “Anybody can win at any time. Anybody can lose at any time. And I feel like we’ve seen that week-to-week.”

Lately, of course, that’s meant losing — and often in painful fashion.

The Cyclones had a chance to mount a game-tying touchdown drive late last Saturday against Oklahoma, but that opportunity evaporated when ISU quarterback Hunter Dekkers was intercepted and the Sooners returned it to the 2-yard line to set up a game-sealing score.

But it would be unwise to think anyone on the team soured on the first-year starting quarterback in that moments. That’s not how the Cyclones are built, nor how they operate. They pick each other up, even after multiple inexplicable falls.

“I trust him completely,” Stanley said of Dekkers, who notched his second straight 300-yard game in the Oklahoma loss, but also threw three interceptions. “I actually told him on the field this past game, ‘Just trust me, I’ll trust you, and everything will work out OK.’ So that’s that.”

And so it goes. Belief merges with faith and doesn’t dip when hard times come knocking. If anything, it intensifies.

“There’s so much optimism in my mind and throughout our second-floor coaching offices, because it’s like, man, we’ve got this great veteran leadership that continues to lead from the front and not from the back,” Campbell said.

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