116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
No. 22 Iowa State kneels out 24-21 season-opening win over No. 17 Kansas State
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
DUBLIN, Ireland — Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell’s never been happier to see one of his players fail to score a touchdown.
The score: The No. 22 Cyclones 24, No. 17 Kansas State 21, with 2:18 left in what turned into a gutsy Aer Lingus College Football Classic win for Campbell’s team Saturday at Aviva Stadium.
The scene: ISU tailback Carson Hansen, after review, was ruled to be down just short of the goal line after turning a screen pass from quarterback Rocco Becht on fourth down and three into almost six points.
The upside: Once the play clock resumed, the Cyclones could whittle 18 second down to the two-minute timeout, then enter the victory formation as Becht — reluctantly, apparently — knelt out a Big 12 and season-opening triumph over the timeout-less Wildcats.
“Man, the quarterback’s yelling at me because he wants to score at the end of the game,” Campbell joked. “But it’s situational football at its best, and for us to be able to execute …”
Campbell then paused as Becht and linebacker Caleb Bacon joined the postgame news conference.
“I just told all these guys you were yelling at me at the end of the game to score a touchdown,” Campbell said to a smiling Becht. “(But) that’s how you’ve gotta win, right? This is team football. Nobody is gonna care how it happened. You’ve gotta win the game.”
ISU (1-0, 1-0) won its third straight game in the series against Kansas Stater for the first time since winning five in a row from 1995-99 because of a handful of big plays, going 3-for-3 on fourth down conversions, and being penalized just five yards to the Wildcats’ 48-yards.
Details and precision went the Cyclones’ way — as did execution when it mattered most.
“The connectedness and the togetherness that we have as a team, and the confidence we have in one another — I think that’s what’s been able to help us win games the past couple years,” said Becht, who went 14-for-18 through the air for 183 yards and two touchdowns while being sacked an alarming five times and fumbling once. “There’s never a doubt in the game whenever we’re down, or whenever we’re up, that we’re not gonna win.”
ISU never trailed, but struggled to put away Kansas State (0-1, 0-1), which used a one-play, 65-yard, nine-second touchdown drive with 6:23 left to make the roughly 11,000 Cyclone fans in attendance extremely nervous.
That quick strike between Wildcats quarterback Avery Johnson and wide receiver Jerand Bradley came after a bold gambit on fourth and one from their own 30-yard line was thwarted by ISU safety Jamison Patton and linebacker Kooper Ebel, who stopped Johnson for no gain.
The Cyclones scored a touchdown four plays later on an eight-yard Becht keeper to take a 24-14 lead that ultimately held up.
“I would do the same thing again based on how the game was going, with us struggling to slow those guys down on fourth and one in a half,” Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman said. “Give them credit, they made the stop.”
ISU racked up 107 of its 130 rushing yards in the second half. Hansen led the way with 71 yards on 16 carries — and essentially handed the ball back to Becht to seal the win.
But did Becht really “yell at” Campbell, though?
“I think he put it a little out of proportion,” he said with a smile. “I was just giving him the option. … Credit to coach Campbell for just taking the win and just kneeling it down — get the win and get out of here.”
Comments: robgray18@icloud.com
Daily Newsletters