Clock strikes midnight, and Cyclones turn into Big 12 title-game participant

AMES — Many called it the biggest game in Iowa State football history, and who’s to argue since it kept the Cyclones’ hope to reach the College Football Playoff alive?

But the question immediately after the game was if the Cyclones’ 29-21 win over Kansas State Saturday night in Jack Trice Stadium would be enough to lift them to a possible bridge to the CFP, the Big 12 championship game.

“We’ll have our BYU hats on and we’ll be ready to rock 'n' roll,” Iowa State Coach Matt Campbell said at the end of his postgame press conference when he was informed BYU led Houston 21-10 at halftime.

ISU had to wait to see if BYU beat Houston in Utah to give the Big 12 a four-way tie for first-place at 7-2. If BYU prevailed, the Cyclones would join Arizona State in Arlington, Texas, for the coming Saturday’s conference-title bout. Had BYU faltered, ASU and Colorado would have been the title contestants.

“It’s fitting that even this isn’t easy,” Campbell said. “We’re waiting till the midnight hour.”

It was a crazy finish to a crazy conference season, and it’s good to have the league tiebreaker working for you. BYU did its job with a 30-18 victory that ended at 12:45 a.m. in Ames, but it wouldn’t have mattered here had the Cyclones not done theirs. Now they’ll meet Arizona State’s Sun Devils in Arlington’s AT&T Stadium Saturday at 11 a.m.

Let’s not rush to put Saturday’s game in the rearview mirror, though. Not with it marking Iowa State’s first 10-win season in 133 years of football. Winning this showdown against its oldest rival, a nationally ranked Kansas State team with a potent offense, was a true sweat on a frigid night.

Every time the Cyclones needed a play, however, it made one. Reeling in a Wildcat fumble on the game’s first offensive play. A blocked chip shot field goal. Timely defensive stops, including on K-State’s last possession.

The biggest play was a safety. Cyclone linebacker Jacob Ellis led a posse that chased Wildcat quarterback from the KSU 22 to the end zone, where he was called for intentional grounding and a safety.

That upped ISU’s lead to 26-21 early in the fourth quarter and got it the ball back. Then, a Cyclone rushing game that had been stymied got uncorked and chewed up yardage and clock.

K-State got the ball back with 1:11 left at its 20, needing 80 yards plus a 2-point conversion to send the game to overtime. It went backward five yards before turning the ball over in downs. After ISU quarterback Rocco Becht took a knee, Cyclone fans flooded the field.

Their team was 10-2. Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” blared on the public-address system. Good times never seemed so good.

Bettendorf sixth-year senior cornerback Darien Porter, who came here as a wide receiver, had the block of a 21-yard KSU field goal try in the third quarter. He then ran to the sideline and leaped into Campbell’s arms.

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“As a senior class,” Porter said later, “we kind of came together and we decided that we were going to put our foot down and we were going to do something different here and be a different team.

“It was a culmination of a lot of hard work by everybody, but it was something you definitely believed in from the start.”

Ten wins, said ISU senior safety Beau Freyler, “is really an incredible accomplishment. And man, I love this team so much.

“Going into this week, we knew what was at stake moving forward. And we took that and ran with it.”

Iowa State won its first seven games. Then it was 7-2, and suddenly dismissed as a league-championship and CFP contender.

“Our kids really never wavered,” Campbell said.

“They never complained, bitched, whined. They stood up and they sprinted through the storms of diversity. It’s been really powerful to watch.”

Campbell knows, however, that the Cyclones’ upcoming game in Texas is the one that will be remembered.

“I know we won the outright (regular-season) championship on the front end (in 2020),” he said, “and then got punched in the gut being 31 yards short in the championship game.”

It was 34 yards. Trailing 27-21 to Oklahoma after being behind 24-7 at halftime, Brock Purdy was intercepted with a minute left. A gut-punch. Four years later, the Cyclones return.

“The reality of it is there’s a championship game,” Campbell said, “and if you earn the right to get in it, you get in it, and then you’ve got to go win it.”

If you can break through to 10 wins, what’s one more? Besides being the new biggest football game in Cyclone history, that is.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com

Iowa State players celebrate their 29-21 victory over Kansas State at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames Saturday. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)

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