Iowa State forces three turnovers but still suffers fourth straight loss to Arizona State

AMES — Iowa State’s defense hadn’t forced a single turnover in the last two of its three straight losses heading into Saturday’s matchup with Arizona State.

The Cyclones (5-4, 2-4) collected three takeaways against the Sun Devils — one interception and two fumble recoveries — but still lost, 24-19, before a rain-sodden crowd of 60,899 at Jack Trice Stadium.

That’s because the Arizona State player responsible for those turnovers, backup-turned-starting quarterback Jeff Sims, also accounted for all three of his team’s touchdowns, including an 88-yard scoring jaunt that ultimately sealed the Sun Devils’ (7-2, 4-2) win.

“The outcome is frustrating,” said ISU linebacker Kooper Ebel, who notched a team-best nine tackles and two quarterback hurries. “I felt like we took a step forward defensively (Saturday). Gotta be better early. Gotta shut down some things, but the biggest thing we’ve been emphasizing is getting the ball back and we hadn’t been able to do that these past few weeks. To be able to do that was huge — giving our offense a chance.”

Arizona State amassed 467 yards of offense and averaged 6.7 yards per play largely because of the well-travelled sixth-year senior Sims, whose 228 rushing yards on 29 carries broke a single-game program record for a quarterback. He also threw for 177 yards and a touchdown in place of star Sun Devils playcaller Sam Leavitt, who suffered a season-ending injury last week.

“He set the school record for rushing yards (by a quarterback) in the first half,” said Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham, whose team beat the Cyclones, 45-19, in last season’s Big 12 title game. “The game plan and approach with Jeff was play as hard as you can.”

It obviously worked despite his three turnovers. ISU was plus-two in turnovers after going minus-four in that regard in last week’s 41-27 home loss to BYU, but when massive improvements in key areas don’t lead to winning results, the word of the day becomes “frustrating.”

“Super frustrating,” Ebel said. “I know I keep sedating it, but we really feel like it’s nothing the other teams are doing. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot and we’ve just gotta capitalize in our moments. We’ve gotta win and, yeah, we’re gonna keep showing up. We’re gonna bleed for a little bit, and we’re gonna stand up and keep fighting.”

Even though a once-promising season has turned into a currently mediocre one. Even as the Cyclones’ biggest mistakes seem to come at the worst possible times. And even if, unlike last season, there’s no shot at making history by reeling off a program-record 11 wins.

“Man, those critical moments,” ISU head coach Matt Campbell said. “We had (Sims) tackled in the hole, we don’t finish the tackle, and he goes (88) yards for the touchdown. You get the ball to there two-yard line, you don’t punch it in for a touchdown. You get the — whatever they called, the illegal block and all of a sudden you’re kicking a field goal. It’s really hard to win (these) games making some of those errors.

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