Iowa State linebacker Beau Goodwin's small-town roots shape his growth entering 2025 season

AMES — The nervous excitement flooded Beau Goodwin’s brain and body, conjuring anxious words to crop up in his swirling mind.

“Don’t mess up,” the then-true freshman walk-on Iowa State linebacker recalled saying internally when he saw his first snaps at his position early last season. “Just try to get my read and just try to make the play.”

Goodwin — who shined on both sides of the ball for Kingsley-Pierson High School the previous fall — necessarily became one of three Cyclone linebackers to make starting debuts in 2024. It’s well-documented how injuries decimated that position group, as six players missed the entire season or significant time while ISU nonetheless piled up an unprecedented 11 wins. What Goodwin went through as he combined special teams reps with two starts at linebacker is less well-defined — largely because he was a true freshman, which made him off limits to the media, per head coach Matt Campbell’s long-standing orders.

So what was it like?

“Obviously coming here, I wanted to play, but I didn’t think I would,” said Goodwin, who totaled 24 tackles, including three for loss, last season. “But we got some injuries and I was the next guy up. The inured guys helped me — kind of guided me through what I needed to learn, what I needed to do.”

Injured guys such as Caleb Bacon, Carson Willich and Will McLaughlin, served as those mentors to Goodwin and his fellow newbies on the field: Rylan Barnes and Cael Brezina. McLaughlin missed nine games, Bacon missed all but a handful of plays of all 14, and Willich sat out the entire season after tearing his ACL in spring ball.

All are poised for healthy returns this season, giving ISU a deep and skilled linebackers room that can attack opposing offenses with multiple combinations and maneuvers.

“The big thing is (we) can hone in what the guys are really good at and what their strengths are,” Cyclone linebackers coach Colby Kratch said. “And then when you get into the season you can start putting guys into situations that match their strengths. Like if a guy’s a better pass rusher, maybe he’s a third-down guy; getting guys in drop situations and making sure that not only are you working on the weaknesses, which everyone is focusing on, but what are their strengths? Then you try to make their strengths become elite so you can put them in different situations to have success on the field.”

That positional flexibility at linebacker will greatly help a defensive unit that’s inexperienced up front outside of standout nose tackle Domonique Orange. Goodwin could feature prominently in that situational football scheme, given his versatility and burgeoning experience derived from last season’s injury woes.

“He comes in in June and you think you’re getting in and you’re probably gonna redshirt,” Kratch said of Goodwin. “Like, you’re learning some special teams stuff, and the next thing you know, you’re the guy. But I think the only way for those to truly go is to get the reps.”

Goodwin got plenty, swiftly graduating from “don’t mess up” mode to become a playmaker. Imperfect and raw, to be sure, but still integral to ISU’s on-the-field success in a historic season.

“Just playing every snap, being mentally focused all the time,” Goodwin said of his growth last season. “Not giving up, hustling to the ball, just simple things like that will earn a lot of trust here. Just effort. Just gotta have a lot of (that), both in the film room and on the field.”

Bacon, from Lake Mills, followed that same grit-based blueprint to become a standout player in 2023 before suffering last season’s injury in game one. So have several other Iowans such as Goodwin, McLaughlin, Barnes, and Kooper Ebel — who somehow managed to evade the injury bug last season and started all 14 games for the Cyclones.

“You just have that small-town Iowa connection,” Goodwin said. “We’re just all small-town Iowa kids making a living here, so that’s pretty fun.”

Comments: robgray18@icloud.com