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Unbeaten and having big fun with big plays, Iowa State lit up Baylor Saturday night
Cyclones’ 43-21 win over Bears got them to 5-0 for the first time in 44 years, and was done with a passel of plays over 20 yards
Oct. 6, 2024 12:11 am, Updated: Oct. 6, 2024 11:00 am
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AMES — With all its recent changes, the Big 12 has become a crazy quilt of a conference.
It’s still the cotton fields of west Texas and wheat fields of Kansas, but now it’s also Colorado’s purple mountain majesty and Orlando’s Kafkaesque nightmarish landscape of strip malls and theme parks.
It’s the savage traffic congestion on Houston’s freeways, the blast furnace that is Phoenix, the chili served over spaghetti in Cincinnati. It’s hard to tell which of the three is worse.
This coming Saturday, Corn Country’s Iowa State will play football against Coal Country’s West Virginia in Morgantown. A 3-0 Big 12 record and nothing less than a share of first place in the 16-team conference will be at stake after the Cyclones handled Baylor 43-21 Saturday in Jack Trice Stadium to reach 2-0.
Meanwhile, all five of the Big 12 teams that were in the preseason Top 25 have lost at least once in league play. One, Oklahoma State, has fallen three times.
“Why not us?” optimists in Ames could start asking right now, if the subject were a spot in the Big 12 title game for the league’s automatic berth in the College Football Playoff.
Except there’s zero sense of football entitlement here, not when their team just started a season with five wins for the first time since 1980 and hopes to get to 6-0 for the first time since 1937.
Being 5-0, Cyclone quarterback Rocco Becht said, “just means we’ve got to win the next one. Five-and-0 is awesome and I’m going to keep saying it, but we’re 0-0 right now. We just need to win game by game.”
Iowa State has dropped three of its last four games at West Virginia. “Going to Morgantown,” said Becht, “is a hornets’ nest.”
Yeah, but what’s Jack Trice? Saturday’s sellout crowd came dressed in white and made a lot of big white noise, though it tapered off for just a bit when the Cyclones fell behind 14-3 early in the second quarter. On the whole, though?
“Cray-zee!” ISU running back Jaylon Jackson said. “One of the loudest games I’ve ever been in.”
Jackson and his offensive mates gave those fans plenty to holler about. Jackson, carried the ball 15 times for 107 of his team’s 265 rushing yards and 542 total yards. His 20-yard scoring run in the fourth quarter was a marvel, as he slithered through a well-blocked opening, going left-straight-right-left-straight, untouched by any Bears.
On his earlier 10-yard run, Jackson escaped a tackle at the line of scrimmage and then was the beneficiary of a thunderous block of a Bear by tight end Gabe Burkle of Cedar Rapids.
“Shoutout to the O-line and all my teammates,” Jackson said.
Dramamine felt necessary for the wild ride of the first 30 minutes, when the Cyclones got nothing on two of their four first-half red-zone appearances, but took the lead on a 25-yard return of a blocked punt.
Yes, we’ve mentioned good offensive line performance and a big special teams play in connection with Iowa State. The O-line and special teams have been units that haven’t measured up to the others in the coaching era of Matt Campbell. They’re measuring up so far this season.
“I think special teams are really the definitive character of your team in a lot of ways,” Campbell said after the game.
Maybe. Maybe getting nine plays of 20-plus yards says a lot, too.
Jayden Higgins had a touchdown catch for the seventh-straight game and had 116 receiving yards.
“Some guys are human erasers,” Becht said, “and (Higgins) is a human eraser. Whenever the ball’s up in the air, he’s either going to get it or it’s going to be a PI (pass interference). So just continue to get that guy the ball, and we’re going to keep winning games.”
Six of Becht’s passes went for at least 22 yards. Three of the team’s rushes were for 20-plus.
“It’s a lot of good football players,” Campbell said. “You can’t have big plays without talented football players.”
“It’s our ability to keep our head down and keep driving,” Becht said, “no matter what the score is, no matter what our record is, no matter the stats. When adversity hits, we continue to play.
“I’m excited for the rest of the season.”
Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com
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