Hlas: Two games in, Jantz a Cyclone legend

AMES - Steele Jantz. You think with a name like that a young guy is going to be ordinary?

That's an movie action-hero's name, a movie cowboy's name, a quarterback's name. Yeah, quarterback. What a quarterback.

Not that Iowa State's 44-41 triple-overtime football win over Iowa Saturday at Jack Trice Field wasn't plenty cinematic, too. That was thanks to all sorts of players on both teams. You of the Hawkeye persuasion may have a hard time realizing it in the wreckage from a loss you find hard to digest, but your side had plenty of heroics before its fall-flat finish.

Little if any of that came from Iowa's defense, though. That was because Jantz rode a little taller in the saddle than his Hawkeye counterparts, deflected every laser fired at him, guided his team from peril to success time after time.

Steele Jantz. He had a quarterback rating Saturday of 166.58. Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, they've occasionally etched similar numbers on any given Sunday. Mere mortals of quarterbacking at any level? Seldom.

They'll talk about this performance for many years to come. It's an instant reference point in the Iowa-ISU series, one of the best performances in one of the most-interesting, exciting games the two ever staged with each other.

This ranks with Seneca Wallace of Iowa State in 2002, who used his arm, feet and guile to lead the Cyclones out of a 24-7 halftime hole and to a 36-31 win.

“I think we have a gem in Steele Jantz,” said ISU defensive backs coach Bob Elliott. “He reminds me of Seneca Wallace.”

Wallace came to Ames from Sacramento City College. Jantz arrived at Iowa State from City College of San Francisco. The junior college route isn't a bad one for major-college recruiters if they can find gold nuggets like that along the highway.

“Steele Jantz makes plays,” said Cyclones Coach Paul Rhoads. “He made plays as a junior college player that we recruited and he's making plays as an Iowa State Cyclone right now.”

Jantz passed 37 times for 25 completions, 279 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. He rushed 16 times for 42 yards, a sum larger than its numbers. Most importantly, he led.

After two overtimes of trading touchdowns, Iowa kicked a field goal on 4th-and-1 to lead off the third OT. You think that choice by Hawkeyes Coach Kirk Ferentz will be discussed for a while?

“On the sideline,” Jantz said, “we were all on the same page. Our plan was to score (a touchdown). We didn't want to settle for a field goal.”

That never turned out to be as much as a possibility. Jantz's final pass was a 9-yarder to Darius Darks on 3rd-and-2, giving ISU a first-down at the Iowa 8. Jantz then ran for four yards, James White ran for the final four, and the Cyclones scooped up the much-maligned Cy-Hawk Trophy - whatever it is these days.

That predictably brought the sea of red-clads onto the Trice field, their reward for producing as loud a sound in the second-half and overtimes as any this series has ever known in eons.

The crowd noise was the real stuff, brought out by football that began ragged and kind of weird, but something that emerged into a captivating slugfest.

ISU offensive tackle Kelechi Osemele was in the lineup for the Cyclones' 9-7 win at Nebraska two years ago. He played in his team's 28-21 victory at Texas last season. He said this win was the best of the bunch.

“This was like a fight the whole game,” said the 6-foot-6, 347-pounder who seemed to get bigger as the game grew later after injuring an already-balky ankle in the first quarter.

“This wasn't like turnovers (Nebraska had seven against Iowa State in 2009) or anything like that,” Osemele said. “This was a fight the whole game, the entire 60 minutes-plus.”

Everyone's smarter in hindsight, but Osemele said he knew Jantz had the look of a winner well before the crowds that saw him pull out wins over Northern Iowa last week and now Iowa.

“I saw film on him before he ever got here,” Osemele said. “He was one of the top two or three quarterbacks in juco.”

“Some guys rise up when the spotlight's brightest,” Rhoads said, “and he certainly has in two football games.”

This was different than the UNI game. Jantz and the ISU offense were stinky for three quarters and into the fourth. Then they went on two long touchdown drives and won the game on a Jantz keeper with 40 seconds left.

Against the Hawkeyes, he moved his team downfield on its first possession and kept doing so throughout the afternoon. If a receiver was open, Jantz saw him. And hit him.

If a defender was bearing down, Jantz eluded him. If a few yards needed to be picked up with a keeper, Jantz kept it. It was reminiscent of Northwestern's Dan Persa brilliance against Iowa last November in Evanston, but Jantz had success over much more of the game.

“This is the greatest game I've ever been a part of,” Jantz said.

The second-greatest? “The first game last week.”

“I don't think we're out of any game when he's in there,” said Elliott.

Osemele said beating Iowa “is good for recruiting, keeps fans involved, keeps everybody involved.”

He certainly was involved. He said he used a painkiller in that first quarter to help him gut out the rest of the game. He had enough ice strapped to his right ankle to chill many of the celebratory beverages that surely were consumed in this town Saturday afternoon and into the night.

“I don't even feel anything,” Osemele said with a wide grin. “I feel numb.”

So that's one thing he had that in common with Iowa's defense.