Hlas: Campbell insists far-better days ahead for Cyclones

Maybe this was for the best.

OK, probably not. Losing 49-19 in your season finale as Iowa State did to No. 18 West Virginia Saturday at Jack Trice Stadium was the opposite of 'best.”

It was a reminder to everyone connected with the Cyclones that their 66-10 win over Texas Tech a week earlier was a Halley's comet sighting, not ISU's new universe.

This game illustrated Iowa State's growth curve still has a lot of room for growth, and it starts defensively. The Mountaineers had 613 yards. They completed just 12 passes, but for an average of 27.5 yards per catch, five for touchdowns.

West Virginia was down to zero healthy running backs after first-quarter injuries to Justin Crawford and Kennedy McCoy. So Mountaineers Coach Dana Holgerson took the redshirt off freshman Martell Pettaway, a 3-star recruit from Detroit, in his team's 11th game of the season.

That's not something you see any old season. But though the final score wouldn't lead you to believe it, Holgerson's team was in a ballgame in the first quarter, as well as the second and yes, the third quarter. He wanted his 8-2 team to get to 9-2.

So hello Pettaway, goodbye Cyclones. The kid came out of nowhere and did what Big 12 offensive players do, which is run wild and run over defenses, any defenses. Pettaway powered his way to 181 yards on 30 carries.

Hey, ISU freshman David Montgomery had 21 rushes for 141 yards. It's that kind of league.

Iowa State had 561 yards. But the Cyclones had four red-zone visits that produced no touchdowns, and had four turnovers in West Virginia territory.

That isn't the kind of performance you want as your most-recent memory for the next nine months. But maybe it was for the best (OK, probably not) as a reminder of where you are compared to where you want to go.

'I do think we made incredible progress from when we came in here to where we're at,” Matt Campbell said after the final game of his first season as the Cyclones' coach. 'Those things about record and scores - I get it, I understand what we're measured by. But the reality for me is where we were and where we're at.

'I saw a football team for 12 weeks, compete. I saw us continue to get better week in, week out. The only disappointment in my end is that we didn't play better in terms of detail.”

So instead of taking a three-game winning streak into and out of this winter, the Cyclones face the reality that they have miles to go before they're good. Which would have been true even had they won.

'Like I told our kids,” Campbell said, 'there's no more catch-up. We've got to come back with a purpose, ready to rock and roll. All that starts on Monday.”

The way they played against Northern Iowa and Iowa in September, you wondered if the Cyclones would win more than once. But the offense became more effective and entertaining.

The defense allowed 453 yards per game, the same as last season. But this was the first game in the last five in which ISU wasn't competitive, and the opposition in that stretch included Kansas State and Oklahoma.

And, the Cyclones have a coach who uses a word his predecessors here have dared not utter, either out of tempering expectations or wishing to not be labeled crazy. That word is 'championship.”

'I love this place, believe in it even more today than when I got here,” Campbell said, 'and I know where we're going.

'At the end of this we're going to win a championship in the Big 12, and we're going to figure out how to get that done.”

Saturday's announced crowd was 51,365. There were a lot of empty seats, predictable for a 3-8 team playing on a Saturday of a holiday weekend with school on break.

But the Cyclone fans' loyalty to a program that has treaded water remains amazing.

'Pretty soon we'll have a football team to match their commitment to us,” Campbell insisted.

'I look forward to it. The best is yet to come.”