Hlas: Iowa State Cyclones make lore, want more

For Iowa State's football team, there was one thing better Saturday than the fact it defeated third-ranked Oklahoma 38-31 in Norman.

It was the way the Cyclones won.

There was nothing fluky about it. They absorbed the expected assortment of blows from Oklahoma's offense in the first half and fell behind 24-10 with 2:43 left in the first half, but they didn't cave.

Iowa State's next five possessions produced a field goal, field goal, touchdown, touchdown and touchdown. The final time ISU got the ball, it went into what is commonly called victory formation. The second-half score was Iowa State 25, Oklahoma 7.

Allen Lazard's sensational 25-yard touchdown catch to break the 31-31 tie with 2:19 left is the biggest play in Cyclone history since, well, since ever.

The pass Kyle Kempt threw to Lazard was money, too. Speaking of Kempt …

He played high school ball in Massillon, Ohio, where football is sacred stuff. It's also the hometown of Iowa State Coach Matt Campbell.

Mike Riley recruited Kempt to Oregon State, but when Riley left for Nebraska, Gary Andersen departed Wisconsin for Oregon State. Andersen relies on dual-threat quarterbacks, which Kempt isn't, so he left.

Kempt wanted to play for Campbell, and visited Toledo in November 2015. When Campbell left Toledo for Iowa State shortly after that, Kempt followed him there as a walk-on.

Last week, talented ISU starting quarterback Jacob Park took a leave of absence for personal health issues. We in the outside world didn't know if Campbell had someone he could rely on to replace Park other than linebacker Joel Lanning.

Enter Kempt, who had thrown two passes in his college career. He was 18-of-24 for 343 yards and three touchdowns Saturday.

So the walk-on walked into the national spotlight. As did Lanning, who lost his starting quarterback job last season to Park after the ninth game of last season.

'I asked him to make a great sacrifice for the team,' Campbell told Fox Sports after the game. 'Ninety percent of those kids (in that situation) would transfer and go somewhere else to play quarterback.'

Lanning stayed, and threw himself into a totally new position that he has played surprisingly well for a newbie.

On Saturday, Lanning not only took 57 defensive snaps, but 13 at quarterback, and eight more on special teams. He completed 2 of 3 passes, rushed nine times for 35 yards, had eight tackles including a sack of Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield, and recovered a Sooner fumble.

Lanning bore down on Mayfield on the latter's final pass of the day, which fell incomplete and sealed the result.

So that's a lot of lore in one day. Kempt and Lanning. Lazard's game-winning circus catch. The biggest win in a program's history. But Campbell told his team and the world that this a step, not a summit.

'We're trying to get this program to a national status,' he said.

But is Campbell a crazy dreamer? Before you nod yes, consider this:

Ten years ago, a 1-3 Stanford team was a 40.5-point underdog at No. 2 USC. Stanford starting quarterback T.C. Ostrander had suffered a seizure the previous weekend, so Tavita Pritchard replaced him. Pritchard had thrown three passes in his career. His 10-yard TD throw with 49 seconds left gave the Cardinal a 24-23 win over the Trojans.

Last month, current Stanford head coach David Shaw told the San Jose Mercury News he considers that the moment that changed how Stanford football was perceived.

'It affected recruiting that year, the next year, the next year,' said Shaw, who was first-year Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh's offensive coordinator on that '07 team.

Iowa State has miles to go, and the rest of this season is likely to be uneven. Stanford went 4-8 in that 2007 season and 5-7 the year after.

But toppling a monster a decade ago pointed the Cardinal toward 'national status.' A Goliath got dropped Saturday. By the cardinal-and-gold.