After getting a smackdown against North Dakota State, the Iowa State Cyclones showed a little bit more promise when they challenged Kansas State to the end on Saturday. If it wasn’t for a couple questionable calls by the Big 12 officials, which ISU got an apology for, Iowa State probably would have won the game.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly- Farmageddon: #20 KSU 32, ISU 28
The Good: Where can you start? Iowa State drastically improved from week one to week two. There was a big performance out of Jarvis West; as receiving, punt return, and passing touchdowns highlighted his play and helped him earn Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week. No, you didn’t misread that, Iowa State has once again tricked an opponent with their reverse pass, the same play they’ve used in the past; that just seems to never be expected by the opposing defense. There was definitely a lot of good things to mention in this edition of GBU, and it’s amazingly more than what was said last week after the NDSU game.
The Bad: OK so we’ve all seen the replay, and we know Iowa State got hosed on two separate occasions last Saturday, but we’ll save that for a different article. What really needs to be brought to notice is the finishing of a game. Talk to Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State’s basketball coach, because that’s exactly what that team did all year. The defense, gave up two touchdown drives in the final eight minutes to surrender the game to K-State. Now the offense didn’t even score in the second half. What we can get from this is that Paul Rhoads is that close to finding out the secret of how to win at Iowa State – You need that one extra game clincher.
The Ugly: It’s pretty easy to separate the bottom and middle sections this week as we just saw an ugly first series for the Cyclones on defense. At the start of the game, Kansas State walked right into the end zone in five plays spanning 78 yards. The defense looked as though this would keep happening, but stopped the Wildcats in the red zone to hold them to two field goals on the next two drives. However, they really fell apart at the end of the game. It looked as though they needed some more confidence to get the job done, but it’s evident that those last two touchdowns for KSU really put the dagger in the team.
Who’s Next?
It’s rivalry week for a few teams across the country, but a big battle is set to take place this week. Iowa State vs. Iowa for the CyHawk trophy televised nationally on ESPN. This will make for an exciting matchup with two underrated teams battling it out. Come back before the weekend for a preview of the big game, and most importantly go with it – ESPN, 3:30pm EST.
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