MEMPHIS, Tenn. — After a white-hot start in the first quarter, scoring a Liberty Bowl-record 17 points in the first quarter, Iowa State didn’t put another point on the board, falling to Tulsa in the Liberty Bowl 31-17.

“It’s hard when you lose, nobody wants to be a loser,” said ISU senior linebacker A.J. Klein, who finished the game with a career-high 19 tackles. “We had 25,000 fans, obviously you want to win for them just for making the trip, but things don’t always work out how you want them to.”

Hot First Quarter

ISU redshirt freshman Sam Richardson ended the first quarter 6-of-7 passing for 114 yards and one touchdown. On the first drive from scrimmage, Richardson appeared to be in good form by hitting senior receiver Josh Lenz on a back-shoulder throw for 26 yards, helping the first drive to a Edwin Arceo 33-yard field goal.

A Jeremy Reeves pick-six put Iowa State ahead 10-0 only halfway into the first quarter. After Tulsa answer with a score of its own, the Cyclones went ahead again during the only the second play of the drive which came on a 69-yard pass to Ernst Brun. The tight end’s sixth touchdown catch of the season put Iowa State ahead 17-7 only 11:14 into the game.

Offensive breakdowns

The ISU offense sputtered for all of the last three quarters, only mustering five more first downs and fewer yards than it did in the first quarter alone.

The running game, which was an integral part in the first game these two faced each other on Sept. 1 where Iowa State ran for 160 yards on 6.2 yards per carry.

This time, however, only provided 98 yards on 28 carries and no touchdowns. Shontrelle Johnson, the Cyclones’ leading rusher missed the game after sustaining a knee injury in practice a couple weeks ago.

Richardson struggled for the rest of the game, too, only hitting four of his next 14 passes for 15 yards and an interception.

Rhoads announced in the postgame news conference that Richardson had been fighting a flu bug the night before and much of the day, which was the reason he seemed dazed at times during the ball game.

“Gritty performance by the young man who was throwing up all night and having other problems with his health due to a flu bug that came on late and came on after dinner last night,” Rhoads said. “I commend Sam for going as long as he did, the decision to go as long, it’s because he’s a good football player.”

Defense punished

Ever since Iowa State’s captain and leading tackler Jake Knott’s shoulder injury forced him to be done for the season, the Cyclones had struggled to stop the run. With Knott on the field, they allowed an average of 135.3 yards per game.

Without him the ISU defense allowed 225.25 per game leading up to Monday’s Liberty Bowl loss.

In the Liberty Bowl, Iowa State allowed Tulsa to rush for a grand total of 317 yards for a 5.3 average on a whopping 60 attempts.

“Obviously they have three backs that can get it done,” Klein said. “They didn’t show us anything new that we didn’t expect. Like Jeremy [Reeves] touched on before, a lot of missed tackles. A lot of missed tackles and missed assigments.”

In the second half, Tulsa ran for 194 yards and was able to control the clock by doing so. Iowa State was only able to hold onto the ball for 8:16 compared to Tulsa’s 21:44, which was a result of a lack of offensive production and losing the battle at the line of scrimmage on both side of the ball.

“Games are often won and lost at the line of scrimmage and we did not play a physical enough brand of football to move the sticks enough, to stay on the field enough, to get in the end zone,” Rhoads said.

Moving Forward

Despite the loss in front of 53,687 fans, most of which Iowa State, Rhoads was still positive in the post game press conference, calling the season a success.

What might not be noticed by the naked eye or ordinary fan, he knows his program is making progress.

“Tonight wasn’t a success, we lost the football game. It’s December 31 and we’re talking football, we’re playing football, we’re in uniform. There’s a lot of folks that aren’t,” Rhoads said.

“Is success defined as 6-7? No. Is what we’ve accomplished in four years, when you look at where a program was and when you look at the history of Iowa State football, yeah this was another successful season that we’ve got to continue to build upon.”