After completing only 44 percent of his passes against Kansas State on Saturday, ISU quarterback Jared Barnett and offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham are going back to basics.

“He’s got to understand that mechanics and fundamentals have to be very important all the time,” Messingham said. “Once the game goes, he’s got to be able to fall back on those mechanics he’s been doing his whole life.”

Four passes were stopped by the KSU defensive line, which made Barnett, listed at 6-foot, look much smaller than he appears. One thing that Messingham attributed the batted-down balls to, that the typical fan might not notice, is the play of the offensive line.

Messingham said the offensive linemen need to make sure they get enough contact on the defensive line on passing plays so they cannot jump up freely.

“That’s probably the biggest thing that Kansas State did,” Messingham said. “If they weren’t getting to the passer, they were going to get their hands up. We as O-lineman have to go attack that D-lineman that’s not rushing very hard. We’ve got to keep their hands down by keeping their hands on the D-lineman.”

Both Messingham and Barnett said the offense also has to execute on first downs in order to be more successful on offense.

Against Kansas State, the Cyclones’ longest play on first down was seven yards — a run by Shontrelle Johnson — and the offense averaged 1.5 yards per play in its 22 plays during first down. Along with that, Barnett’s only interception of the game occurred on a first down by Ty Zimmerman, which was on the goal line.

“Can’t have it,” Barnett said. “We need to get better on first downs. We had a lot of first downs that went to second and nine, second and eight.”

Messingham was able to make a few more tweaks after sitting down and analyzing the film from Saturday’s 27-21 loss to the Wildcats. Messingham said he believed the offense had the plays in front of them; they just needed to execute them.

“After watching the film, I feel like we didn’t make plays when they were in front of us,” Messingham said. “That’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to keep playing with the same energy that we’ve been playing with, but make the plays we made at TCU, at Tulsa, make the plays.”

One more question the ISU coaches were able to answer after a film session was the lack of involvement of receiver Josh Lenz. The week before against TCU, Lenz was able to haul in five catches for a career-high three touchdowns and 157 yards, while also throwing for another touchdown.

ISU coach Paul Rhoads reiterated that Lenz had plays drawn up for him and he was even targeted; it was just a good defensive scheme and effort by Kansas State, while Iowa State’s offense didn’t do a good enough job finding Lenz in coverage.

“He was targeted a number of times, where the ball was intended for him and even thrown to him,” Rhoads said. “Coverage, errant pass — I just think it ended up being well-defended by them and not a good enough job being executed by us getting him the ball.”

The last thing Messingham and Barnett agreed on improving was Barnett’s completion percentage. Barnett said he needs to make better reads and find the lanes between linebackers and linemen, which will help his completion percentage rise.

“If we’re going to be successful, we’ve got to be completing the thing in the mid-60s; we can’t be completing it under 50,” Messingham said. “For us to be able to move the chains and to score points, we have to be able run the football and be able to throw the ball effectively and to do that you have to be able to complete a high percentage in this style of offense.”