While knocking on the door of redemption, Steele Jantz dropped the ball both literally and figuratively.

The redshirt senior quarterback went 10-for-20 for a dismal 73 passing yards — the first game with less than 100 total passing yards by an ISU quarterback since Sept. 25, 2010 (27-0 win against Northern Iowa) — three interceptions and an unprovoked fumble in Iowa State’s 24-13 loss to Texas Tech on Saturday night.

“Steele Jantz is not the one to blame for this single loss,” said ISU coach Paul Rhoads after the game. “Obviously, Steele Jantz contributed to it. But we don’t need to jump on that wagon right now and start beating him.”

After the game, Rhoads said no immediate decision would be made whether to start or bench Jantz, who is now 6-5 as a starter with all five losses coming against Big 12 opponents, for this week’s contest against TCU.

Jantz was not made available for comment after the game.

The contest against the Red Raiders (4-0, 1-0 Big 12) relayed a different outcome than it did the past two seasons, notching TTU coach Tommy Tuberville’s first-ever victory against Rhoads, who was his defensive coordinator at Auburn in 2008.

“We had a little speed [last year], but we didn’t have much,” Tuberville said. “We’re going to be able to make more big plays, and the last couple of years, we wouldn’t have been able to have done that and we’d probably be talking about a different outcome.”

The struggles Jantz encountered began early as he was unable to get the offense rolling until the third quarter. Until that point, Jantz entered the locker room having gone 2-for-7 for three passing yards and an interception.

“He’s capable of making plays,” Rhoads said of Jantz. “If I didn’t [believe that], I wouldn’t put him back on the field after the last fumble.

“He’s got talent; he used poor judgment too much and he’s made certainly a number of negative plays that hurt our football team. He’s got to improve.”

While Jantz’s four offensive turnovers had shouldered him a chunk of the blame for the offensive struggles for the Cyclones (3-1, 0-1), tight end Ernst Brun said the offense as a whole “just didn’t click.”

“That’s most of it, but we can’t blame everything on Steele,” Brun said. “Steele’s getting rushed, there were times that Steele is flushed out the pocket and there were times when Steele made plays when he was flushed out the pocket.”

Tuberville said his team did not run one blitz all night but was able to put enough pressure on Jantz to force undesirable outcomes for the ISU offense as a whole.

The neutralization of the passing game led to an emphasis on the run, which saw just seven of 38 carries go for seven yards or more.

“We have to capitalize,” Brun said. “We got good field position — sometimes we started on the 30-yard line. … The three-and-outs were just embarrassing.”

Rhoads said he could not pinpoint exactly where his offense’s struggles were rooted but noted that his team never controlled the line of scrimmage nor did it have much success on first down, among other ailments.

“There were a lot of things that weren’t pretty,” Rhoads said.

Although Rhoads said he would not make an immediate decision on whether Jantz would start or sit against TCU, he indicated there was going to be a challenge to possibly foster improvement between this game and the next.

“As I’ve always said: You’ve got to keep competing at every position on any football team,” Rhoads said. “Quarterback’s no different.”