MANHATTAN, Kan. — Handoff, redirection, fumble, ball game.

On fourth-and-2 with a little more than a minute left in the game, trailing seven to Kansas State, Jeff Woody made the improvised decision to fumble the ball with the hope of an ISU recovery for positive yardage to keep the drive alive.

However, the 232-pound running back’s desperation move went for naught as Kansas State recovered to seal the 30-23 nail in the coffin for Iowa State on Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

“We kind of had them figured out a little bit,” Woody said of facing the 27th-ranked rush defense in the nation. “We ran the same basic play on those short-yardage conversions and it worked 90 percent of the time.

“It’s just that other 10 percent that they got the stop.”

The Cyclones (6-6, 3-6 Big 12) had called Woody’s number all day to carry the run game, as he would amass career-highs in carries (24), rushing yards (85) and rushing touchdowns (two).

“[Woody] really became a dynamic weapon in this offense,” said quarterback Jared Barnett. “Being able to bulldoze over guys and stuff like that, that’s just the type of player he is and it’s great to see.”

On that anxious last play, Woody said the defensive line for Kansas State (10-2, 7-2) had “jumped the snap count,” anticipating Barnett’s cadence to effectively stuff Woody at his point of attack.

“That was not Jeff Woody’s fault,” said ISU coach Paul Rhoads of the final play. “Jeff Woody had nowhere to run. Jeff Woody tried to stretch the play, Jeff Woody tried to make something happen and then Jeff Woody smartly fumbled the football backwards to give us a chance. Otherwise, he’s down.”

For Rhoads, the pieces were in place on that last play to convert the routine short-yardage play, but it all came down to execution.

“It was fourth-and-2 and if I’m on the other side, I’m probably thinking, ‘They’ve got four wide receivers out here, they can’t run the ball in this group,'” Rhoads said. “We had a look we should have effectively blocked and converted that first down and we didn’t get it done.”

After having spent the first five games of the season with no more than four carries per game, Woody proved that his blue-collar demeanor did not change a bit with an increased number of carries down the latter stretch of the season.

“Jeff is a hard runner, he’s been a hard runner since he got here,” said right guard Hayworth Hicks. “He comes in, he runs hard, he’s going to be a big asset to the Cyclones in the future.”