James White said it best last week when asked about Texas Tech’s Oct. 22 upset of then-No. 3 Oklahoma: “Any team is beatable.”

A week removed from the first four-game losing streak for the ISU football team in the Paul Rhoads era, the Cyclones upset No. 19 Texas Tech 41-7 on Saturday in the team’s first-ever victory in Lubbock, Texas.

“It was a complete game,” Rhoads said Sunday night. “We’ve played good football, but we haven’t played a complete game [until now], and it was thoroughly a complete game.”

With redshirt freshman Jared Barnett making his first start under center for the Cyclones (4-4, 1-4 Big 12), the ISU offense was able to get things going, jumping out to a 21-0 lead after the first quarter.

Barnett, a native of Garland, Texas, completed 14-of-26 passes with 144 yards and one touchdown while accumulating 92 rushing yards and one touchdown on the ground as well.

“It’s been crazy, just a whole bunch of excitement between me and the entire team,” Barnett said. “We’re just excited to get this first conference win under our belts and start moving forward.”

Running back Duran Hollis had a career-high in rushing yards, amassing 101 with one score — a career-high 71-yard touchdown run on the Cyclones’ first drive of the second half.

White had a career day of his own as well, notching 138 rushing yards — the most by any Cyclone running back against Texas Tech — with one rushing touchdown to bring his total to a team-high seven on the season.

“I thought we had a great plan,” Rhoads said of the running attack. “I thought we had a great plan with getting the tight end involved and being a lead blocker and getting us into some two-back types of running plays.

“In certain games, there is a snowball effect. And once we were effective with it, then we got confident in that and I think our blocking improved as the game went along.”

Texas Tech (5-3, 2-3) came into the game averaging 539.3 yards per game of total offense. 

However, the ISU defense held the Red Raiders to a season-low 290 yards of total offense — the only game in which they’ve failed to gain at least 300 total yards. 

“Offensively, that was pretty much the worst performance we had in two years, but you have to give credit to Iowa State,” said TTU coach Tommy Tuberville after the game. “They came in focused and had a good game plan, did some things we hadn’t seen and we didn’t adjust very well.”

The ISU defense also held TTU quarterback Seth Doege to less than 200 yards passing and no touchdowns, both firsts for the season. It also ended the streak of 69 straight games in which the Red Raiders have passed for at least one touchdown.

“They tackled really well,” Rhoads said of his defense. “We had a very simple game plan because of [Texas Tech’s] speed and pace of getting to the line and running plays. That allowed us to focus on the formations and the plays that we had to defend with less defenses.”

Safety Ter’Ran Benton and cornerback Jeremy Reeves both intercepted passes from Doege in the first and fourth quarters, leading to 10 points off of the turnovers for the Cyclones.

“I felt we played the ‘quick stuff’ faster and I think we’ve been improving on that as a secondary,” Rhoads said. “Having five DBs out there more recently with Durrell [Givens] getting more playing time and [Benton] getting more snaps at the nickel has helped us have a faster unit on the field.”

Reeves’ pick was his first of the season and third of his career, while Benton’s was the first of his career in 40 consecutive starts, which is currently the fourth-most on the team.

As for the looming fear of a hangover after a big win, Rhoads is no stranger to having to motivate his team after big wins, having had his three-year coaching career at Iowa State laden with them.

“We had a lot of mistakes to [correct] and we did that in the Texas Tech game,” Barnett said. “Now he was saying this week that we need to take this win and put it to bed and be ready for the Kansas game.”