Halftime is a team’s prime opportunity to make adjustments for the second half. Iowa State took full advantage of that in its 28-16 victory over Kansas on Saturday.

The Cyclones went into halftime trailing 9-7. They were out-gained 170-122 on the offensive side of the ball while only gaining 31 yards through the air. Kansas dominated the time of possession, having 13 more minutes on offense than the Cyclones. Kansas also ran 44 plays to Iowa State’s 25.

Iowa State finished the game with 400 yards of total offense. Its adjustments, however, weren’t in the X’s and O’s department.

“That’s probably the crazy part about it,” said tight end Collin Franklin. “We didn’t change anything. Coach [Paul Rhoads] just came in and told us to relax and told us not to press. I think we were pressing a little bit too much in the first half and it caused us to make some mistakes that we wouldn’t normally make.”

After going without a reception in the first half, Franklin was able to get open in the third quarter. He caught three passes for 25 yards, all in the third quarter.

While Franklin admits he was frustrated with his lack of production in the first half, he knew that with him being covered so tight that there would be openings for his teammates. Jake Williams had five receptions while Franklin, Darius Darks  and Darius Reynolds each had three.

All three running backs also scored for the Cyclones. The highlight of the second half was a 33-yard touchdown run by Shontrelle Johnson.

“I had a front row seat for it,” quarterback Austen Arnaud said. “I carried out my fake and looked at the sign and thought, ‘Uh oh, that safety is in trouble,’ and sure enough he hit him with a juke. You guys are going to continually make this kid make plays in the future.”

While the offense did make adjustments in the second half, they made it clear it was the defense who kept them in this game.

“The defense played great all game,” Franklin said. “They had our backs and we just had to put up some points for them, and we ended up doing that.”

Defensively, Jake Knott led the way with 13 tackles, including one sack and also had an interception. David Sims recorded nine tackles while A.J. Klein and Michael O’Connell each recorded seven.

As defensive coordinator Wally Burnham expected earlier in the week, the Jayhawks ran a lot of zone read and screen plays. The Cyclone defense came prepared and took that part of the game away from them. 

KU running back Agnus Quigley was involved in a number of screen plays and the Cyclones held him to just four receptions for 56 yards.

“I thought we were pretty well prepared, except for one play that kind of got away from us,” Knott said. “That one we let go right before halftime was the only one that really hurt us. Other than that, I thought we did a good job of being in position.”

Iowa State put together a 21-0 third quarter to put the game out of reach. A punt return for a touchdown by wide receiver Josh Lenz was the lone ISU touchdown in the first half. 

Rhoads was hesitant to say that that was the turning point, however, saying the second half is when the tide turned in their favor.

“The punt return by Josh Lenz in the first half was a nice boost, and I think it evened things out a little bit by taking the momentum away from them,” Rhoads said, “but when we didn’t convert on the third-and-2 or fourth-and-2 and then gave up the long pass on the screen play, we gave the momentum right back to them. That’s why I appreciate what our kids did at halftime and how they came back out and responded in the second half.”