KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Iowa State committed eight penalties for 64 yards in Saturday’s loss to Kansas State.

The Cyclones’ only turnover came on a fumble by quarterback Austen Arnaud late in the fourth quarter.

“Generally, the team that makes the fewest mistakes is the one that comes out on top,” said ISU coach Paul Rhoads. “I’d venture to guess that Kansas State made fewer mistakes over the haul of the game, and that’s why they’re victorious and we’re not.”

Just one of Iowa State’s penalties came on the defensive side of the ball — an offside on lineman Taylor Mansfield — and a personal foul on Hayworth Hicks was offset by a personal foul call on Kansas State.

The remaining penalties — six calls for 59 yards — came on either offense or special teams.

One key stretch in the third quarter featured back-to-back penalties on Iowa State, a hold on a second-and-6 from the Kansas State 19-yard line and a false start on the ensuing third down at Kansas State’s 25.

“Penalties killed us today,” Arnaud said. “We’ve got to be a smarter football team and execute when it’s crunch time.”

Iowa State had a false start on a third down-and-3 inside the Kansas State 8-yard line early in the second quarter, but scored on the next play with a 13-yard pass from Arnaud to wide receiver Jake Williams.

Three times, penalties resulted in the ISU offense facing 17 or more yards between it and the first down.

“We had some penalties come our way,” Williams said, “but we’ve got to limit the ones that set us back, and it definitely doesn’t help a drive when you get a holding. Definitely a drive killer, but you’ve got to come back from stuff like that.”

Klein

Down 10-7 in the third quarter, Kansas State was driving to try and extend its lead.

KSU quarterback Carson Coffman dropped back to pass for the second straight play, but his pass went awry and right to ISU linebacker A.J. Klein. After securing the ball, Klein ran the ball past the Wildcats’ offense for 69 yards and a touchdown, putting Iowa State up 14-10.

“He threw it right to me, so I just had to make a play,” Klein said after the game, a 27-20 loss. “I really don’t have much to say.”

The touchdown was Iowa State’s first defensive touchdown since Aug. 28, 2008. Klein also finished with 10 tackles, his third-straight game with double digits in that category.

“Individual performance really doesn’t matter unless we win,” Klein said. “If we’re going to win, we’ve really got to work on other things than just big plays. Big plays aren’t going to win the game for us.

Woody

The ISU offense was held to 293 total yards Saturday afternoon in the home of the NFL’s Chiefs.

Running back Alexander Robinson ran 19 times for 82 yards, but was held out of portions of the second half in favor of freshman Jeff Woody. In Robinson’s absence, Woody racked up 45 yards on six carries early in the fourth quarter.

“He was fresh at the time, he was strong at the time and he was productive at the time,” Rhoads said. “Late in the game like that, as physical as this game was, when you’ve got somebody that’s a little bit fresher it shows and it did [with Woody.] That’s why we chose to get him out there on the next series, too.”

Woody’s first three runs went for 10 yards, 8 yards and 16 yards before picking up 9 yards on three straight carries the next series.

Execution

Throughout the 2009 season, Rhoads said the Cyclones prepared better than any team he had been around in his career.

After Saturday’s loss, though, the coach expressed some concern that the team wasn’t preparing as well as it needed to in order to win.

“We’ve got to practice better,” he said. “We practiced better in camp than we are right now. We’ve got to get back to practicing better and understanding the importance of what preparation does for Saturday.”

Klein agreed with his coach, saying the team needed to refocus in practice in order to perform better on game day.

“Tuesday and Wednesday, we came out too flat,” Klein said. “Thursday we picked it up, but we have to have consistency all through the week. We can’t just pick up on one day and expect to go out and win on Saturdays.”