It was Oct. 29, 2005 when Iowa State last saw a win over a Big 12 South opponent.

Three seasons and nine losses later, the Cyclones will try again Saturday against Baylor.

“They’re good,” coach Paul Rhoads said about the Big 12’s South division teams. “There’s a high quality level of talent down there.”

The six schools of the South — Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Baylor — recruit heavily in the state of Texas, giving them a much deeper talent pool to choose from than many of the North division schools.

Baylor, although predominantly known as the South’s cellar dweller, will bring a taste of southern talent and speed with it to Ames this weekend.

“I think Baylor is the fastest team we’ve played so far,” said junior quarterback Austen Arnaud.

That speed has helped Baylor defensively this season, as before they were manhandled by Oklahoma last week, they had the 26th best pass defense in the country.

Offensive coordinator Tom Herman also said the Bears play a cover three-style defense, making smaller windows and creases for opposing offenses to operate in.

Herman compared Baylor’s defense to Penn State’s, saying they usually put an extra linebacker near the line of scrimmage, giving the appearance that throwing the ball would be a little easier.

“They’re a little bit different than what we’ve seen in terms of their coverage and they’re very sound in what they do,” Herman said. “We’ve got to do a really good job of executing and being precise in our routes.”

To better attack the predominantly zone defense, the Cyclones’ coaches have emphasize practicing fast during the week and translating that play to the game on Saturday.

“As the season goes along your looks start, I don’t want to say deteriorating, but the speed starts slowing down,” Rhoads said. “Working against each other gives us good coverage speed and gives us good pass rush. The quarterbacks have to be accurate and the receivers have to run their routes with good velocity.”

Baylor’s lackluster performance against the Sooners last week should give the Cyclone offense hope, as they are coming off their best performance thus far in 2009.

Against Kansas last week, Iowa State racked up 512 total yards, far surpassing their previous season high.

Maintaining that level of play, though, has been a struggle for the offense this season.

“I don’t know that it’s anything we’ve got to do, coaching wise, other than remind the players what it felt like, remind them the look they had in their eye, that they knew they could do whatever they wanted to and they could execute,” Herman said.

Herman also said, however, that the group had several things to improve on if they were to continue playing well.

The team’s performance last week has given it more confidence on both sides of the ball coming into the home stretch of the season.

“You can just see so much improvement,” Arnaud said. “We’re halfway through the season, and we’ve still got guys getting better, which is what we need.”

However, to finally get over the hump and beat a Big 12 South opponent for the first time since 2005, the Cyclones will need to get the little things right.

The last two weeks — both losses to Big 12 opponents by a combined six points — Iowa State has lost after having a chance to win or tie with their last possession.

“I believe we’ve got a football team that understands work ethic and understands that the only way they’re going to start winning football games is preparing better,” Rhoads said. “Our preparation has been good, but we’ve lost the last two games, so we’ve got to prepare better.”