In Iowa State’s season opener against North Dakota State, the Cyclones finished the game penalty-free.

That was not the case in week two.

Penalties, turnovers and an out-of-sync offense doomed the Cyclones on Saturday, as Iowa State fell 35-3 to in-state rival Iowa in the 57th meeting of the two teams.

Iowa State had the yellow flag thrown against it nine times, which cost the team a total of 79 yards.

“It was a mixture of foolish penalties as well as aggressive penalties,” coach Paul Rhoads said. “When you’re penalized that many times, you’re not going win too many games.”

Although both teams were plagued by sloppy play in the first half, Iowa State was able to jump out to a 3-0 lead in the first quarter. But a slew of penalties at inopportune moments put several drives out of reach.

“We were moving the ball just fine, but the penalties were killing us,” said Austen Arnaud, junior quarterback.

To make matters worse, the Cyclones racked up six turnovers, five of them coming through the air.

Four of those interceptions came from throws by Arnaud, who struggled to find any sort of rhythm throughout the game, completing only 10 of 22 passes for 79 yards.

Arnaud said the turnovers were not a result of unexpected coverage from the Hawkeye secondary.

“It comes down to mentality and being able to focus the entire game,” Arnaud said.

Iowa State trailed only 14-3 coming out of halftime, but the Cyclones couldn’t surmount a comeback, turning the ball over during their first two drives of the second half. The Hawkeyes made the most of Iowa State’s mistakes, pulling ahead to a 28-3 lead by the end of the third quarter.

Arnaud was eventually pulled in favor of backup Jerome Tiller on Iowa State’s last drive of the third quarter.

“Austen was inactive at that point. He had turned the ball over way too many times,” Rhoads said. “He’s probably surprised he was in there one more interception longer than he was.”

Tiller did not have much more success, throwing for 34 yards (3-9) and one interception.

Despite Arnaud’s struggles, Rhoads was quick to dispel any talk of Arnaud’s starting job being in jeopardy.

“Nobody in the state of Iowa feels worse about this game than Austen Arnaud,” Rhoads said. “He had a bad day. I have had a bad day or two in my life. Austen had one today. Not the day we would like him to have it, but he will be our starting quarterback tomorrow, and he’ll go back to work and he’ll prepare harder than he has before.”

All the struggles with turnovers and penalties, Rhoads said, serve as reminder that his team is still trying install a mindset of how to win games.

“I inherited a team that was 5-19, not 19-5, and knowing that is half the battle. You have to know you don’t know how to win football games, and then you have to go about accomplishing the daily tasks that it takes to learn how.”

Although disheartened by the uneven score on Saturday, the Cyclones remain confident they will be able to rectify their mistakes come next week on the road against Kent State.

“We know we should have been closer than we were; it was just the penalties and mental mistakes and errors that held us back,” said wide receiver Darius Reynolds. “We’ll be ready for the next game. This is just going to motivate us.”