Finally, there is rest for the weary.

After a month of practice followed by a month of games, the Cyclones were ready for a break before heading into the final eight games of the season.

“It came at really a pretty good time for two reasons,” said coach Gene Chizik. “One, obviously we are going into Big 12 play; and two, it really came at the true mid-point of the season.”

Chizik said he feels the mid-point of the season is a perfect time to evaluate the team.

“You know, a lot of times you can’t see the forest from the trees because you’re in the middle of a season and everything is flying fast, and then at the end of the season you finally figure out: This is what we weren’t good at. And it was really a good opportunity for us to look at that [during the bye-week].”

Before their week off, the Cyclones lost two straight games and are facing a tough Big 12 schedule, with Kansas looming on the horizon.

After breaking down the first four games, however, the coaches were optimistic.

“You can get caught up in, ‘Well, we have had two losses in a row,’” Chizik said. “We had to really look at why. And we just think they are very fixable.”

The biggest thing the team saw after their examination of their early season games was the team’s youthfulness showing through.

“We sit back and we look at missed opportunities,” Chizik said. “A lot of them are coming from freshmen and young people: dropped passes, cuts by tailbacks that they should have seen and [we] didn’t see, and offensive line issues, with us trying to get a tailback running game going and we are one block away.

“It makes you really back up and realize, you know, we have quarterbacks that have only played in four college games, and it’s glaring.”

Although the team is young, especially the quarterbacks, the Cyclones refused to use that as an excuse.

“At the quarterback position, me and Austen [Arnaud], we have a list of when we make the plays and when we didn’t make the plays,” said sophomore quarterback Phillip Bates. “There were a few things out there, where we need to make the play. So that’s what we really worked on this week — just making the play.”

But Iowa State isn’t just young on the offensive side of the ball, their defense is also young. Chizik saw a lot of correctable mistakes the defense needs to work on, too.

“We gave up too many big plays,” said junior nose tackle Nate Frere. “I think we are a lot better defense than people think we are; we just give up some big plays here and there. We have some missed tackles that have led to big plays, and that is what really hurt us.”

Although the missed tackles are troubling the Cyclones defenders, they feel it is a pretty easy fix.

“We just have to be more fundamentally sound, just tackling in the grass and stuff like that, and just knowing our assignments,” said junior linebacker Fred Garrin.

The off week wasn’t all about work for the Cyclones, however.

“It was a great balance of [rest and teaching],” Chizik said. “They need a break, the coaches need to go see their families, we all need a break. It’s human nature, so we really felt that it was a good mix of both.”

Although they had the weekend off, Bates still decided to spend his free time around college football. He went home to Nebraska to watch his friend and high school teammate, sophomore wide receiver Niles Paul, play for Nebraska in a 30-35 loss to Virginia Tech on Saturday.

Even Chizik took a little time away from Cyclones football, although he did watch a few games over the weekend.

“I watched some football,” Chizik said. “I didn’t get immersed in it to the point that I wasn’t going to leave my TV, because I have three children and a wife, but I watched some.”