The ISU football team had struggled with terrible field position and a lack of big plays all season.

Saturday, the Cyclones took care of both problems on the first play and defeated Kansas State, 31-20, for coach Gene Chizik’s first Big 12 victory.

Josh Raven forced a fumble on the opening kickoff by KSU returner James Johnson, and ISU defensive back James Smith fell on it at the 32-yard line.

“All of a sudden I saw the ball pop out, so I had to jump on it,” Smith said. “From the start, we were all juiced up and ready to go, and somebody went down there, made a good hit and popped the ball out.”

Seven plays later, quarterback Bret Meyer connected with tight end Derrick Catlett for a 1-yard touchdown, and Iowa State was on their way a 21-3 scoring run to open the game.

Meyer said the quick score – just under four minutes into the game – gave the offense confidence, especially considering the Cyclones had just one touchdown in the past three games in Ames.

“Having a short field – that was huge,” Meyer said.

“Special teams did a good job. Defense got us in some good positions. Having a short field obviously is easy for obvious reasons – you don’t have to go as far, and it’s a confidence booster as well.”

Chizik said it doesn’t take much to see why being on the right end of the turnover battle leads to victories.

“I think that, as we said all year, when we’ve lost games it’s typically because of turnovers,” Chizik said. “Obviously, we started fast on that kickoff and got the fumble.

“When you start fast, like we did not do last week, it just kind of gets things kicked up. It gets the crowd into it. It gets you into it. I think that was huge.”

Iowa State came into the game with a turnover margin of minus-8, but on Saturday the Cyclones forced three and only turned the ball over once. Iowa State scored 14 points off three Wildcat turnovers and forced Kansas State to punt after the Cyclones’ only turnover.

“The defense made two or three back-to-the-wall stops, and we can’t win games if our defense doesn’t do that,” Chizik said. “I just thought our defense today, we gave up some things, but I thought for the most part they did a nice job.”

Chris Singleton came up with a highlight-reel play midway through the third quarter when he intercepted a deflected Josh Freeman pass and returned it 21 yards for a touchdown to put Iowa State up, 28-10.

“Alvin Bowen made a good play on the ball and the tight end tipped it,” Singleton said. “I saw it, came back and made a play.”

When the defense wasn’t coming up with big plays, the Cyclone offense picked up the slack.

ISU wide receiver Todd Blythe made two high-yardage catches. Meyer connected with him for 40 yards on a scoring drive in the second quarter, and backup quarterback Austen Arnaud found Blythe for 51 yards on a fourth-quarter play that set up an ISU field goal.

As to why everything finally clicked, Chizik said he could only point to the team’s hard work and improvement from week to week.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Chizik said. “I think we’ve gotten better as a football team the last three weeks. I think one thing that people need to take into consideration is the opponent every week that we’ve played has been very good.

“I think [a win] has been long overdue, because I think we have been getting better.”