From Todd Blythe’s view, it was a good call. He might be in the minority.

Blythe, a senior wide receiver, was on the sidelines during the final seconds of the Cyclones’ controversial 21-16 victory over Missouri last season.

“It was a heck of a call,” Blythe said.

The call was a holding penalty on Tigers guard Monte Wyrick with 26 seconds remaining in the game. Facing a fourth down on the Cyclone’s 1-yard line, quarterback Chase Daniel reached the end zone to give Missouri the lead. The touchdown was brought back when referees whistled Wyrick with the 10-yard penalty.

Blythe said Wyrick was grabbing the defender’s jersey and just about pulled him down.

The next play, Daniel was sacked by Cyclones defensive end Shawn Moorehead to end the game and former ISU coach Dan McCarney’s tenure with the school.

The penalty was eventually looked at by Walt Anderson, coordinator of football officials for the Big 12, who apologized to Missouri coach Gary Pinkel for the call.

“For him to admit that, it said a lot about him and the integrity of the conference office,” Pinkel said last year in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times.

One season later, it’s a call Blythe thinks the Tigers will use as motivation going into Saturday’s game.

“I’m sure that’s something that their coaches are going to bring up to them, and they’re going to play that card all week and say they might have gotten cheated,” Blythe said. “But that’s the way it was called. That’s the way it went down, so obviously we were happy about it. We came away with a win, and hopefully we’ll come away with another win this week.”

Cyclones coach Gene Chizik thinks the 6-1 Tigers, second in the Big 12 North, have more important things to worry about.

“They’re more focused on the fact that they’re trying to win out the Big 12 and playing the championship and go to a BCS game,” Chizik said. “They’ve got a lot riding on the line. That might enter into the picture right now, but I think they’ve got so much going for them right now as a football team that whatever happened 365 days ago is probably a little bit hindsight.”

As for Blythe, he’s just happy about the result of the call.

“I’m just glad they have a seasoned, veteran referee to make that call,” Blythe said. “So that’s all I have to say about that.”

He’s our guy

Against Oklahoma, Chizik said running back Jason Scales had nowhere to go. Still, the junior found some places to run as Scales rushed for 46 yards on 22 carries and one touchdown.

“[On Saturday] he’s still trying to run physical . still trying to make extra yards that aren’t necessarily there and I think he’s gotten better at that,” Chizik said.

Scales, who took over the starting running back job in week five at Nebraska, has gotten the majority of carries since junior running back J.J. Bass went out with an injured shoulder. In five games, Scales has rushed for 320 yards on 94 carries and reached the end zone three times.

“He needs to continue to improve,” Chizik said. “He certainly hasn’t arrived to where we would like him to be, but he goes into every game and he wants to get those tough yards, in my opinion, and he’s done that quite a bit this year.”

Sticking to the rules

Despite having the worst record in the Big 12, the Cyclones have something to hang their hat on. Iowa State is the least penalized team in the nation, being whistled just 28 times for 245 yards this season.

“It’s nice not being penalized and that just shows you that we’re playing disciplined,” said freshman right tackle Ben Lamaak.

Another one for the records

Blythe already broke one record this season, and now the senior is knocking on the door of another.

The Indianola native is two catches away from becoming the all-time ISU career receptions leader. His 163 career receptions rank him second behind Lane Danielsen.

Against Texas Tech, Blythe broke the school record for career receiving yards and his 29 touchdown catches are also a Cyclone high mark. Still, Blythe isn’t concerned about those.

“I came here to win football games,” Blythe said earlier in the season.

“Not to break records and things like that.”