He doesn’t have the big one, but ISU coach Gene Chizik said he has a lot of small wins.

During his weekly press conference, the Cyclone coach said he saw plenty of good things in Iowa State’s 24-13 loss Saturday.

“This is going to be a growing process,” Chizik said. “I think that’s evident, our goal is to continue to grow every week, other than that I don’t really pay much attention to that.”

What Chizik did pay attention to was the improvements he saw.

The offensive line allowed only one sack to the Panthers. Defensive back Allen Bell returned a UNI punt for 25 yards. Down 24-6, Iowa State rallied down the field for a touchdown.

All were positives for the new coach.

“There are things within our football team on defense, on offense and special teams that are getting better,” Chizik said. “We’ve just go to put the whole thing together.”

He hopes to improve on other small things.

In the Cyclones’ first two losses, Chizik’s team lost three fumbles, threw four interceptions, missed four field goals and missed an extra-point attempt.

“That’s sloppy football and we’re not good enough to overcome that,” he said.

Even after the Cyclones’ first 0-2 start since 1997, improvements were seen by some of the players. Free safety James Smith had eight tackles in Iowa State’s first loss against Kent State.

On Saturday, the sophomore had a career high 12 against the Panthers.

“Compared to the first week and compared to the last week, we made some improvements,” Smith said. “That’s always a positive thing.

As long as you can keep making improvements, people are going to see a change in us.”

Although fans are hoping to see a quick change, Chizik said it’ll continue to take time.

“There’s going to be a lot of negativity that surrounds an 0-2 start but we’re not going to let that filter in,” he said.

He said it’ll take time, but Chizik once again said he wouldn’t hesitate to make changes to his lineup.

“We’re looking for improvement at every position and if just week after week after week we don’t see it, then we really have no other alternative,” Chizik said. “We have to go in another direction provided we can find somebody right now to put in there that won’t hurt our football team anymore than they did.”

Chizik said there would be no major changes to the lineup prior to Saturday’s game with the Hawkeyes.

Now it’s just a matter of putting all the small victories together for the Cyclones’ biggest rivalry.

“We’ve just got to get everybody on the right page, have the same heartbeat on the field,” Smith said.

Tough D

As a defensive coordinator, he helped coach Texas to a national championship title, and now ISU coach Gene Chizik sees another good defender in the Iowa Hawkeyes. In their 35-0 win over Syracuse, the Hawkeyes allowed only 24 rushing yards.

“In this day in age, that is really hard to do now,” Chizik said. “From a defensive perspective, that’s very tough to be able to hold an offense to that.”

Besides the strong play of the defense, Chizik said he was also impressed by the play of Iowa quarterback Jake Christensen who passed for 278 yards in the win. The Hawkeyes also rushed for 118 yards on the ground.

“They are playing great,” Chizik said. “They are a very good football team.”