The ISU football team is on the defense – and that’s the problem.

The Cyclones, whose defense has been in question since struggling against Army on Sept. 23, allowed 431 yards of passing offense against Nebraska on Saturday.

Those numbers don’t exactly measure up to the expectations ISU coach Dan McCarney had.

“We don’t want to give up those kind of yards,” McCarney said. “We used lots of things Saturday; it wasn’t like we went out there and zoned them, or just manned them. We tried seven or eight different coverages.”

McCarney was quick to stress, however, the Cornhuskers’ huge yardage resulted in minimal points.

“It wasn’t like it was a track meet all day, or the scoreboard was lit up all day, but we have to get better,” he said.

“We have to do a better job of coaching it and we have to do a better job of playing it, because everybody in college football now spreads you out and throws it all over the place.”

Nebraska threw the ball 55 times, but the ISU defense hurried quarterback Zac Taylor on only four of those attempts.

Defensive lineman Nick Leaders said that number needs to grow before Saturday’s game against Baylor.

“We definitely have to get some more pressure on the quarterback,” he said.

“We got up in his face quite a bit, but we just were a split second away so many times.”

Getting pressure on Baylor quarterback Shawn Bell won’t be an easy task, McCarney said.

“I think Shawn Bell is really playing well,” he said. “[He has a] 60 percent completion average, very few interceptions, and is behind a gigantic offensive line, so this is going to be a great challenge.”

While ISU pass coverage sits in a state of limbo, its rushing defense appeared to improve immensely, holding Nebraska running back Cory Ross to just 32 yards on 15 carries. Leaders said the ISU defense was happy with its performance against the run, but still stressed the importance of pressuring Bell in order for the defense to become effective.

“A lot of that is going to come with a little bit of coverage, and a lot of that is on our end, on the defensive line,” Leaders said. “You need to be able to get more sacks than two with 55 or 60 passes being thrown.”

It wasn’t all bad, though. Middle linebacker Tim Dobbins earned defensive MVP honors on the team for the first time in his career.

Dobbins had 15 tackles against Nebraska, three of which were for a loss.

“I didn’t realize that was the first time he’s been our MVP – he’s sure had a lot of good football games around here,” McCarney said.

“He let me know it was the first time, but hopefully not the last time.”

With Dobbins leading the way for the Cyclones, ISU safety Nik Moser said defensive improvement is imminent. When that occurs, the team will know how to gauge where it stands.

“Our defense has to improve this week a ton,” Moser said.

“After this week, if we’re improving, we’ll be pretty happy with our defense.”

Although the state of the Cyclone defense appears to be unknown, it has room for improvement, and the entire team agrees on that.

“We just have to do a better job,” McCarney said. “Our pass defense, overall, left a lot to be desired last Saturday.”