It was unnecessary to stay for the fireworks after the game, because the Texas A&M offense showed enough fireworks to light up the sky all night.

Yes, Reggie McNeal is a good quarterback, but the pass defense for Iowa State did not show up Saturday, and if it continues playing like this, Iowa State will go winless for the rest of the season.

There’s not much the Cyclones did right in their Homecoming game.

As far as the ISU defense is concerned, McNeal was a one-man wrecking crew against this horrible Cyclone defense. Some people may look at this as blaming just the secondary, but this is a group shaming. The entire defense was lackluster in its performance against the pass.

The defensive line got little pressure on McNeal throughout the game. The few chances that it had to secure a sack or a loss of yards usually resulted in several comical-looking missed tackles and a gain of yardage for McNeal.

The times that McNeal was able to stay in the pocket to make a pass (which was most of the game), he easily picked the secondary apart, threading the needle and completing passes that the ISU defense in the early part of the season wouldn’t have allowed.

The run defense did better than the stats will tell you. Most teams use the run play to set up the pass, but A&M was using the pass play to set up the run.

Of course, not all of that blame can go on the shoulders of Iowa State. The referees played an extremely large role in turning the game around with many phantom calls and non-calls.

Obviously, the interception by Nik Moser in the end zone that was reversed by a questionable pass interference call was a turning point in the game. From my viewpoint and the replays on the Jumbotron, I didn’t see pass interference so, for now, I’m saying that was a blown call.

Throughout the rest of the game, the officials had several blown calls both in Iowa State’s favor and not, but that one deflated the defense’s confidence in stopping A&M and more or less ended the game pretty early.

The ISU offense didn’t play particularly well either, though.

Most of the blame for the offense will come at the expense of the line. It was obvious the offensive line wouldn’t have been able to block an 8-year-old girl from getting into her English class at one point Saturday night.

Stevie Hicks had a pretty good night rushing, considering the amount of Barry Sanders-like moves he needed to make just to get out of the backfield.

I wish I could say the same for the passing game, but, understandably, it was pretty difficult for either Bret Meyer or Austin Flynn to make any kind of a throw when they had to run for their lives every down.

The lone bright spot for the Cyclones was, ironically, its worst throughout the beginning of the season. Special teams played well Saturday, with usually erratic kicker Brian Jansen connecting on his only field goal attempt, scoring the Cyclones’ only three points.

Also, Tyease Thompson did exceptionally well returning kicks, putting Iowa State in good starting field position, only to see the offense blow it later in the drive.

Heck, blame this loss on the student section for Iowa State. When the Cyclones were only down 10 points early in the second quarter, the student section cared more about a balloon floating around than they cared about the game.

That kind of lack of support can be demoralizing to the team on the field and just as much blame should go on the student section.

The rest of the crowd was amazing, but the student section, the one that should be the loudest and most supportive, was the weakest part of Jack Trice Stadium. Heck, A&M’s band section was cheering louder than the ISU student section.

So, sadly, the best thing to come out of Saturday’s game was the A&M marching band at halftime. Wasn’t that just something fun to watch?