Even after fumbling the ball three times in Saturday’s 36-7 loss to Oklahoma State, ISU head coach Dan McCarney said in his Monday teleconference that Bret Meyer will remain the Cyclones’ starter when Texas A&M comes to town Saturday.

“[Bret’s] been our starter all season and will continue to do that,” McCarney said.

McCarney said a lot of the problems in the pocket and Meyer’s fumbles weren’t Meyer’s fault.

“When you get blindsided, hit, sacked or tackled the way he was on some plays, it’s tough,” McCarney said. “We always teach protecting the football and had played three games without fumbling it once, but those three fumbles with Bret Saturday had very little to do with him being loose with the ball. He was getting whacked from all directions, and our protection has to be a lot better to give him an opportunity.”

Establishing a running game will be one of the ways the Cyclones will try to combat the lack of quarterback protection, McCarney said. Iowa State did a better job of that in the second half against the Cowboys.

“We’re not going to go in this week and throw in a whole new offense,” McCarney said. “We just have to be better. For the most part, in our first three games, we did a lot of good things in protection. There is no doubt Oklahoma State did some great things in heating up our quarterback and collapsing the pocket.”

As for the kicking game, another one of the Cyclones’ weaknesses, McCarney said even though his kickers have struggled, Iowa State won’t desert them. But he will re-evaluate when to kick a field goal or when to go for it on fourth down.

“If we continue to struggle in that, we’re going to lean more towards four-down territory and staying on the field with your offense, trying to make it, and knocking it in the end zone rather than kicking the field goal,” McCarney said. “But we sure haven’t given up on it. We were expecting more out of our kickers, and hopefully we can show some real vast improvement in the next few weeks.”