What does a guy have to do to earn a starting quarterback position on the ISU football team? Sophomore quarterback Austin Flynn has been Superman for the Cyclones, yet, when Saturday rolls around, he gets absolutely no respect.

The only reason Iowa State came away with a 48-41 win over Northern Illinois Saturday is because of Flynn’s play. This team was dead in the ground, with the Huskies throwing the dirt on the coffin going into halftime down 28-20.

Don’t let the 20 points scored in the first half fool you. One touchdown was scored off an interception. Other than that, there were two touchdowns scored off of a total of three good plays by the ISU offense in the first half.

Freshman quarterback Bret Meyer connected with freshman wide receiver Todd Blythe on two long touchdown passes and then with senior Todd Miller for a big first-down pass.

Those were the only big offensive plays for Iowa State in the first half, with the running and passing games looking abysmal minus those three plays.

Flynn took over later in the third quarter and showed why he needs to start.

After being down by as much as 34-20, Flynn and his team worked pure magic to claw back into the game.

Flynn took the reins at quarterback and didn’t look back.

On to what went wrong in this game.

Iowa State’s defense, which had been stellar the first two games, really took a beating.

Iowa State’s run defense was off-and-on all game long. It started out with a bang, stopping anything run at it in the first few series, but after that, started to wear down. One series was particularly worrisome. A penalty was called during a big run for Northern Illinois that brought the ball back. The Huskies ran practically the same play for a touchdown the next play.

Although the run defense played well up to a point, the secondary got picked apart all day long.

Four interceptions were the only thing that saved the pass defense, as Northern Illinois quarterback Phil Horvath was threading the needle on every pass play.

Give credit where credit is due, though — the ISU defense stepped up when it needed to.

The defense did stop Northern Illinois on several third-down and short yardage and on three fourth-down conversion plays.

The one place that hasn’t improved since the first game of the season is the ISU special teams.

Brian Jansen missed two points-after touchdown and his only field goal attempt. Jansen has yet to prove why he is still on the team.

Also, the kick coverage has been horrendous, especially in this game. The coverage on kickoffs has improved, but someone needs to talk with the punt coverage team because it allowed plenty of big plays Saturday.

Now, with all of that said, this was a great battle. It wasn’t the prettiest game to watch, but extremely fun nonetheless.

The biggest thing to take away from it, though, is — again — that Flynn needs to start for this team to win. He may not be the best athlete out there, and, hell, he may not even be a better overall quarterback than Meyer, but every time he’s on the field, he gives the Cyclones their best chance to win.

Now I really like Coach Dan McCarney and I appreciate everything he has done for this team and this university, but if Flynn is not starting under center in two weeks, McCarney needs to take a year off from coaching and get his head checked. Anyone can see that the only way to win is to start Flynn.