The ISU football team was trailing 34-20 with under a minute left in the third quarter.

A blocked Northern Illinois punt swung the momentum back in the Cyclones’ favor and fueled them to score 28 unanswered points.

Would last year’s 2-10 ISU football team have been able to overcome this seemingly insurmountable hole?

ISU defensive back Ellis Hobbs said he doesn’t want to answer that question, but he said this team has a whole different fight that began last winter.

“We got heart,” Hobbs said. “The difference between last year and this year is we have heart. The heart that we had last year would have gave up in the third quarter … we kept fighting.”

Freshman receiver Todd Blythe had a career day, hauling in 104 yards through the air, including three touchdown catches.

He said the camaraderie on this Cyclone team is rare.

“The togetherness of this team, the makeup of the team, the guys, just how everyone is so close on this team, it’s just remarkable,” Blythe said. “This isn’t something you see even in high school when you grow up with those guys. That’s how I feel with these guys, [like we’ve been together] all my life.”

Cyclone quarterback Austin Flynn finished the game completing 6 of 11 passes for 76 yards, including one of Blythe’s touchdown receptions.

Having started the majority of last season’s games under center, Flynn said this ISU team gets the job completed.

“We just got that character to do what it takes to get over the hill and stop all this nonsense; let’s play some football and get it done,” Flynn said.

Last season, heading into conference play, Iowa State was 2-2. After the victory against the Huskies, the Cyclones will enter its Oct. 2 matchup with Oklahoma State 2-1, with its only blemish coming against intrastate rival Iowa.

A loss to Northern Illinois would have put the Cyclones below .500 and would have wreaked havoc with the team’s confidence.

“You tell me 1-2 or 2-1, which one sounds better?” Hobbs said.

“It would have been devastating, it would have been real hard to come back from that, especially [because we were] at home and especially the way we started the game.”

On the second play of the game, ISU strong safety Nik Moser intercepted a Northern Illinois pass on the Huskie 30-yard line and ran it back for a touchdown, giving the Cyclones an early 6-0 lead.

Later in the quarter, freshman quarterback Bret Meyer completed a 39-yard touchdown pass to Blythe, giving Iowa State a 13-0 advantage.

The Huskies fought back scoring three touchdowns while holding the Cyclone offense scoreless. Northern Illinois held a 28-20 lead going into halftime, but Iowa State charged back late in the third quarter.

Meyer threw for 149 yards and two touchdowns and said the way Iowa State fought back shows how much this Cyclone team has improved from a season ago.

“We’d like to be 3-0, but 2-1 sounds a lot better than 1-2,” Meyer said. “All around, we just kept battling back. Last year we would have had trouble with a game like this, but you can see the changes over the past year.”

ISU head coach Dan McCarney said the final outcome against Northern Illinois was the most important indicator of the way the Cyclones played.

“It was a tremendous victory for us today. We made all kinds of mistakes but got the best kind of gut check for a young football team,” McCarney said. “These kids played with a lot of heart. We had some breakdowns at times, many mistakes, but the most important statistic in the end is winning or losing.”