ISU football coach Dan McCarney is naturally an intense guy along the sidelines, but his fiery ways hit a new level in some of his players’ eyes during halftime of Saturday’s game against Iowa.

The Hawkeyes were dominating McCarney’s team and went into the locker room with a 24-7 lead. Whatever was said to the Cyclones behind closed doors worked.

Iowa State started the second half on fire, reeling off 29 unanswered points to beat the Hawkeyes 36-31.

The subject was addressed lightheartedly by players and McCarney at Tuesday’s press conference.

ISU receiver Jack Whitver said the poorly played first half was disappointing to everyone because the program has come so far.

“Coach Mac has been so good to us, we just don’t want to let him down,” Whitver said.

“To see him as angry as he was, everybody on the team was letting him down.”

McCarney said after Saturday’s game that he couldn’t tell the media what he used to motivate his team, but he said Tuesday it was about as angry as he’s ever been.

“That was one of the top three or four I think,” McCarney said. “We just try to educate and motivate them.”

McCarney’s mood was understandable.

By the end of the first half, the Cyclones had given up 133 yards to Iowa running back Fred Russell. Russell’s first score of the game was on the second play from scrimmage.

Hawkeye receiver Maurice Brown also burned the Cyclones for a 50-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter.

“We looked like a scout team defense out there [in the first half], servicing them like they were holding up cards – here’s what we want you to do, please line up right here and we’ll go whack your rear end,” said McCarney on his team’s first half performance.

McCarney’s halftime rant spurred a variety of reactions from his players.

Cornerback Harold Clewis was nearly speechless.

“He got us pumped up,” he said. “What else can you say.”

Quarterback Seneca Wallace, who is known for being cool, calm and collected throughout adversity, said he’s seen McCarney upset many times before.

“We see that side of him a lot,” Wallace said “He’s a real animated person. Once we [saw] . how emotional he was we knew we had to pick it up.”

After thinking carefully, JaMaine Billups said he’s seen his coach even more upset than he was Saturday during his first three years at Iowa State.

“He was pretty rowdy when we went down and played Nebraska in Lincoln last year,” Billups said. “I think they only scored seven points in the second half or something like that.

“We don’t really need to get kicked in the butt just to come out and play hard. It’s not that. We just lose a little focus.”

There’s one main thing that comes to mind when McCarney’s fired up, Billups said.

“You want to stay out of his way just to be safe,” Billups said. “Hopefully, the speech he gave us, I hope we don’t have to get any of those like that anymore.”