Iowa State clinched its first winning seasons in 11 years, and became postseason eligible in the process, with a 39-20 victory over Missouri Saturday night at Jack Trice Stadium.

The Cyclones improve to 6-2 with the win which assures ISU Head Football Coach Dan McCarney his first winning season in this his sixth year at the helm. The Cyclones also made the cutoff of the NCAA which requires a team to have six wins to compete in a bowl game.

“I’m really proud of my football team and coaching staff,” McCarney said. “We’re not where we want to be yet but we’re getting a hell of a lot closer and these kids really deserve a awful lot. They’ve been through a lot of tough times.”

Ennis Haywood powered the Cyclone effort with 214 yards on 23 carries. Haywood scored two touchdowns, on runs of 4 and 14 yards, and averaged a solid 9.3 yards per carry.

“We had some adversity and made some mistakes, but the kids hung in there and did some really good things,” McCarney said. “You see Ennis Haywood with a big night running the football and we challenged our offensive line after we couldn’t get first downs running the football last week. We wanted to control the line of scrimmage.”

The Tigers got off to a fast start as Sean Ain intercepted Sage Rosenfels’s pass and the Tigers scored five plays later on a 10-yard run by quarterback Darius Outlaw.

The Cyclones responded with four touchdowns to build a 26-7 lead. Haywood scored two of the touchdowns and Rosenfels and J.J. Moses added the other two on runs of 2 and 34 yards respectively.

ISU free safety Marc Timmons returned an interception 74 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter and Rosenfels capped off the Cyclone scoring with another short scoring run.