The ISU football team is looking to start the Big 12 Conference season on a winning note but so are the Baylor Bears. The Cyclones travel to Waco Saturday to take on the Bears in the Big 12 opener for both teams. The Cyclones enter the game sporting a 3-0 record while the Bears are 2-1. The Cyclones haven’t played since a 24-14 victory over intrastate rival Iowa on Sept. 15. ISU Head Coach Dan McCarney feels his team used the week off wisely to get prepared. “I’m very excited about this game. We had a great open week, we got a lot of things corrected,” McCarney said. “The Big 12 race begins this week so it’s a real important week. I think we’ve spent 10 months since the Kansas game last year getting ready for this.” Through the first three games, the Cyclones offense has been on a roll, racking up over 400 yards of total offense in each contest. Sage Rosenfels has thrown for 708 yards and two touchdowns while Ennis Haywood has led the ground game. Breaking the 100-yard barrier in all three games, Haywood has 374 yards and one touchdown. One area where the Cyclones have struggled offensively is in the red zone. The Cyclones drove inside the Iowa 20-yard line two times, only to come away with a pair of missed field goals. “Some of the problems in the red zone have been strictly missed field goals, but we’d also like to knock some of those opportunities into the end zone and score some points,” McCarney said. “There’s a lot of things we need to improve on, but we wouldn’t be 3-0, one of only 22 undefeated teams in the nation, if we weren’t doing some good things.” The two missed field goals are part of a nagging problem as the special teams have struggled through the first three games. “Our kickoff and kickoff return team have been below average at best,” McCarney said. “Those things need a lot of work, we’ve put a lot of time into it and don’t like the results. We’ve got to be more consistent with our kicking game.” The Cyclones will have to stop a Bear offense that has a new signal caller under center. Redshirt freshman Guy Tomcheck will be filling in for Greg Cicero, who suffered a broken collarbone two weeks ago. Tomcheck led the Bears to a 28-13 victory over South Florida in Waco last weekend. Tomcheck finished 20-of-28 for 223 yards and three touchdowns. “Guy Tomcheck played very much like a veteran last Saturday,” McCarney said. “You turn on the tape and watch him, as we have many times, it doesn’t look like his first start. He doesn’t play like a redshirt freshman.” The Cyclone secondary has faced solid quarterbacks in the last two games. UNLV’s Jason Thomas and Iowa’s Scott Mullen presented challenges, but the Cyclones didn’t fold. “Tomcheck is a real good player, he’s a little more like Mullen,” ISU cornerback Jamarcus Powers said. “We know that we’re in the Big 12 now and that we’re going to see better quarterbacks. We respect him, and we still will after the game.” Tomcheck’s favorite target has been sophomore Reggie Newhouse. Newhouse totaled 136 receiving yards and scored a touchdown in the win over South Florida. Newhouse ranks third in the Big 12 with 86 receiving yards a game. “Newhouse is an excellent receiver, we’re very impressed with him,” McCarney said. “Baylor is not a team without experience. I see 13 starters returning from last year, and they have good backs and receivers.” The Bears struggled to a 1-10 finish last year but have already bettered that mark in only three games. The Bears are going through the same rebuilding process that the Cyclones have gone through, and Bear Coach Kevin Steele thinks his team still has some work to do. “I think the biggest thing with this team is that they have confidence in themselves,” Steele said. “You can have determination up to your ears, but until you do something you won’t have confidence. We’re trying to learn how to win and improve, but we still have a long ways to go.” The Bear statistic that stands out the most to McCarney is the success of the defense. The Bear defense is third in the nation in turnover margin, forcing 10 turnovers and only committing three. “Their defense is only giving up 18 points a game, which is a pretty good defense,” McCarney said. “Their turnover margin is fantastic, and they haven’t got a lot of penalties so they’re not beating themselves.” The Cyclones have the chance to start out 4-0 for the first time in over 20 years, but the game is also critical to the Bears. However, Steele is quick to point out that this game is no bigger than any other. “Any game is pivotal in the Big 12, they’re all huge,” Steele explained, “when you prepare 365 days a year for 11 Saturdays. We’re going to fight hard. We’re 14 games into this rebuilding process.” Although the Cyclones are undefeated, McCarney remembers last year when the Cyclones were 3-0 and then lost seven of their final eight games. “We’ve been here before,” McCarney said. “We were 3-0 last year and everybody was ecstatic, but one win in eight games in the Big 12 wasn’t what we were looking for. Now this is the real test, the exhibition season is over, this is the real season.”