Saturday’s victory over Ball State came after yet another impressive display by the Cyclones’ defense.

The defense shut down and subsequently shutout the Cardinals, 38-0. It was the first shutout for the Cyclones since September 29, 1984, when they blanked West Texas State, 14-0.

More impressive is the fact that this was the first shutout loss for Ball State since losing 24-0 to Bowling Green on September 29, 1984.

Head Coach Dan McCarney was impressed with his team’s shutout victory.

“At the major college level, you just don’t see many of them,” McCarney said. “It’s a tremendous accomplishment by all the defensive coaches and the players, and it’s something to build on.”

Building on defensive success is key for the Cyclones. Consider last year’s statistics:

The Cyclones’ defense ranked 11th in the Big 12 and 106th out of 112 Division 1-A teams, giving up an average of 247 rushing yards per game.

McCarney points toward several factors in his team’s early season defensive turnaround.

“We have more team speed and more depth, and we have a lot of kids who played last year that are faster and more developed,” McCarney said. “We can be an improved team because we’re playing so many players. None of them should be too tired, and all of them are getting great experience.”

Defensive back Jamarcus Powers agrees that constant substitution played a major role in the solid defensive play against Ball State and throughout the season thus far.

“It kept us fresh and that’s why you saw us making big plays and not getting tired and not giving up the big plays,” Powers said. “That’s what helped us keep the shutout.”

Linebacker Kip King said that this season’s practices have given the Cyclones an improved outlook.

“We’re having great intensity in our practices this year. We come to practice and work a lot harder each day,” King said.

Defensive end Reggie Hayward agrees with King’s views on the team’s intensity.

“We don’t want anyone to score on us, like any other defense, so you have to have a mean attitude,” Hayward said. “Your demeanor has to be mean, because if it’s not, they’re just gonna bull rush right into the endzone.”

Against Ball State, the Cyclones gave up only 79 yards on the ground and 235 yards in total offense.

The Cardinals leading rusher, LeAndre Moore, was held to just 33 yards on 12 carries.

And for the second straight week, the Cyclones held their opponent to under 100 yards rushing. The Cyclones held Iowa to just 42 yards on the ground last weekend.

“We made some adjustments earlier in the first half because they were doing some good things to us (on the ground),” McCarney said. “We’re playing more guys and keeping on the pressure. We just got to keep doing a great job of selling to our kids about being a relentless defense when we run into the football.”

“It’s awesome that we’ve been able to hold our last two opponents to less than 100 yards rushing,” defensive coordinator John Skladany said. “That was a big goal this year. We wanted to get better against the run and not get pounded.”

The Cyclone sacked the quarterback four times against Ball State, and defensive back Doug Densmore made a timely interception for the Cyclones as well.

Hayward, who made one of the sacks, said that there’s one major reason why the defense is putting more pressure on the quarterback this season.

“Speed. What we lack in size, we gain in speed,” Hayward said. “I’m coming off the edge, and Kevin (DeRonde) and Chin Achebe are coming off the edge and we’re just closing down on them and giving them less time to read the screens and make the pass.”

McCarney said that pressuring the quarterback was vital in the victory over Ball State and will continue to be a major goal for the team this season.

“We keep trying to get as much pressure as we can,” McCarney said. “Some of those sacks and pressures you saw today were coverage sacks because we were holding our coverage real good and it allowed the front four, five or six to get after them. The more pressure you can get on them, the better your defense is going to be.”

Third down play by the Cyclone defense played a major role in the victory as well, Skladany and McCarney said. The Cardinals converted only six of 16 third downs.

“We had some really crucial third down stops, and we stopped some drives that they had going,” Skladany said.

“One of the real keys was to come up and make plays, especially on third down. We got them into a lot of third and long situations because we got some tackles for loss on first and second downs,” McCarney said.

However, questions remain if the Cyclone defense that showed up to play the last two weeks is the real deal.

“We didn’t go in the tank after we lost to TCU,” Hayward said. “We looked at the table and realized that we had a real good defense and a real good team, so we just made some little adjustments and it shows. That first game we had butterflies, and we just had to kick out the bugs.”

McCarney knows that the Cyclones will have to be at the top of their game next weekend as they kick off Big 12 play against Texas Tech.

“It (the Ball State victory) gives us some confidence that we can do some real positive things this year. We have responded from that first setback, the first loss,” McCarney said. “We do have a good football team, but we do have a long ways to go.”