While Iowa State dropped a 27-10 decision to Iowa on Saturday, ISU Head Football Coach Dan McCarney said his team is improving.

“No one quit. We made some plays and made some things happen. I give Iowa a lot of credit. They had a great game plan,” said McCarney.

ISU sophomore sensation Troy Davis played a unique role in Saturday’s game. Davis, who rushed for 139 yards on 25 carries, brought the crowd to their feet with a 67-yard scamper that gave the Cyclones an early lead against the arch-rival Hawks.

Davis has 610 yards rushing after three games, a school record. He is leading the nation in rushing and is second in all-purpose yards.

Davis is also the first Cyclone to rush for over 100 yards in three consecutive games since Blaise Bryant in 1989.

But it was Davis’ fumble at the start of the third quarter, with the Cyclones deep in Hawkeye territory, that took the wind out of ISU’s sails.

“He [Davis] gives so much to this team. I’d never be down on Troy for anything like that. It was one of those things that just happened,” McCarney said.

Saturday’s game also marked the return of Cyclone quarterback Todd Doxzon. Doxzon proved his passing ability by coming through on many third and long situations, with his primary target being sophomore receiver Ed Williams. Doxzon was 11 of 23 for 172 yards while Williams collected nine of those passes for 131 yards.

“Todd was super. I can’t say enough about him. He looked great out there,” McCarney said.

While ISU racked up some impressive stats, the consistent pounding of Hawkeye running back Sedrick Shaw wore the Cyclone defense down. Shaw ran for a career high 178 yards to lead all rushers. He now has 1,843 yards for his career. That total passes Nick Bell’s 1,748 career yards for Iowa and puts Shaw seventh on the Iowa career rushing list.

McCarney said the Cyclones need to build on this game and improve every week.

“We have to get kids to believe, and it all starts with recruiting. We’ll eventually have it. Right now we don’t have enough confidence to play those younger kids. They haven’t had enough competition,” McCarney said. “We just don’t have a lot of depth. I think you all saw that with Mark Konopka, who injured his knee and sucked it up and was back out on the field.” Konopka was treated by trainers and had his knee in a brace after the game.

“But we are getting better defensively. Considering where we started and what we inherited, we’ve made some improvements. Offensively we moved the ball, but 10 points is unacceptable,” McCarney said.

Although a couple of costly turnovers hurt the Cyclones, McCarney said ISU could not make mistakes if they wanted to beat a talented team like Iowa.

“You have to give them credit. They never took us for granted. They have a great team with so many weapons. It’s hard to take positives out of a 17 point loss, but Iowa is better than TCU. We’re just going to keep working,” McCarney said.