A performance like Iowa State’s win against Ohio University on Thursday night will “absolutely not” be enough for a win against their next opponent, Head Football Coach Dan McCarney said.

“We’ve got to play much, much better, make a lot less mistakes and be more sound,” McCarney said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.

The Cyclones will battle the Texas Christian Horned Frogs this Saturday in Fort Worth. TCU tied for first in the Southwest Conference and lost to Virginia 20-10 in the Independence Bowl last year. They ended the season with a 7-5 record.

ISU is coming off a comeback performance in their season opener against Ohio University at Cyclone Stadium. The Cyclones won the game 36-21.

“We’re down 21-12 and all of the sudden it’s a 15 point win for the Cyclones,” McCarney said. “That’s a great turnaround, but I honestly don’t think we’d be able to do that against a quality opponent like TCU. They’re really, really talented.”

That might be an understatement. TCU led the SWC in offense with 411.6 yards per game last year. They also return the number one quarterback in that conference. Max Knake led the SWC in passing and put TCU at the top of every passing category in that conference. TCU is favored by 14 points.

“We’ve got to be a real good tackling defense this week, or it’s going to be real trouble for us because they do such a great job of turning short gains into big ones,” McCarney said.

“We keep telling our players how important this game’s going to be, how much the talent level’s going to be increased and that our performance last Thursday night will not even give us a chance to win this game this week.”

Cyclone fans also should not be surprised if they hear another Davis making big rushing gains. TCU running back Andre Davis rushed for 1,494 yards and 10 touchdowns last season. McCarney said the battle for yards between Andre Davis and Cyclone running back Troy Davis should be a good one.

“It’s going to be neat to be able to see both of those backs on the same field in one game,” he said.

It has been 55 games since the Cyclones have won games back-to-back. The last time ISU won on the road was a 23-22 win over Missouri on Nov. 2, 1991.

McCarney said his team has to step up their play if they plan on breaking that streak.

“For our sake and for the benefit of the Cyclones we’d better improve the most between game one and game two, and I believe we can do that,” he said.

“A classic example was last weekend. You see what Northwestern did to Notre Dame. I watched every snap of the game, and it was no fluke. They outplayed them; they outhustled them; they were more hungry although they were four touchdown underdogs.”

Tailback Troy Davis said the Cyclones are not taking the TCU game lightly in practice this week.

“We’ve got to clean up all the mistakes from the first game. TCU went to a bowl game last year, and they’re some kind of champs down there, so we’ve just got to come down there and play hard,” Davis said.

The Cyclone winning streak was also on the sophomore noseguard Greg Schoon’s mind.

“We’re all real confident right now, and we all know what we’re doing,” Schoon said. “We just want to keep this small streak; we have going alive and then go and build off of it.”

McCarney said the TCU coaches contacted him earlier this week and asked for a game tape switch. TCU wanted a copy of ISU’s game with Ohio in exchange for a TCU spring practice game tape. McCarney wasn’t interested.

“It was a no-brainer. They wanted to give us their spring game, and we would give them our Ohio University game. We absolutely were not interested in that,” he said.

Cyclone quarterback Todd Doxzon is still not 100 percent. He may be ready by Saturday, but if Doxzon is not able to start, back-up quarterback Jeff St. Clair will get the nod again, McCarney said.