ARLINGTON, Texas – It took 33 seconds for me to see what was brewing.

It was possible to realize it in the second quarter when things were going sideways.

It became clear as day on the final offensive play of the Dr. Pepper Big 12 Championship.

Iowa State is a program on the rise, that part is still clear. But, it is not ready to compete with the blue bloods when the stakes are high and the lights shine brightest.

Near comeback and everything, that’s evident after what transpired on Saturday in Arlington.

The College Football Playoff ranking’s No. 10 Oklahoma was calm, cool and collected from the coaches, to the ball boys and had no problems reaching the end zone in the first half then used its defense to step up one final time in its 27-21 triumph over the No. 6 Cyclones to claim its sixth straight conference championship.

“We were really close most of the game,” Iowa State Head Coach Matt Campbell said. “I don’t think (nerves) has much to do with it.”

The first half was a case of Iowa State (8-3) not being ready for the big stage. The final 30 minutes showed, maybe, that wasn’t the case.

Its defense forced five second half punts and a field goal to give the offense a chance. Breece Hall used two rushing touchdowns to creep the Cyclones within a score at 24-21.

“We’ve given ourselves every opportunity to go win the game,” Campbell said.

And Brock Purdy, who just came off his best drive of the night completing seven-of-nine passes, had 1 minute, 55 seconds left, one timeout and 70 yards to reach the end zone and send everyone from Ames into euphoria.

After back-to-back false starts, there was a scrambling of players going in and out of the game on 3rd down. The play clock ticked down.

Purdy snapped it, rolled to the right and threw a desperation heave towards Xavier Hutchinson that was picked off by Oklahoma special teams ace Tre Brown.

Game over. Magical season ended.

And a timeout Campbell had in his back pocket, he didn’t call it when he should’ve. That’s not something a team, and a coach, that is established does.

“We felt like we had a good play,” Campbell said. “It wasn’t so much the confusion, it was the clock coming down. We had everybody set where we needed to have them set.”

No team has been able to beat Lincoln Riley twice in the same season. Not even Iowa State, a team of “destiny” that beat the Sooners 37-30 in Ames in a thriller, could conjure up a game plan to beat them again.

Why?

Because as I said in my three keys to the game for Oklahoma, experience matters. If anything else, it had more big-game reps than the Cyclones.

And that was clear as day on the opening kickoff and the second play of the day.

Iowa State’s Drake Nettles kicked the ball out of bounds, setting up Sooners quarterback Spencer Rattler and that potent offense that had a point-differential of +113 during its six-game winning streak, with great field position.

Then, the first of multiple daggers.

Big 12 Defensive Co-Freshman of the Year Isheem Young gets hit for targeting and just like that, one of the Cyclones nine All-Big 12 First Team players is gone for the rest of the game.

“You have to overcome it,” Campbell said. “You hate to lose a good player like that, you take it and you move on from it.”

Rattler worked the middle of the field where Young had been a glue guy, mainly on a 45-yard bomb to freshman Marvin Mims on the opening play of the second quarter, to up the Oklahoma lead to 14-0.

But it was more than that. Iowa State shot itself in the foot.

Jake Hummel dropped an interception on the final play of the opening quarter that came before the TD to Mims. Campbell went nuts on the referees during a should-have-been offsides call on 4th and 2.

And on the Young targeting call, getting caught in a hot mic moment.

Really, he’s lucky he didn’t join Young in the ejected from the game club.

Campbell got emotional after the Texas win. His team responded by dominating West Virginia the next week. None of that happened after this emotional moment.

Brock Purdy threw an endzone interception on a severely under thrown ball. He threw an even worse one in the third quarter.

Both came on big runs that showed, at least for a flash, some life for Iowa State.

“I don’t think it was upsetting, obviously after you play such a big game and you come up a little short, it definitely hurts,” Hutchinson said. “Life still moves on, we have to pick ourselves back up for the next day.”

Still, it had a chance to get back into the game by Purdy playing toss and catch with Charlie Kolar to bring their deficit to 10 with 1:34 left until halftime.

The old demons of special teams, more so kickoff returns, returned when Oklahoma’s Tre Brown dashed 43 yards to set it up in its opponent’s territory.

Thirty-seven seconds later, Rattler kept it himself to bring the Sooners lead back up to 17 by halftime.

This is the reality of the situation. Iowa State is a very, very good team that will still get into a good bowl game. Maybe even a New Year’s Six bowl.

Yet, the path towards winning a Big 12 title, after laying an offensive egg in front of a limited crowd and vaulting a valiant comeback in the second half, is still not achievable yet.

“It just depends on what kind of team we have,” Campbell said of the potential of the Cyclones’ 2021-22 squad. “To me, it was the senior leadership of this year’s team that allowed greatness to occur. It’ll be fascinating to me what kind of leadership we’ll get from next year’s group.”

There was a Twitter thread a couple days ago from a former Iowa State player, Braxton Lewis, in which he described the five years of Campbell’s tenure. He played from 2015-19, so he knows better than a lot of people the change of the guard.

He explained so eloquently how Campbell came in and each year, changed the mindset of the players and the staff. From 3-9 to playing against Oklahoma for a conference championship, it has been a turnaround unlike any other.

No matter who leaves or who returns, the message entering year six is already there: You had the chance to play in the biggest game of your life, you know it feels to lose a heartbreaking game. How will you respond? How will you grow as men and as players to make sure that doesn’t happen again?

There were a lot of eye openers. Iowa State showing its not experienced enough to play in this type of game was the biggest one.