Sound the alarms, Iowa State’s offense has arrived and it wants to impose a killer mentality moving forward. Unfortunately for the Red Raiders, the first instance of that mentality came out on Saturday in a dominating 31-15 win.

A blocked field goal attempt aside, Iowa State’s offense found its groove on Saturday against Texas Tech and never looked back to the tune of 516 total yards. Looking at the box score, 270 total yards for the Red Raiders and just over 19 minutes of ball control doesn’t tell the real story of what took place on Saturday.

Iowa State’s offense took over the flow of the game right from the start, with running back Breece Hall putting up 81 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries in the first quarter alone. Through its first three drives of the game, Iowa State averaged 7.2 yards per play.

The Red Raiders managed just 69 total yards in the first half, while Iowa State was continuing to make sure the Red Raiders knew who was in control.

Hall said this offense expects to put points on the board and with guys stepping up week after week, confidence on the offensive side of the ball is soaring.

“It gives us a lot of confidence that we can really go down and score at will,” Hall said.

“We feel like our offense is pretty good and we kind of expect to put up points.”

The Cyclones have put up more points than this in previous weeks, but Saturday showed how dominant Iowa State can be at all levels of the offense.

The dominance started with the time of possession for the Cyclones. Nearly doubling Texas Tech’s time of possession (Iowa State’s 40:51 to Texas Tech’s 19:09), the Cyclones methodically headed down the field drive after drive. 

Head Coach Matt Campbell thought his offense took a huge step against Oklahoma on Oct. 3, but said that growth was carried over in a big way to this week. Controlling time of possession and getting long drives, that ended in touchdowns for good measure, made Campbell a proud head coach after the game.

“I thought we did a really good job of being able to control the tempo of the game,” Campbell said. 

The key difference in Saturday’s victory over Texas Tech was the offense’s ability to stay on the field and march down and score on almost every drive. Iowa State put together seven drives with eight plays or more, with four drives going over 10 plays or better. This was quite a contrast from what the offense was getting in its previous two games.

Against Oklahoma, Iowa State started with a two straight drives with field goals, a punt, another field goal, one more punt and finally a touchdown in the first half. On Saturday, Iowa State wasted no time taking the momentum it needed to have.

Tight end Chase Allen was impressed with the team’s poise in the face of adversity on the opening drive. After putting together a 13 play, 74 yard drive, Iowa State was forced to kick a field goal. Zech McPhearson of Texas Tech blocked the kick and returned it to the house to give the Red Raiders an early lead.

But that didn’t phase Allen or the Iowa State offense and it showed the rest of the game. Allen hauled in four catches for 47 yards and a two yard touchdown grab, a career high in catches for the redshirt senior.

“These drives are long, long, long,” Allen said. “Third downs, we’re converting. Fourth downs, converting. We just keep playing the next play, keep playing tough, keep playing physical and we find our way in the end zone.

“We want to have that killer mentality.”