AMES- That third quarter was bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

And the biggest play within that spiral into Cyclone madness included a throw from a man who, already this season, has compared himself to Stephen Curry and now finds himself in more elite company with the likes of Tom Brady.

“It’s time to bring out my inner Tom Brady and throw a dime.”

Those were the words of concealed gun-slinger Xavier Hutchinson as he recalled what went down with seven minutes and 19 seconds to go in an illustrious third quarter.

Hutchinson caught a backwards lateral from Brock Purdy and launched it down the field to Tarique Milton, who waited with open arms to haul in the trick play that would put Iowa State up 17-7 midway through the third quarter.

“Just for that play to go to [Tarique Milton], I mean, that means everything,” Hutchinson said. “I’m just so happy that, for the first time, I was able to throw him the ball and he was able to score.”

That play was only practiced twice, according to Hutchinson, and he was honest in saying that the first two were not completions.

It was all part of a third quarter that Matt Campbell and his team couldn’t have scripted any better.

“I don’t think we were too far off from the first half,” Campbell said. “We just had more precision and detail in the second [half].”

Campbell said he applauded the gutsy trick play call that offensive coordinator Tom Manning called in that third quarter, and thinks it couldn’t have come at a better point in the game.

“It was the perfect time to run that play, we just wanted to run it as fast as we can,” Campbell said.

The head coach did say that the throw wasn’t a perfect one from Hutchinson to Milton, but his new star “quarterback” seemed to feel differently afterwards.

“He’s just a hater,” Hutchinson said of Campbell with a chuckle.

Whether it was the trick play, a long touchdown run by Breece Hall, or the fact that they allowed just six yards of Texas offense, everything was coming up Cyclones after a tough first 30 minutes.

Iowa State had 180 yards of offense in the first half, yielding just three points. 

The good news for them was that their defense stood strong and only gave up seven points themselves. That’s another reason why the third quarter was as important as it was.

As soon as the offense woke up, it was game over.

“It was really just, you know, to put them down,” Hutchinson said about the mentality after the trick play. “To have that killer mindset that coach [Matt] Campbell always talks about.”

The defense certainly brought their A-game in the final 30 minutes, giving up just six yards in the third quarter and shutting out a usually explosive Texas offense in the second half as a whole.

Another big play that happened in that third quarter was a 47-yard run from Breece Hall that put his team up for good, 10-7.

It was Hall’s longest run at home in his career, and his head coach said it was a cherry on top of one of the best games he’s seen from his star running back.

“I think Breece [Hall] had one of the best games of his career… yes, his 40-yard run shows all of the things that make him great, but I think to me it’s everything else Breece did that was really inspiring,” Campbell said.

Hall had 19 total carries for 136 yards and two touchdowns, but it was the third quarter where he did his most lethal damage.

In total, Hall had eight carries for 98 yards over the course of the third quarter, as he and the rest of the Cyclone offense put Texas to bed for good.