Now that the dust has settled from the Iowa State football team’s 30-9 win over UNI at home on Saturday, it’s time to look at what this means for the rest of the season, especially the Cy-Hawk matchup.

After the game, head coach Matt Campbell addressed how efficient the offense looked against the Panthers. Efficiency has been the key to the Cyclone’s success over the past few seasons. When the offense can be consistent and not rely on big plays, Iowa State usually comes out on top.

The problem heading into the season opener was that the key pieces from those successful 2019-21 seasons were all gone now, and it was time for the young pups to step up.

With questions surrounding who would be the new man behind center, redshirt freshman Rocco Becht seemed to quickly win over the starting role, even after gaining just nine yards on his first drive. Becht’s 123 all-purpose yards and three total touchdowns proved he’s capable of leading the offense and he had a completion percentage of 76, very Brock Purdy-esque.

Now, will Becht live up to the legacy and records that Purdy holds as a Cyclone? It would be foolish to say so after just one start, but only time will tell.

But can he fill in as an efficient signal caller for the offense, continue to get the ball out quickly, and control the offense like Purdy did? He’s certainly in a good position to do so, especially with the coaching staff around him.

When Purdy was at the helm for the Cyclones, he had a lot of talent around him that helped take the team to heights the program had never seen before. An All-American running back in Breece Hall, a deep tight end room including three-time first-team All-Big 12 selection Charlie Kolar and talented receivers made things easy for Purdy to conduct the offense.

While Becht doesn’t have guys like Hall and Kolar to rely on, new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Nate Scheelhaase helped keep things easy for the Florida native’s debut.

Along with a strong run game that saw 22 carries split between three backs, the ball got spread out a lot through the air and Becht wasn’t forced to rely on one target. Although the Hunter Dekkers to Xavier Hutchinson connection saw a lot of success last season it also made things a bit predictable in big moments.

It seemed like Scheelhaase wanted to stray away from that happening again and give his young quarterback multiple options on the few chances Becht got to drop back. Six different ball catchers, including three tight ends, caught Becht’s 10 completions with the longest reception coming from a 36-yard touchdown grab from Benjamin Brahmer.

That touchdown throw to Brahmer was the final score of the game for the Cyclones and capped off a four-play 87-yard drive by the offense to start the second half. That was the longest drive by either team in this affair and showed that Becht could conduct the offense without having to rely on good field position created by the defense.

There’s no doubt as well that Campbell and Scheelhaase didn’t show everything this offense is capable of doing. With a 30-3 lead by the end of the third quarter, there was no point in forcing Becht to make huge plays or dig deep into the playbook against UNI.

With a tougher opponent in the Iowa Hawkeyes coming up, what does this mean for Becht and the rest of the offense?

If the run game isn’t as strong, this could be where Becht is trusted to show off the playmaking ability that he displayed as a three-star prospect. Also, Scheelhaase and Campbell could be forced to pull back the curtain a bit more and show what the offense is capable of with the new starters.

What we can be certain about is Becht is capable of stepping into Campbell’s system he’s found success with and has a step in the right direction of helping the team turn things around after last season.