Good Cop: Owen Slinde
With both teams coming off losses and looking to bounce back, the night scene at Jack Trice should be a fun game to watch Saturday. Both teams come into the game at 1-1 in conference play, looking to move up.
The Cyclone offense has looked the best I have seen in the past two weeks than it has in a while. Now, yeah, they did not score in the second half last week, but they showed potential throughout the game against a highly-ranked Oklahoma team.
Iowa State offensive coordinator Nate Scheelhaase has definitely been on the rise since that brutal loss in Athens, Ohio, in week three. He has opened up the playbook, and we saw flashes of that last week. Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht now has nine touchdowns on the season in the air and had two 50-yard completions last week, which was fun to see, given Cyclone fans haven’t seen that in a game since 2021.
The run game looked promising last week, with the team rushing for 150 yards on the ground while averaging just over five yards per carry. I think the offense will build off of that to continue to grow that facet of the game.
The Iowa State defense did get torn apart and burned last week against Sooner quarterback Dillon Gabriel and the Sooner offense as a whole. It looked to be miscommunication at times but not what we typically see with the Cyclone defense. Defensive back Jeremiah Cooper, however, co-leads the nation in interceptions with four as he looks to continue his great season.
On the other side, the Horned Frogs lost a recent battle they should have won in West Virginia. They were heavily favored but just couldn’t get the job done. This week they are favorites yet again.
One key to winning this week is to limit the TCU offense. They average over 30 points per game, so the defense needs to get back to how they were to start the season and limit those scoring opportunities.
Another key is to keep the offense rolling. We have seen positives in the offense these last two weeks, and they are only continuing to improve.
The Cyclones have won three of the last four meetings between the teams with last year being the outlier, and I think they have a good chance of winning this one against a beatable TCU team.
Score Prediction: Iowa State 27, TCU 21
Bad Cop: Cayden Storm
I feel like I have been living in an alternate reality while watching this Cyclone team the past two weeks.
For the past season and a half, you knew what you were getting with Iowa State football. You were going to get a strong defensive performance, paired with an honestly kind of bland and frustrating offense.
The past two weeks that hasn’t been the case at all. The Cyclone offense has found life seemingly out of nowhere after what can only be described as a disastrous start to the season for Scheelhaase’s group.
Granted, the offense did fail to score in the second half of last week’s game against Oklahoma, but we got to see flashes of explosive offense in the first half, something the Cyclones haven’t been accustomed to.
The defense on the other hand has taken a major step back in the past two weeks.
After last week I said that I did not have any long-term concerns about Iowa State’s defense after their lackluster performance against a weak Oklahoma State offense. After giving up 50 points and never really looking competitive against Oklahoma, I’m starting to rethink my position on where this defense is headed.
The defense looked completely lost against Oklahoma, allowing 523 total yards while getting carved up by Gabriel for 366 yards through the air.
These recent performances make me concerned about this week’s matchup with TCU.
TCU may not be the same team that went to the national championship game last year, but they have shown that they still have the ability to score in bunches, averaging 34.8 points per game.
If the Cyclones do not return to being the elite defense they have been in recent years, TCU is more than capable of lighting up the scoreboard in Jack Trice.
Ultimately, I do not think the defense will struggle quite as much as they did last week, but I do not think that they will look like the typical Iowa State defense that we’ve seen under Iowa State defensive coordinator Jon Heacock.
I am hopeful that Becht and the offense will continue to show flashes, but they have yet to show the consistency that would make me super confident.
I think that the night game atmosphere will help the Cyclones keep this game tight throughout, but I believe that the Horned Frogs will escape Ames with the victory.
