AMES — Iowa State hosted No. 7 Texas on Saturday, for perhaps the final time as the Longhorns prepare to integrate into the SEC next season.
In their final matchup, the Cyclones fell to the Longhorns by a final score of 26-16, as the Iowa State offense could not consistently keep going throughout their drives.
In the 10 drives that the Iowa State offense had in this game, only three of them resulted in points on the board, as the Cyclones were either forced to punt or had turned the ball over prior.
But the one glaring issue that Iowa State tried and tried to fix over the course of the game, would be the rushing attack.
Last weekend in the win versus BYU, Iowa State’s run game racked up 247 total rushing yards as they were easily able to pounce on the Cougars’ run defense.
In the loss to No. 7 Texas, the running room only collected nine total yards of rushing, counting the number of yards lost by the sacks made against quarterback Rocco Becht.
No matter how many times Iowa State saw the rushing game fail, time and time again, they still tried to make it work. The Longhorns defense knew what was coming, and stopped the backs early in their tracks.
Talking about the passing game, Becht was once again having a decent performance on paper, but still had some key throws missed that could’ve helped turn the tide over in the Cyclones’ favor.
With that being said the biggest missed throw that Becht had, was when he was intercepted by Texas’ Jerrin Thompson which led to the Longhorns putting up more points that ended up putting Iowa State in a deeper hole to try and climb out of.
Becht went on to reflect on his performance and admitted that while some things went right, there were other times they didn’t go right.
“We were a hair off tonight,” Becht said. “I felt like we executed well on some things, but there’s some stuff that I felt like I could’ve done better at.”
Wide receiver Jayden Higgins was one of the lone bright spots on the Cyclone offense, as he finished his day with seven catches for 104 yards.
Higgins gave his thoughts on how the team could improve upon their lack of offensive production following Saturday’s performance.
“We just gotta give our full effort,” Higgins said. “Whether we’re doing great in the passing game or the running game, we just gotta keep bringing each other together.”
Another inconsistency that caused Iowa State to lose their game versus No. 7 Texas, was their inability to convert on third downs.
The Cyclones went three-for-11 on third down attempts, as when it came down to converting one of the more important downs of the game, they could not convert.
Head coach Matt Campbell knew exactly what kind of team he was facing in the Longhorns, but still stressed the importance of executing at key times which they could not do in this game.
“We had to execute,” Campbell said. “There were times we did, but we just didn’t do it consistently enough in all three phases of the football game.”
With this loss, it essentially eliminates any chance that Iowa State had at making the Big 12 Championship game, as it looks ahead to making things right while it still can.
