Iowa State got its first win of the season Saturday in a 26-13 victory over the Akron Zips.

Coach Matt Campbell and several players agreed there’s still room to grow.

Secondary disrupts Akron

Akron’s offense was held to 244 total yards against Iowa State and the Zips never reached the red zone.

It was arguably the strongest performance of the year from the Cyclone defensive secondary, which struggled against dynamic Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray a week ago.

Akron’s running attack averaged just 2.9 yards per rush, and quarterback Kato Nelson finished 12-of-28 through the air for 128 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

Iowa State’s starting safeties, redshirt sophomores Lawrence White and Greg Eisworth, teamed up for nine tackles apiece to tie for the team lead.

“Our best players who act like it every day, who come to work every day, they’re playing good football through three games,” Campbell said. “That’s where Eisworth is at.”

Another member of the secondary stepped up as well.

Redshirt junior defensive back Braxton Lewis recorded four tackles and intercepted his second career pass on Saturday.

“He’s one of the most trusted players in our program,” Campbell said. “He overachieves in everything he does. He’s a guy that demands himself to be played because of his work ethic.

“He’s a guy that embodies what I want our program to be about and stand for — his work ethic, his consistency, his ability to come to work every day.”

Defensive line wreaks havoc

Through two games, Iowa State had recorded just one sack, when junior lineman Jamahl Johnson got to Murray last week against Oklahoma.

Then, the pass rush got to Akron.

Junior defensive end JaQuan Bailey got closer to the school record for career sacks with 1.5 against Akron. He finished with 3.5 tackles for loss as well.

That puts Bailey at 12 career sacks. The Iowa State career record is 18.5 by Shawn Moorehead, who played for Iowa State from 2004-06.

Bailey’s ability to pressure the quarterback complements the skill set of redshirt junior nose tackle Ray Lima, who often draws double-teams on the interior thanks to his run-stuffing ability and strength.

Bailey has a chance to shatter the sack record — and the single-season record of 8.5, set by both Dale Pierson and Moorehead — if he plays like he did against Akron.

Third down struggles weigh down offense

Iowa State’s offense did enough to win, but there’s a reason 26 isn’t a common score in football.

The Cyclones settled for field goals four times. Perhaps the biggest problem with the field goals is Iowa State’s starting field position for those drives.

Iowa State started on Akron’s half of the field in two of the four field goal drives, and the other two drives started at Iowa State’s 44 and 45-yard lines.

“We’ve gotta keep ourselves out of second-and-10, second-and-long,” said quarterback Zeb Noland. “You don’t have too many plays to go second-and-long, third-and-long, and then try to get back into field goal range on that third-and-long. I think we’ve just got to get better on offense and we’ve got to punch it in.”

The Cyclones were 5-for-5 in red zone attempts, but only scoring one touchdown in five trips inside the 20-yard line probably won’t cut it in Big 12 play.

Finishing 6-of-16 on third down conversions doesn’t help, either.

“It is frustrating but on the sideline we try to keep that to a minimum,” Noland said. “Connor [Assalley] did a great job kicking the ball. We were in a lot of third-and-long, it wasn’t like we were in third-and-1 the whole game.

“We’ve gotta do a better job on second down.”