East Carolina transfer and redshirt junior wide receiver Chase Sowell played a large role in the Cyclones’ offensive success in their 39-14 win over Arizona on Saturday.
The Cyclones improved to 5-0 with the win, the second straight season they have accomplished that feat. Arizona fell to 3-1, handing the Wildcats their first loss of the season.
Offensively, the Cyclones had 399 total yards of offense and excelled in the red zone, scoring six out of seven times reaching that area of the field. Sowell came into the game with four catches and 32 yards on the season. During the Cyclones’ opening drive and eighth offensive play, Sowell caught a 43-yard pass down to the 1-yard line to more than double his season yardage.
“I never heard one complaint, one pointing the finger,” Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell said. “He just went to work. Usually, when you’ve got the ability to do that and just back to work on your process, great things happen for you.”
The night didn’t end there for Sowell, either. During the second quarter, the Cyclones faced a 3rd and 11 on their own 10-yard line and a 32-yard stripe down the sideline gave the Cyclones a big first down. Despite not scoring on the drive, it allowed the Cyclones to pin Arizona on its own 14.
Sowell has done a good job of providing reliable hands when the Cyclones are deep in their own territory this season. Against Iowa, Sowell grabbed a 10-yard catch while Iowa State was on its own 3-yard line, and gave the team some breathing room to operate late in the game.
“I think it just goes back to the time that we put in with Rocco [Becht], Xavier [Townsend], I mean, all those guys,” Sowell said. “Like we’ve gone summer after practice, still to this day, we get extra reps with them. All the reps that we missed and stuff like that, we get it.”
Sowell’s longest catch of the game came during the third quarter. He ran a crossing route and caught it 7 yards downfield, but did the rest with his legs to extend it into a 52-yard catch down to the Arizona 10-yard line.
“His ability to go from zero to 100 fast is uber-impressive,” Campbell said. “I’m excited for him because I’ve watched him put the time, the effort, the energy to have those moments come his way.”
By the final whistle, Sowell had more than quadruple the amount of yards against Arizona than he had through the first four games of the season. He finished with four catches for 146 yards, 57 of them coming after the catch.
Another player who stepped up big-time was junior running back Carson Hansen. After scoring 13 rushing touchdowns and catching two in 2024, Hansen went without a rushing touchdown this season entering the game against Arizona.
Hansen made it known early Saturday that he is still the same player that he was a year ago, scoring his first two touchdowns of the year and gaining 94 all-purpose yards in the game.
“It felt good to be in the endzone again, you know, all props to the O-line, I think they’ve done an amazing job this year,” Hansen said. “Getting in the end zone and, you know, making it a place where it resides often.”
Hansen’s first score came early in the second quarter. He took four straight carries for 18 yards, the longest being 9 yards, to finally punch it in from 1 yard out.
“I think the O-line played really good,” Hansen said. “I think there was a lot of vertical push, which I love to see and the whole team loves to see. I think they did a great job up front, handling their twist, handling the pressures. I think they did a great job of that.”
Two drives later, Iowa State took advantage of a short field, and on the fourth play of the drive, Hansen found the endzone once again on a 3-yard run.
Following a 25-point blowout of Arizona, the Cyclones will not play at home again until Oct. 25 and take on the Bearcats on Saturday in Cincinnati, Ohio.
