The Iowa State Cyclones hosted the Arizona Wildcats on Saturday night in Ames for a Big 12 showdown between two undefeated teams. Iowa State entered the game 4-0 and coming off a bye week, while Arizona was also off a bye week, and undefeated as well at 3-0. But that is where the commonalities stopped between these two teams. The Cyclones got on the board with a touchdown on their first drive, and then scored a two-point conversion and were off to the races on a 39-14 win over the Wildcats. Here are the top three takeaways from the game.
Arizona’s Defense Gets Exposed
Arizona entered the game giving up less than 10 points per game, which ranked them at the top of college football. Granted, this number was skewed this early in the season driven largely by the competition they had played up until Saturday night. But still, this team, especially on the back end, got exposed by Iowa State’s offense. Chase Sowell had a 52-yard reception. Tight end Benjamin Brahmer had a 27-yard reception, and then on a trick play had a 45-yard pass to Brett Eskildsen down to the goal line in the third quarter to set up a 36-7 lead.
Iowa State’s D Keeps Rolling
Well, Jon Heacock did it again. The defensive coordinator completely shuts down an offense that is feeling itself, once again. Arizona QB Noah Fifita went 32 of 48 for 253 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. The explosive plays were fairly limited, with Heacock’s defense keeping everything in front of it. Meantime, his defense held Arizona to 107 rushing yards. The unit racked up two sacks and seven tackles for loss as well.
Slow Starts No More for ISU
Remember when we spent years discussing Iowa State’s slow starts under Matt Campbell? Yeah, well, those are a thing of the past. The Cyclones moved to 5-0 on the season, which means this marks the first time in program history that Iowa State has had consecutive 5-0 starts. They’re atop the Big 12 standings, tied alongside Arizona State at 2-0 in league play, and, as of the end of this game, are only one of four remaining undefeated Big 12 teams (Houston, Texas Tech, BYU). Iowa State is a team I thought might take a step back given what they had lost to the NFL. And I was wrong. Matt Campbell has built a real program, that year in, year out, will compete atop the Big 12, until proven otherwise.
