Iowa State had a few explosive plays, and only gave up three points in Saturday’s 21-3 win over North Dakota, but it hardly felt like a complete game to open the season for the Cyclones.
Instead of a comfortable win where depth pieces got some run, Iowa State saw a star player go down for at least one game because of an injury, stalled out drives that the offense will need to eliminate later this year and one third down conversion after another being made during North Dakota’s 23-play, 12-minute and 24-second drive down the field.
It was nothing close to perfect, and it’s left the program hoping that the biggest improvement indeed will come in the next seven days.
“Our biggest growth – I’ve always felt this way – is between week one and week two,” coach Matt Campbell said.
Iowa State’s defense didn’t attack enough on first and second down, which led to the drawn-out drive that chewed up 80 percent of the second quarter according to linebacker Beau Freyler.
That will be something Iowa State zeroes in on during the week in preparation for the Cy-Hawk game – a drive like that would yield a much different level of momentum there.
“I think we’ve got to go win on first and second down,” Freyler said. “With the running game, I think we gave them a little too much and just put ourselves in hard situations on third down. We’ve got to play tighter coverage on third down as well. All those things are things we can work on and I’m excited to get back and work on those things… we’ve just got to get more vertical and play a little bit faster.”
Although that drive was nearly ended with an exclamation mark, on a near-interception by Freyler, that was eventually overturned.
Earlier this week, defensive coordinator Jon Heacock said that Freyler was a guy that makes big plays when the moments get bigger. That’s exactly what he went on to do, picking off North Dakota quarterback Simon Romfo on the opening drive of the second half and returning the pick 24 yards.
Rocco Becht overthrew his receivers four times, but still finished the game 20-26 for 267 yards and two touchdowns.
Chalk it up to the blood pumping a bit more than usual in his first game environment in eight months and move on.
Jaylin Noel and Jayden Higgins started the game off with fireworks and finished with a combined 210 yards on 13 receptions with no drops. That went as expected.
Outside of a few of those third down incompletions that could have extended drives, things went smoothly for new offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser in his debut game in the position.
“I think he did a great job,” Campbell said of Mouser. “Honestly, I thought there was a great balance to what we wanted to do. I thought we drove the ball with great consistency, we were 5-10 on third down. I really thought he had a great game. Again, we talked about this, that whole collection of staff, I think that’s one of the great benefits. It was great communication throughout the game on that side. I thought those guys made some good adjustments within the game, too. So it was impressive.”
The Cyclones did it without putting anything they didn’t need to on film, which is nothing new in season openers against lesser competition in the Campbell era.
In his debut as starting cornerback, Jontez Williams led the team in tackles. Sometimes that can be a negative – a signal of receivers catching balls frequently on a defensive back – but Williams was one of the best defensive players on the field during the game.
On top of it, former starting field goal kicker Jace Gilbert came in for a pooch punt that pinned North Dakota deep, and Matt Campbell praised his performance, calling it, ‘elite.’
“I think one of the great stories for me to tell some day is the Jace Gilbert story,” Campbell said. “We don’t give up on people in our program.”
For Cyclone fans, it wasn’t the most fun game ever, and there’s the Caleb Bacon injury, but you survive and advance and get out with a game one win.
“All in all, win number one,” Campbell said. “And onto game number two, for sure.”
