No. 14 Iowa State ‘wins the moments’ in 39-14 rout of Arizona

AMES — Iowa State failed to dominate the stat sheet Saturday night against upstart Arizona.

No matter.

The No. 14 Cyclones happily dismantled the Wildcats on the scoreboard instead, cruising to a 39-14 victory in their Big 12 home opener before a sold-out “whiteout” crowd of 61,500 at Jack Trice Stadium.

I thought we played really good complementary football,” said ISU head coach Matt Campbell, whose team improved to 5-0 overall and 2-0 in conference play despite outgunning Arizona (3-1, 0-1) by just 39 yards (399 to 360). “We played the game in the rhythm that we would want to play in for the majority of the night.”

The Cyclones bolted to an early 15-0 lead that included a two-point conversion run by tight end Gabe Burkle. They maintained at least a two possession edge the rest of the night, too, while improving to 52-6 in the Campbell era when leading at halftime.

ISU also won the turnover battle, 2-to-1, and converted on five of its first six third-down conversion attempts against a Wildcat defense that entered Saturday ranked seventh nationally in that regard, yielding opponents a paltry 22.5 conversion rate.

“I feel like tonight everyone was kind of rolling on that same wavelength in all three phases,” said linebacker Caleb Bacon, who notched a team-best eight tackles and a pass breakup. “I think that was really good to see.”

The Cyclones’ third-year starting quarterback Rocco Becht saw his FBS-leading streak of consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass snapped at 22 on Saturday, but he also rushed for a single-game career high three touchdowns — all from one yard out.

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Tailback Carson Hansen also rushed for short touchdowns spanning one and three yards, respectively, and Becht’s now ran for five touchdowns this season, a mere three off his single-season career high of eight set during ISU’s record 11-win 2024 campaign.

“We’re, like, the worst team in America in terms of getting down to the one-yard line,” Campbell joked. “So if anybody’s got an answer to it you might as well help us fix it because we can’t figure out how to, like, score the football. So we try to make it painful for the head coach and everybody else.”

All kidding aside, Saturday didn’t play out pain-free in other areas, either, as several key Cyclones were sent to the sidelines with an array of bumps and bruises. Nose guard Domonique Orange left the field twice. Safeties Khijohnn Cummings-Coleman and Ta’Shawn James also suffered injuries, and Becht was evaluated on the sideline after taking a hard hit on a sack. Star cornerback Jontez Williams also suffered an apparent injury late in the game, but Campbell said all of these important Cyclone players — save perhaps Cummings-Coleman — appeared to escape major harm.

“I think (almost) everybody could have went back in the game if we needed (them) to, but I think the one that’s probably a little bit more than that is Khijohnn, and we’ll know more about that where that is (Sunday) or Monday,” Campbell said. “But I think everybody else is in a pretty good spot.”

So is ISU in general — even as Campbell divulged that standout cornerback Jeremiah Cooper is out for the season because of a knee injury.

“Jeremiah Cooper is way bigger than this injury and he’ll come back better from it,” Campbell said of Cooper, who retains one season of eligibility.

The Cyclones are 5-0 (or better) in successive seasons for the first time in program history and they continue to make winning plays in a game’s key moments, no matter what the stat sheet ultimately says, and no matter who’s able to take the field to make them.

“You want to win those moments,” safety Jamison Patton said. “And I feel like we won more of those moments than we lost.”

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