The Reaction:
Man oh man, is that a gut-punch.
We knew it was going to be hard, but there was also a reasonable thought that Iowa State, the favorites, could blossom a little bit. And to be fair, they didn’t play badly overall, at least generally speaking. But each unit—the defense on the first three drives, special teams on the kick return, the offense when it was about to take the lead in the fourth—made at least one big mistake when it mattered most. Now, the Cyclones are 2-2, and they’re 0-1 in a conference in which a lot of games will be comparably difficult to this one.
The Big Picture:
With Oklahoma looking mediocre yet again, the Big 12 is looking open for the taking, and Iowa State just shot themselves in the foot in their attempt to take it. There’s new concern about the defense, which did tighten up but did it far too late, and the perception of the offense—imperfect, flawed under pressure—remains the same.
Relevant Results:
Texas stomped Texas Tech, eliciting some “is Texas the best team in the Big 12?” reactions that are probably unwarranted, but are close enough to warranty that I included the word “probably” in that last phrase. Oklahoma State beat Kansas State in Stillwater, meaning Oklahoma State’s probably fine after they had looked potentially bad earlier in the month. West Virginia nearly took down Oklahoma, which is scary or exciting depending whom you look at. TCU fell to SMU at home, which is mostly just interesting. Iowa struggled with Colorado State in a reminder of what happens when you force Iowa’s offense to do something.
Next Week:
Kansas comes to Ames next week, and at the right time for a team clearly figuring things out. The Big 12 is still in front of the Cyclones, and by their first post-Kansas game (they have a bye week in two weeks’ time), there’s a not-entirely-unbelievable-but-highly-unlikely possibility everyone in the league will have one loss (the way it would work: TCU beats Texas, Texas beats Oklahoma, Texas Tech beats TCU, Baylor beats Oklahoma State, West Virginia beats Baylor).
I promised an optimistic case in the headline, and even if the league keeps stratifying, an optimistic case does exist. Iowa State, at this point, is possibly more justified in hoping on a conference title than it was before this week, for the sole reason that it’s becoming more conceivable that there is a problem in Norman. If there is a problem in Norman and it persists, the league is likely to devolve into a dogfight, and a team with a penchant for improving as the season goes on and all its conference home games ahead of it is by no means out of the race. Even if Oklahoma’s fine, the race for second is fairly likely to end up in dogfight territory, where two losses should not be too many (though ISU may need a lot of help in that scenario). Anyway, while it was painful and frustrating and the situation’s such a letdown compared to expectations, all the Cyclones have done is lost two games they played well enough to win (absent even just the timing of mistakes) in which they were single-digit favorites. Mistakes are the issue, not something more fundamental. The schedule is tough, but no single game is likely to be insurmountably difficult. All is not yet lost with this senior class.
