Iowa State Football Post-Mortem: Kansas

Time to start the home stretch of 2025 with Senior Day against the Kansas Jayhawks. Plenty of important and fan-favorite Cyclones playing in their final game at Jack Trice Stadium and the rest of the team was hellbent on ending their home careers with a big time home win.

What Went Wrong

Kickoff Coverage

In all honesty, we’ve seen kick coverage and special teams play a lot worse than we saw on Saturday against the Jayhawks… but I’m still going to include it here if and only if for kicking the ball out of bounds. I get that with our legs (or sometimes lack thereof) we angle kicks to try and encourage a return a certain way, but we kick the ball out of bounds entirely too much. This team was up 17-0 and had dominated the entire first half, but that opening kickoff out of bounds set the Jayhawks up and they scored just a few plays later on that opening drive. There was also a little reverse that Kansas ran to get 38 yards on another kick return, which I’ll mostly chalk up to good execution, but when things went as well as they did for the Cyclones on Saturday, we’ll nit pick a little bit.

Rush Defense

Thankfully, Kansas was forced to be one dimensional for much of their limited possessions on Saturday, but they were fairly effective running the ball when they took their opportunities. Well over 100 yards on the ground and at nearly 6.5 yards per carry, the Jayhawks had their successes. Both Daniel Hishaw and Leshon Williams had a carry go over 20 yards, but were limited in attempts with the multiple score deficit for much of the game.

What Went Right

Basically everything else

From 3rd/4th down conversions, to Rocco finding his groove again, to Carson Hansen’s fourth-straight game over 100 yards, to Marcus Neal intercepting Jaylon Daniels at the goalline, to doubling up the Jayhawks in time of possession, to the shirtless fans on a pristine football Saturday, to the Senior Day ceremonies and celebrations… There wasn’t much to dislike about Saturday as the Cyclones rolled to a 38-14 win. Hell, the defense even held some mobile Kansas quarterbacks to a combined 9 carries for 40 yards. It was about as beautiful and perfect of a day as you could’ve drawn up from an Iowa State perspective.

Run Game

Any time you can double up your opponent on time of possession while running the ball effectively FIFTY (yes, fifty) times per game, you’re setting yourself up for success. That’s exactly what the Cyclones were able to do on Saturday. 22 carries from Hansen. 19 carries from Sama. 9 other carries from various Cyclones and 221 yards on the ground is what this team has been able to find in some of the recent offensive struggles, and they’ve hit the ground game harder and harder as the season has gone on.

And how about this Aiden Flora, man. Icing on the cake.

Weekly Grades

Offense: A+

Defense: A

Special Teams: A-

Rocco: Becht to his usual self

Flora: Spark plug

Vibes: Immaculate