For 30 minutes of Saturday's Big 12 football game between Iowa State and West Virginia, the Cyclones were completely overwhelming.
And that was more than enough for a 38-14 ISU win in Morgantown, W.V., that improved I-State to 2-1 in the Big 12 and 4-2 overall. Iowa State is tied with Texas for third place in the conference between Oklahoma and Baylor. The Cyclones are back on the road next week to play at Texas Tech.
Iowa State outscored West Virginia, 24-0, in the second half Saturday. ISU's defense smothered the Mountaineers by allowing just 44 yards of total offense in the third and fourth quarters combined. The Cyclone defense allowed just seven points in the game. WVU's lone offensive touchdown came with 28 seconds left in the first half on a 9-yard pass from Jack Allison to T.J. Simmons. That capped a 14-play, 76-yard drive that accounted for 40 percent of the Mountaineers' total yardage for the entire game (190).
While the D was doing its thing, the offense was discovering it might have a feature back after all. True freshman Breece Hall rushed for 132 yards on 26 carries with three touchdowns in his breakout performance.
A 12-yard touchdown run by Hall capped the Cyclones' opening possession of the second half to break a 14-14 tie at intermission. Hall rushed for 28 yards on the drive and Brock Purdy connected with Tarique Milton for a 28-yard gain through the air. ISU also benefited from a targeting penalty against WVU at the end of Milton's catch-and-run that moved the ball from the Mountaineer 24 to the 12, setting up Hall's TD scamper to put ISU up, 21-14.
Redshirt freshman kicker Brayden Narveson connected on his first collegiate field goal early in the fourth quarter, hitting from 45 yards out to extend Iowa State's lead to 24-14 with 12:20 to play. Then the Cyclones ground down the faltering Mountaineers and tacked on two more TDs. A methodical 62-yard drive ended with Purdy firing an 18-yard scoring strike to Joe Scates on a nifty play-action pass. It was Scates' first career TD catch. That put the Cyclones up, 31-14, with 6:54 to go.
After a Braxton Lewis interception and return to the WVU 26-yard line, backup quarterback Re-al Mitchell engineered Iowa State's final scoring series of the game. Mitchell and Hall combined to run the ball seven straight times with Hall covering the final yard for a touchdown with 1:42 left in the game that made it 38-14.
West Virginia scored first on a 19-yard first quarter interception return by Tykee Smith, who corralled a caroming pass that should have been caught initially by Iowa State running back Kene Nwangwu.
But after spotting WVU the early 7-0 lead, Iowa State answered with back-to-back TDs. Hall scored on a one-yard run on the first play of the second quarter to make it 7-7 and Purdy rushed in from two yards out to give the Cyclones a 14-7 lead with 6:32 to play in the half.
Purdy completed 19-of-30 passes for 229 yards with one touchdown and one interception. La'Michael Pettway was ISU's leading receiver on the day with eight catches for 81 yards.
Mike Rose paced the Iowa State defense with nine tackles. Zach Petersen and Anthony Johnson each had a sack, with Johnson's crushing hit on WVU starting quarterback Austin Kendall knocking him from the game. Rose and Ray Lima split ISU's third sack on the day.
The strong defensive showing came in large part without three starters. Defensive end JaQuan Bailey and safety Greg Eisworth missed the game entirely due to injury and MIKE linebacker O'Rien Vance left the contest after getting hurt and did not return.
