Iowa State hasn’t won back-to-back games since the end of the 2013 season, but has a chance to do so at home Saturday against Texas Tech. The Cyclones prevailed at Kansas last week, 31-24, and return home to Jack Trice Stadium for their final two games of the 2016 season, leading off with the Red Raiders this weekend.
Texas Tech is following its normal football script this fall: lots of offense and very little defense. To beat the Red Raiders typically is to outscore them and so the pressure falls on ISU’s offense on Saturday. Can it ring the bell enough to top a team that has scored 55, 38, 59, 37 and 44 points in five of its losses? Here’s The Ultimate Preview.
Iowa State Rush Offense vs. Texas Tech Rush Defense
The Cyclones ran the ball effectively against Kansas a week ago, as any team should. Iowa State finished the day with 238 rushing yards on 46 attempts for a 5.2-yard average. True freshman David Montgomery led the way and to complete his climb to the top of the I-State RB ladder. Montgomery ran for 169 yards on 24 carries and was listed alone as the No. 1 RB on this week’s Cyclone depth chart. No. 4 back Mitchell Harger was ISU’s second-leading rusher a week ago with 58 yards on eight carries – all on one drive. For the season, Iowa State is averaging 149.1 rush yards per game and 3.9 yards per carry.
Texas Tech surrendered over 200 yards rushing in its 45-44 loss at Oklahoma State last week. The Cowboys netted 210 yards on 38 attempts for a 5.5 yards-per-carry average. And the Red Raiders rush defense has been even worse than that, on average, over the course of the season. TT is allowing 5.8 yards per rushing attempt this year to the tune of 233.4 rush yards per game. Tech can’t stop the run and controlling the football with an effective running game is critical to Iowa State’s success on Saturday. It has to win this phase and it has to do it decisively.
Advantage: Moderate Iowa State
Iowa State Pass Offense vs. Texas Tech Pass Defense
Jacob Park was highly efficient throwing the football a week ago in the win at Kansas, completing 20-of-26 passes for 205 yards. He started slow and threw his one INT on the day early. And several Park passes were dropped in the first half. Once he settled in and his receivers settled in, he was nearly perfect and ended up throwing a pair of touchdown passes. Allen Lazard had a huge game for I-State, overcoming a couple of early bobbles to finish the game with 10 receptions for 120 yards. The Cyclones averaged 7.3 yards per pass, close to their season average of 7.2. On the season, Iowa State is passing for nearly 240 yards per game.
Texas Tech doesn’t get any better when it comes to defending the pass. The Red Raiders gave up over 14 yards per pass last week in the loss at O-State, surrendering nearly 400 pass yards along the way. The season ledger isn’t much better as Tech has given up 307.6 passing yards per game and 8.2 yards per pass attempt. What’s unusual is that opposing quarterbacks have only completed just under 60 percent of their throws against TT. So while it successfully defends 4-in-10 pass attempts, if gives up bigger chunks on average on the six that are completions. Poor tackling after the catch is a part of that equation so the Cyclones will have a chance to break some big catch-and-run plays. Again, ISU has to clearly win this phase.
Advantage: Moderate Iowa State
Iowa State Rush Defense vs. Texas Tech Rush Offense
The Cyclones could not have been happy with their rush defense effort last week at Kansas. The Jayhawks, a team averaging 3.3 yards per rush coming into the ISU game, averaged 6.1 yards per pop last Saturday (40-244). Average-at-best Ke’aun Kinner went for 158 against the Cyclones. It was a terrible performance against a poor rushing offense. For the season, Iowa State is allowing 5.1 yards per carry and 226.2 rush yards per game. I-State will have to be worlds better this week in trying to take away the lesser of what TT does on offense.
Like Kansas, Texas Tech averages 3.3 yards per carry and 108 yards per game on the season coming into its matchup with Iowa State. The primary difference is that Tech doesn’t even really try to run the football well. It runs the ball enough to try to keep opposing defenses honest and whatever yards it gets are a bonus supplement to its passing attack. Demarcus Felton has been Texas Tech’s best running back and he averages 5.5 yards per carry – but he’s only gotten 64 attempts. A scrambling Patrick Mahomes at quarterback is probably the biggest running threat the ISU has to worry about Saturday as it has done a poor job all season containing QBs that take off on broken pass plays. ISU can’t win the game by winning this phase, but it can lose the game by losing this phase.
Advantage: Slight Iowa State
Iowa State Pass Defense vs. Texas Tech Pass Offense
The Cyclones were effective defending Kansas’ generally anemic passing attack last week as first-time KU starter Carter Stanley completed 26-of-38 throws for 171 yards. He didn’t throw vertically much and mostly completed passes of the dink and dunk variety. Holding anyone to 4.5 yards per pass attempt is good pass defense. I-State did give up one touchdown pass, but balanced that out with Jomal Wiltz’s game-clinching INT in the fourth quarter. On the season, Iowa State is now giving up a whisker under seven yards per pass attempt (6.98) and anytime that number is in the sixes or less, you have to feel good about it. But ISU hasn’t played Texas Tech yet, either, so it hasn’t seen anything like what it will see on Saturday.
All you can say about Texas Tech’s passing game is: WOW. The Red Raiders are throwing the football around at a level that rivals anything that any other passing offense has ever done in the history of college football. It’s not necessarily the approach that wins more games – Tech is 4-6 after all – but it’s impossible to not be in awe of the numbers. Behind primarily Mahomes as the trigger man, TT is completing close to two-thirds of its pass attempts (66.8%) and is averaging 8.4 yards per pass; and that’s throwing the ball in great volume: 56.7 attempts per game. Among the many, many receivers that Mahomes will target on Saturday, Jonathan Giles stands out. He has 65 receptions for 1,076 yards so far this year. Iowa State’s pass defense has to hold on for dear life, hope Mahomes is a little off, and hope the cold and windy weather helps the cause a bit.
Advantage: Huge Texas Tech
Iowa State Special Teams vs. Texas Tech Special Teams
Special teams played a minimal role for Iowa State last week at KU. Cole Netten was 2-for-2 on field goals to highlight the effort. Colin Downing averaged 41 yards on three punts. Chris Francis only delivered one touchback on seven kickoffs and the Cyclones’ kickoff coverage wasn’t great (20.8 avg.) Kene Nwangwu had a 29-yard kickoff return worth noting and he’s one to keep an eye on this week as Texas Tech does not cover kickoffs well (22.7 avg.) and because they score a lot, they kick off a lot. If you’ve been predicting Nwangwu to take one to the house all year: this could be your week.
Texas Tech has a good field goal kicker in Clayton Hatfield, who has made 10-of-11 attempts this season; he’s very dependable inside 45 yards. Punter Michael Barden doesn’t get much work and averages less than 40 yards per punt. But he is the better of Tech’s two kickoff specialists. Cameron Batson is a consistent punt returner for TT. The nod in this phase definitely goes to Iowa State as it will be more familiar with the environment and conditions on a tricky weather game day in Ames.
Advantage: Slight Iowa State
The Last Word
When Kliff Kingsbury was the quarterback at Texas Tech, they threw for ridiculous yardage, couldn’t run the ball to speak of and didn’t play much defense. It’s the same for the Red Raiders now that Kingsbury is the head coach. The M.O. is obvious and there’s no apologizing for it, although it’s not unreasonable to say that Kingsbury’s job status gets shaky if TT doesn’t win its last two games to become bowl eligible in 2016.
Texas Tech can certainly win the game with its passing attack alone. The Raiders are that good at what they do when it comes to throwing the football. No lead is safe and Tech will keep the pressure on Iowa State’s offense to score just about every time it has the football. The Cyclones have to do that, and they have to do it without panicking or playing outside of what they want to do to methodically take down the Raiders.
There’s only one phase of this game that Iowa State shouldn’t win, and that is obviously the Texas Tech passing offense against the Cyclone passing defense. All other phases favor Iowa State. Can ISU pile up enough of an advantage in all the other phases to successfully counter what Tech will do throwing the football? It can and it should.
Final Score Prediction: Iowa State 48, Texas Tech 39
Ultimate Preview 2016 Review
Prediction: Iowa State 38, Kansas 27 (actual ISU 31-24)
Prediction: Oklahoma 36, Iowa State 21 (actual OU 34-24)
Prediction: Kansas State 31, Iowa State 24 (actual KSU 31-26)
Prediction: Iowa State 34, Texas 31 (actual Tex 27-6)
Prediction: Oklahoma State 36, Iowa State 27 (actual OSU 38-31)
Prediction: Baylor 35, Iowa State 23 (actual Baylor 45-42)
Prediction: Iowa State 33, San Jose State 27 (actual ISU 44-10)
Prediction: TCU 45, Iowa State 13 (actual TCU 41-20)
Prediction: Iowa 34, Iowa State 10 (actual Iowa 42-3)
Prediction: Iowa State 30, UNI 20 (actual UNI 25-20)
