AMES — Iowa State football failed to bounce back against Arizona State, as the Cyclones allowed Sun Devils backup quarterback Jeff Sims to steal the show in a 24-19 loss.
The Cyclones’ loss to ASU on Nov. 1 is the fourth-straight loss for Matt Campbell’s squad and kept Iowa State (5-4, 2-4 Big 12) below the .500 mark in conference play. Against the Sun Devils, the Cyclones looked like a shell of the team that started the season on a 5-0 run.
“I feel like we’ve been stuck in the same cycle,” Campbell said postgame. “There’s 70% of really good football, and there’s some critical moments where you don’t make the tackle, you don’t score the touchdown. Those critical moments are costing us the opportunity to win football games.”
Here are five numbers that tell the story of Iowa State’s loss to Arizona State.
1 … as in one interception thrown by Rocco Becht
Last week, against BYU, Becht threw three interceptions in another Cyclones loss. He threw just one pick against Arizona State, but the statistics alone don’t tell the full story of that play.
With just under nine minutes remaining in the game, Iowa State’s defense stopped the Sun Devils on a fourth-down attempt, and the turnover on downs gave the Cyclones the ball on their own 18-yard line. On the first play of the following drive, Rocco Becht attempted a pass to Ben Brahmer, which fell incomplete after Keith Abney II delivered a clean – but hard – hit to the tight end’s side.
It seemed like he’d had the air knocked out of his lungs, and Brahmer took a few moments before getting to his feet. But after taking a few steps back toward the huddle, Brahmer collapsed. Trainers and medical professionals made it to Brahmer in a matter of seconds and, after several minutes attending to the tight end, he was strapped to a stretcher and carted off the field. He was transported to Mary Greely Medical Center and discharged later Saturday night, according to Iowa State.
On the play immediately after the injury stoppage, Becht threw that interception, and Iowa State’s offense didn’t look the same for the remainder of the game.
2 … as in two carries by Iowa State running back Abu Sama
Sama (558 yards, 4 TDs) and Carson Hansen (613 yards, 4 TDs) are two of the top 10 rushing yard leaders in the Big 12. So, it’s easy to think that having Sama on the field could’ve helped the Cyclones as they struggled to find much of a rhythm against Arizona State.
In Saturday’s game against the Sun Devils, Sama recorded two carries for 14 yards – including a long of 11 yards. But he didn’t return to the game after those early runs, and Hansen carried the bulk of the workload, finishing with 113 yards on 18 carries – even after Hansen seemed to get dinged up, too.
Campbell shared postgame that Sama hadn’t practiced all week, and the running back was labeled as questionable heading into Saturday’s matchup. Campbell also said that when the weather turned and “the flow got choppy,” the coaching staff decided not to risk putting Sama on the field.
4 … as in four-straight losses for the Cyclones
Iowa State hasn’t experienced a skid this bad since 2022, when the Cyclones finished the season with a 4-8 overall record and a 1-8 record against Big 12 opponents. That season, Iowa State won its first three games before dropping five straight to Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Texas and Oklahoma. The Cyclones managed one win – against West Virginia – before losing their final three games of the season.
18 … as in the number of penalties between Arizona State and Iowa State
The officials in this matchup did not shy away from throwing their flags, with seven calls going against the Cyclones and 11 calls against the Sun Devils. And it took exactly zero seconds of game time for the first penalty of the game to be enforced.
Arizona State’s Grayson Rigdon was called for holding on the game’s opening kickoff, moving the Sun Devils back five yards from the 10-yard line to the five. The calls didn’t stop there, with six total penalties in the first quarter alone: three holding calls and a false start against Arizona State, one holding call and one pass interference call against the Cyclones.
Even in the win, penalties hampered Arizona State. The Sun Devils gave up 119 yards on those 11 calls, compared to the Cyclones with 64 yards lost on seven penalties.
228 … as in the total rushing yards by Sun Devils backup quarterback Jeff Sims
With starting quarterback Sam Leavitt sidelined with a foot injury, Iowa State seemed like the favorite entering Saturday’s matchup. But the Cyclones’ defense had few answers for the Sun Devils’ backup quarterback.
Sure, Iowa State won the turnover battle – with two fumble recoveries and an interception – which marked a pivot for the unit that had struggled generating turnovers in recent games. But Sims finished the game with 177 passing yards and one touchdown through the air, plus 228 rushing yards and two touchdowns on the ground.
He accounted for all but 64 of Arizona State’s 290 total rushing yards.
Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: 5 numbers that stood out in Iowa State football’s loss vs Arizona State
Reporting by Alyssa Hertel, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
