OK people, hear me out. We are going to win this game. Why, you ask? Well pull up a chair and listen to this truth serum.
1. Iowa State is a pretty good football team. They have good coaches, they have good schemes, but they do not have players that can really threaten us outside of maybe Jayden Higgens. Last year they survived on running the same pass route to the same guy over and over again in critical situations to move the chains. That guy is gone, the QB who threw those passes is in gamblers anonymous. The skill talent is not nearly as dangerous as last year, although they have two quality receivers. Rocco Becht has become a serviceable QB for them this season, but he is not a run threat, having run for a total of 81 yards all season. That means we get to play things a bit more honestly instead of selling out to stop the QB run like we did against Houston - which opened up all of those deep crossing routes.
2. They do not have an explosive run game. Their leading rusher has 460 yards on the season. I think we will shut that down very quickly and make them one dimensional.
3. Referees - What?! Fuck B12 Refs amirite? Yeah, you are right, except this. When we get late into the season and there is a B12 team in the running for the CFP or BCS, historically the refs tend to give some calls to the teams in the hunt. It means money for the conference, it means money for the schools, and they get to decide that maybe a missed PI or holding call will be soothed by a couple million dollars extra to the school that season.
4. You know who won't be soothed? Matt Campbell. I fully expect his head to explode off of his shoulders and shoot into space due to the blood pressure when we start beating their asses. Death of a coach on the field is always distracting for a team.
5. Sark has figured out the 3-3-5 flyover defense to an extent in the passing game. He spent a good portion of the game in trips sets, which forced the defense to come out of their shell and declare their coverage. Gundy did this earlier in the season and I think Sark caught on and used it against TCU. That is why we were getting those deep shots in the first half, and how we got 1 on 1 coverage to AD Mitchell on the crucial third down play late in the game. Ewers went for over 300 on Saturday against a team running exclusively 3-3-5. I think we do it again this week to clean up the reads for Quinn pre snap.
6. Iowa States top 3 leading tacklers are all DBs. That is a problem. Their top LB has 21 tackles on the year. That tells me that they have front 7 issues. If they want to keep those safeties back trying to confuse the pass game, we should have some room to run provided Sark doesn't get as predictable as he got last week. I was literally screaming for an RPO in the fourth quarter. I expect Iowa State to come out with their safeties deep and prove that we can run the ball before they break their shell. So long as Baxter and Blue run patiently and not up the backs of our linemen, I think we will see some quality rushing yards this week.
To me that all adds up to a road W provided we don't run into some bullshit 40 MPH wind with a -5 windchill.