Ames, Iowa ? Second-year Iowa State coach Gene Chizik wasn’t in the mood to take any positives Saturday out of Iowa State’s 35-33 loss to Kansas University at Jack Trice Stadium. Not after the Cyclones blew a 20-point lead in the second half.
“No excuse,” Chizik said. “We have to learn to slam the door when we’ve got a chance like that.”
What kept them from doing so?
“The urgency for us to win the game was not as high as Kansas’, of that I can assure you,” Chizik said. “That’s the Orange Bowl champions. You’ve got a chance to beat them, and you’re up 20-0, you’ve got to put it to sleep, and we didn’t do that. We put ourselves in a position to win it, and we couldn’t do it. Dropped passes and knocked-down balls. It was a debacle.”
In its previous game, Iowa State (2-3) fell way behind UNLV and staged a comeback only to lose in overtime, 34-31.
This time it was a 20-0 lead at the half followed by a meltdown.
“The third quarter looks about like the first half of the UNLV game. They came out with more energy, more excitement to play,” Chizik said. “Obviously, we had an assignment coverage blown right out of the gate (on Jake Sharp’s touchdown), and that started the snowball effect. They outplayed us for most of the second half, and they’re a really good football team, and we played very poorly in my opinion.”
Once Kansas turned the momentum on Sharp’s touchdown, the Cyclones couldn’t reverse it.
“A team like that with a quarterback like that with receivers like that : it’s really difficult (to get the momentum back),” Chizik said. “They were 12-1 last year for a reason. They’re a very good football team. But my expectations at Iowa State are to beat a very good football team.”
Chizik didn’t view his players’ performance as half good, rather half bad.
“The bottom line is everybody talks about playing 60 minutes, and we haven’t done that yet,” Chizik said. “It’s really disappointing to me. We played 30 minutes, then took a quarter off and then tried to rally at the end. It’s really disappointing. … “
But not a mystery.
“Basically, it’s really simple,” Chizik said. “You play consistently all the way through on offense and defense, and you don’t turn the ball over. Did any of that happen? No.”
That certainly didn’t happen for Kansas, either, but in the end the Jayhawks had more explosive playmakers on offense.
