Team effort here by Justin Wells, Mike Blackwell, and Ian Boyd

AMES — Nothing spooky about Halloween night for the Iowa State Cyclones. The only thing scarier than the fan’s costumes was the Longhorns performance. It was more trick than treat in Ames.

Behind the legs of Mike Warren and Joel Lanning, and a don’t-bend, don’t-brake Paul Rhoads defense, ISU blew away Texas, 24-0, from Jack Trice Stadium on Saturday night.

This loss erases three weeks of positive mojo on the 40 Acres. Texas couldn’t run the ball, never really tried to throw it, at least not downfield, as the Cyclones were the more physical, prepared team.

Lanning, RS sophomore, hit Dondre Daley on a 19-yard TD toss with 5:11 left in the 3rd quarter, giving ISU the 17-0 advantage and every ounce of momentum. It also gave the Longhorn faithful zero amount of faith. To give you an idea, the Horns had more punts (9) than 1st downs (7) before the final drive. Add in seven 3-and-outs, and your offensive is officially inept.

Add to it Heard was off all night, and the problems grew larger.

“He’s a young quarterback,” said Jay Norvell of Heard. “All young quarterbacks go through good and bad. I told him that on the sidelines.”

So why Swoopes late the game?

“We just felt like we needed some rhythm,” Norvell said. “Jerrod was struggling seeing the field and completing passes and we just felt like Tyrone deserved an opportunity to play, so sometimes it helps if a guy stops and looks at another guy play. So we thought that would be a good thing for Jerrod at that point.”

Not only was the offense riding the struggle bus, but the defense couldn’t get off the field on 3rd downs. Again.

ISU’s Warren punched it in from three yards out, giving the Cyclones the early 7-0 lead. Warren’s score punctuated an 11-play drive in which ISU converted three 3rd downs. Warren finished with 108 yards on 22 carries, his 5th 100-yard game.

Texas made some noise midway through the 2nd quarter. Backup QB Tyrone Swoopes converted two 1st downs from the 18-Wheeler package, but an ill-advised throw by Jerrod Heard landed in the arms of Cyclones’ LB Jordan Harris.

The 1st half, much like the 2nd, was all Iowa State. Kicker Cole Netten nailed a 28-yard field goal, closing out a 15-play, 46-yard march. It gave the Cyclones the 10-0 lead heading into halftime. It certainly set the tone for an unhappy Halloween for the Horns.

Overall, ISU out-gained Texas, 228-98 in the opening half, and the game total wasn’t much better – 426 to 204. But it could have been worse. Numerous times Lanning misfired to open receivers. Sacks by Bryce Cottrell and Peter Jinkens kept UT close in the 1st half. But those plays were few and far between in the end.

Iowa State was clearly the more physical team. A collection of Duke Thomas, Hassan Ridgeway, Malik Jefferson, Alex De La Torre, and Davante Davis all were down on the field at some point. The Texas training staff put in overtime tonight.

Texas tries to get back on track next Saturday when they host Kansas, the only easy win left on the 2015 schedule.

“We just have to be better prepared as coaches, provide that spark for the players when they need it,” said Strong. “I thought we were taking steps forwards. And this is a step backwards.”

No kidding, coach.

– Justin Wells

Mike Blackwell’s Five Quick Thoughts after Texas’ lackluster 24-0 Halloween night loss in Ames, Iowa.

1. First Quarter Doldrums Set the Stage – The first quarter foretold the difficulty awaiting the Longhorns. The Texas offense was especially dismal in the first 15 minutes: 27 total yards, -3 yards passing, two first downs. Defensively, the Longhorns gave up only one touchdown in the period, but Iowa State managed to convert six of eight third down conversions. Iowa State quarterback Joel Lanning ran three times on third down, picking up a first down on each run, gaining 41 yards on those carries. Lanning, by the way, was making the first collegiate start of his career against the Longhorns, and playing for a new offensive coordinator after the Cyclones canned Mark Mangino prior to the game. The Longhorns – with their listless play in the first period – allowed the Cyclones to believe they could win the game, and Paul Rhoads’ team was certainly correct in holding on to that belief.

2. Offensive Numbers – The Texas trend of ineffective passing continued in Ames, but this time, the Longhorns combined the passing struggle with an anemic running game. D’Onta Foreman, the team’s most effective running back, didn’t play at all until late in the third period because of an injured toe, and ended the game with three yards on two carries. Johnathan Gray had eight carries for 23 yards. The electric Heard picked up just 13 yards on nine carries. Third downs? The Longhorns converted just two of 13. The explosive Daje Johnson had one carry for nine yards, and caught six passes for just 37 yards. The Longhorns’ offensive line – certainly a strong suit in the last two wins – took a beating against the Cyclones’ defensive line. Total yards-wise, the Longhorns had only 130 yards with 13 minutes left to play, and finished with an abysmal 204. Once the Longhorns fell behind 17-0, they were forced to play a come-from-behind game that is ill-fitting, to say the least, for the Texas offense that must have an effective running game to win. If those stats aren’t depressing enough, how about this: Texas passed the 50 yard line exactly one time against the Cyclones.

3. Defensive Woes – The Texas defense probably played well enough to win the game early – it was just 10-0 at halftime – but that might be overly generous when assessing a unit that failed to force a turnover. The Longhorns’ struggles on getting off the field on third downs continued. Iowa State converted a whopping 15 of 24 third downs in the game against Texas, who missed way too many tackles in the contest. Lanning finished the game 19 of 37 for 188 yards, but it could’ve been much more: he had a handful of drops and also threw some passes to open receivers that fell short of the mark. He also rushed 13 times for 64 yards. By the time the Longhorns fell behind 17-0 in the third quarter, Texas appeared to be wearing down on the defensive side of the ball, which can also be blamed on the Texas offense: the Cyclones had the ball for 37:25 minutes, while Texas had it for 22:35 – a hard to fathom time of possession margin. Add to that the rushing total of outstanding ISU running back Mike Warren – 32 carries for 157 yards – and the defensive woes certainly was a key ingredient in the loss.

4. Second Quarter ISU Drive – Perhaps the biggest drive of the night came late in the second quarter, though it certainly doesn’t jump off the stat sheet. The Iowa State offense drove 46 yards on 16 plays, a drive that ended with a 27-yard Cole Netten field goal, giving the Cyclones a 10-0 halftime lead. The key play in the drive came with Iowa State facing a 4th-and-three situation at the Texas 36. Lanning hit Allen Lazard for five yards for the conversion. Ultimately facing a 3rd-and-goal situation at the Texas 10 with nine yards to go, a pair of defensive backs teamed up to keep the Cyclones from scoring a touchdown. Lanning had receiver Quinton Bundrage open in the back of the end zone, but his pass was first tipped by UT’s Duke Thomas, and then knocked away from Bundrage – who got both hands on the ball – by Jason Hall. The play obviously saved more points from being scored on the drive, but the Cyclones were certainly happy with increasing their lead to 10 points.

5. Heard, Passing Game Struggles – Jerrod Heard looked every bit the first-year, (redshirt) freshman starter against the Cyclones. His final numbers: six of nine for 26 yards and one interception. Those stats could’ve been worse, as Iowa State dropped two potential picks in the first half, one deep in Texas territory. Strong decided to go with Swoopes for good at the beginning of the fourth quarter after Texas fell behind 17-0. Swoopes finished the game with six completions in 13 attempts for 59 yards, with no real opportunity to run the 18 Wheeler package, save for one brief drive in the second period. The Longhorns had no vertical passing game at all, except for one play which typified the Texas passing game struggle: with just over nine minutes left in the game, Swoopes had Johnson wide open down the field in front of the Iowa State bench. The ball was thrown slightly behind the receiver, who caught the ball but could not get his foot down in bounds. The next play, 3rd and four, produced another pass slightly behind Johnson, who dropped it.

Unhappy Halloween. – Mike Blackwell

That was a tough one, huh?

Paul Rhoads fired Mangino on Monday because he saw enough from Lanning against Baylor to know that he wanted to stake his job and the rest of the season on the young QB. That was a gutsy move and somehow it paid off as the Cyclones went into this game with a good plan and the players had full confidence in it.

Texas headed into this game surely knowing exactly what they were facing. Believe it or not, I knew exactly what they were facing though you wouldn’t have guessed from my confidence that they’d overcome the Cyclones. The fact of the matter is that Texas was poorly prepared to win this game and that’s why they didn’t.

–The Texas passing game

Woof!

I mentioned in the preview that Iowa State would load the box and trust their safeties to make tackles against screens and quick passes. If you’re going to play in spread formations you have to be ready to throw the ball outside when the opponent loads the box, that’s how the whole offense works.

Texas spent a surprising amount of time idling before finally deciding to take up the Cyclones on their offer to make the game a question of whether Qujuan Floyd could tackle Daje Johnson in space or not and then it turned out that Texas could barely execute the most basic pass in the spread offense.

That was disturbing.

From that point on Texas had three choices: Go big with more TEs and negate the need to execute throws on the perimeter, roll with Swoopes and be able to execute RPOs, or else trot Heard back out there a few more times and hope that “run on first and second then ask Heard to execute 3rd and 5 with a scramble against max cover 4 with dual spies” finally landed. They opted for choice number three, which predictably yielded nothing.

–The seniors and playing on the road

These seniors…

Playing on the road is tough and it’s where you most commonly see youth rear its head for a football team. This is a game where you need seniors to step up, but that did not happen. By the end of the game the staff had trotted out every RB on the roster and replaced Sed Flowers with Kent Perkins (finally!) while putting Nickelson in at right tackle.

This team is going to have a totally different ceiling when the upperclassmen are the same players that are the best on the team.

It’s going to be hard to believe in this team doing something in Morgantown or Waco though I wouldn’t assume from this game that they’ll wet the bed against Tech or Kansas. This is a totally different team in Austin than they are on the road.

–Defensive adjustments

Joel Lanning was awful from the pocket and absolutely terrifying on the move. The staff figured that out a little slower than I would have liked and the players gave up containment at awful times throughout the game even after the strategy adjusted to keep him in the pocket.

The 3rd down defense was pretty weak overall, particularly early, and that hurt the chances of a comeback very badly as the offense could never find a rhythm or have a chance to find something that could work.

All that said, this wasn’t a terrible performance by the defense.

Mike Warren and the Iowa State run game is legit, I predicted before the game that he’d probably go for 100 on Texas. The biggest problem, and listen closely here, is that the offense totally left them out to dry.

Holton Hill gave up a TD on a nice 7 route where he lost track of the WR, it wasn’t an egregious error though it was a costly one. Davante Davis played excellent football and the PI calls on him…well I didn’t see anything there. Jason Hall continues to show the ability to be the box safety that Texas needs to reach another level as a defense, Haines didn’t have any bad mistakes on the goal line. The linebackers played well and the DL got pressure (which at times was actually to their detriment).

It was a solid performance by the defense, not great, but not terrible. When your offense barely cracks 200 yards and much of those come with the game in hand for the opponent there’s just not a ton you can do.

I was encouraged, not disturbed, by much of what we saw from the defense.

–What kind of big picture takeaways can we have?

The “fire Charlie!” take is silly at this point, just as silly as the assumption that Jay Norvell was going to be the answer that ushered Texas into a new era of offensive dominance.

Strong needs to make good hires on offense in the offseason that demonstrate a competency for surrounding himself with the kind of support he needs to build elite teams. The current offensive staff is a mishmash and a mess and it needs to be rectified.

To assume that this can never happen after this game makes virtually no sense. We knew Charlie had blown it with his offseason hires when he retained Watson and co and allowed them to waste another offseason. The fact that the band-aid of demoting Wickline and Watson to promote Norvell didn’t produce an offense that can reliably execute on the road in October of the same year is just confirmation of we should have already known. This offensive staff isn’t good enough and Strong didn’t do a good job with his initial hires or his offseason adjustments.

Strong is going to get another offseason to make it right, you might as well accept that fact and hope that he does a better job of it this time. Or you can root for Texas to fail so he’ll be fired. I just about reached that point with Mack Brown and it’s more or less the worst and least satisfying place you can possible be as a fan.

I’m pretty sure that recruiting isn’t going to go into the gutter now either, just because Texas crapped the bed on Halloween night on the road. The bigger issue is whether Texas can reach bowl-eligibility with only two home games remaining on the schedule. If not, that won’t help with recruiting.

But at the end of the day, this is an exceptionally young team with a ton of excellent players on the roster many of whom will be in their 2nd year of college football next season and many of which are in Austin because Strong recruited them.

At this point as a coach in the Big 12 Gary Patterson was going 4-8 after a 7-6 inaugural season. Some of the Frogs’ offensive games were so bad that lots of people figured he was completely incapable of overseeing an effective offense at a higher level of football.

Then he hired Sonny Cumbie and Doug Meacham to install the Air Raid and they’ve lost one game since.

#JustSayin — Ian Boyd