Iowa State Football: 3 takeaways from overtime win over Northern Iowa

It was a struggle to move the ball for most of the afternoon, but Iowa State football found a way to beat Northern Iowa. What’d we learn?

Matt Campbell has to be ready to press the panic button in the fourth quarter as he watched his team miss a potential game-tying field goal against in-state FCS foe Northern Iowa but he had to trust his sophomore quarterback and the rest of the talented roster to pull off the win.

In the end, the game went to overtime in shocking fashion as the Cyclones looked to avoid an upset in the series for the first time since 2016 in Campbell’s first season. Iowa State was able to pull out the win, 29-26, in triple-overtime.

What’d we learn from the Iowa State vs. Northern Iowa thriller?

3. Defense deserves major props

If it weren’t for the Iowa State defense, this game might have gotten ugly. No, I don’t think Northern Iowa would ever blow the Cyclones out, but their defense kept them in the game when the offense did everything in its power to give the ball back to the Panthers.

The defense was swarming and had to pick up the offense and did so on a regular basis. It didn’t give up any big plays and kept Northern Iowa in check.

You could say the offense owes the defense dinner after this one because if it weren’t for that side of the ball coming up big on multiple occasions — including the third-down stop in the fourth which led to an Iowa State scoring drive — we might be talking about an upset coming to fruition here.

Matt Campbell needs to figure something out with his offense because it made life difficult on the defense for 60 minutes.