Iowa State football looks to keep historic 2020 season going with trip to Texas

Iowa State football will look to stay red-hot with a win at Texas but it’s not going to be easy. Will the Cyclones remain in the playoff race?

Over the past five seasons, there has been a change of the paradigm within the Big 12. In between the early to mid 2010s, there was a stretch of teams jockeying to be the main stay at the top of the conference. Kansas State and Oklahoma State runs, all the way to Baylor and TCU headlining near 2013-15.

Ever since then however, this conference goes through Norman.

In what could quite possibly end up being the most impactful game of the year resides down south in Austin as Iowa State has a chance to do what they haven’t done since 1922. That’s win any sort of conference championship.

The Cyclones are led on offense by a running back that has all the intangibles to be elite in Breece Hall. Hall has shattered his freshman season stats, with 1,169 yards and 15 touchdowns rushing the football. He has rushed for 100 yards in every game and is coming off a 135-yard, two-touchdown performance last week against Kansas State.

Iowa State dominated Kansas State in every facet of the game, with constantly harassing Will Howard and Brock Purdy having his best game of the season as he finished with 236 passing yards and three touchdowns.

After giving up 31 points to Baylor the week before, the Cyclone defense played determined as they shutout the Wildcats and gave up just 149 yards of total offense.

For Texas, they should be well rested after basically having back to back bye weeks. Their contest versus Kansas last week ended up getting cancelled, due to COVID-19 protocols. The Horns were last seen barely escaping West Virginia at home, 17-13. Texas has not had a comfortable win all season and have had to scratch and claw to win every game on their schedule so far this season.

Expect that to be the same on Friday. Sam Ehlinger has carried this offense, while having some help on the outside from emerging targets Joshua Moore and Brennan Eagles. The rushing apart from Ehlinger has not been very good as the Longhorns only have three touchdowns from the running backs.

Texas ability to be one-dimensional can be catastrophic and has been part of the reason why Texas can’t win a game comfortably. Defensively, linebacker Joseph Ossai has become the captain of this team and the anchor of the defense.

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He leads the team in tackles and leads the conference in tackles for loss with 13 on the season. He also ranks seventh in the conference in sacks with 4.5.

Here’s how to watch the matchup between the Cyclones and Longhorns

Date: Friday, Nov. 27
Time: 12 p.m. ET
Location: Austin, Texas
Venue: DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium
TV: ABC
Stream: WatchESPN or FuboTV

Keys to Victory

For Texas to win this game, they have to find a way to establish a run game, that is not solely on Ehlinger. He put on a heroic effort against Oklahoma and it was still not enough. There was encouraging signs coming from the West Virginia game with freshman Bijan Robinson having his best game of the year, rushing for 113 yards on just 12 carries.

However, on nearly three weeks of being absent from playing another team, there’s a good chance the Longhorns start out slow. They cannot afford to do that and challenging his daunting Iowa State front seven will be the biggest test of the day for Texas. If they can successfully run the football, they have a very good chance of winning this game.

For Iowa State, there wasn’t much that went wrong from last week. They played the most complete game of any team in the conference, regardless of opponent. However, Brock Purdy needs to play similar to how he did last week, in order to get the coveted win.

Even with the presence of Ossai, the Longhorns secondary has been below average this year and is in the bottom half of the country in terms of total defense. A big key for victory in Austin for Iowa State is Brock Purdy’s play.

If he plays like he did in the first half against Baylor, Iowa State is not going to have a fun trip in Austin. If it’s anything like the last six quarters, the Cyclones roll over Texas.

Prediction

This is a back and forth game, where Ehlinger is going to have to play superman to give the Longhorns a chance. Ehlinger passes for a touchdown and rushes for two more, one that closes the gap late. However, Purdy leads a late drive, that ends with a Hall touchdown. Cyclones does enough and gets the big win.

Final Score: Iowa State 28, Texas 27