Iowa State Football: 3 takeaways from huge win at No. 17 Texas

Iowa State football was looking to keep its College Football Playoff hopes alive on Friday at Texas but the Longhorns put up quite the fight.

Friday’s Iowa State vs. Texas game was the perfect matchup to kick off the weekend as the two Big 12 contenders faced off in an elimination game, of sorts. The winner of this one would have the upper hand in the race for a spot in the conference title game.

As expected, it was close throughout as Texas held a 20-16 lead in the fourth quarter as Iowa State got the ball back for one last-ditch effort.

Breece Hall took the ball into the end zone with 1:25 left in the game to give the Cyclones a 23-20 lead and Texas would have to drive the length of the field to pull off a last-minute win.

The game would come down to a Cameron Dicker field goal to knot things up from 57 yards out and it had the distance but hooked left to give Iowa State the win.

What’d we learn from Friday afternoon’s Big 12 thriller?

3. Iowa State had red-zone struggles

When you get to the red zone on the road, you want to score touchdowns because you never know how big of a difference home-field advantage is going to make. Especially against a team like Texas which can score almost at will with Sam Ehlinger under center.

Scoring touchdowns to put some pressure on Ehlinger and Co. is important, but Iowa State got to the red zone often and came away with field goals instead of touchdowns.

That’s not going to cut it usually.

Matt Campbell had to feel good about the last red-zone appearance for his team, however, as the Cyclones drove down the field with under three minutes left and got down to the 1-yard-line before scoring to take a 23-20 lead with about a minute remaining.

If the Cyclones capitalized on earlier trips to the red zone, this final drive would have just been icing on the cake with the game already decided.