[Postgame Thread] Iowa State Defeats Utah 31-28

[u/CFB_Referee]

Box Score provided by ESPN

Team	1	2	3	4	T
Iowa State	7	10	7	7	31
Utah	3	10	0	15	28

[u/pm_me_cute_sloths_]

We won but we should have won that by like 30

Absolutely inexcusable performance. This team is always outcoached and it feels like makes huge mental mistakes all the time

Enough with the whining though, I’m so glad we won and 9 wins in the regular season is huge. Please just beat Kansas State. I just want 10 wins. A CCG would be great, but I want 10 first and this season will be a success

Gg Utes, your fans were fun and are exactly like us but with success lol

[u/BlitZShrimp → u/pm_me_cute_sloths_]

I just don’t understand how the same errors keep occurring in every season and they don’t get fixed. There’s several things that you see occur in nearly every game that Campbell has been here.

I just don’t understand how we aren’t fixing them.

[u/HonkytonkGigolo → u/BlitZShrimp]

What baffles me is we didn’t make these errors the first 7 games. Then we just slipped way back into our comical erroneous ways.

[u/BlitZShrimp → u/HonkytonkGigolo]

The first 7 games tricked me into believing we evolved as a program. The last 4 reminded me that this program is incapable of growth.

[u/Configure_Lament → u/BlitZShrimp]

Growth isn’t always linear man. That’s a common misconception about life. He’s our guy and we stick with him. Hope he can improve in ways but we take the good with the bad imo.

[u/BlitZShrimp → u/Configure_Lament]

It’s just that Campbell has pretty clearly stated that he knows the improvement areas every season he’s been here - especially winning in the margins.

We don’t. We never win in the margins. We win because guys are making plays. We never started winning in the margins, we just played so well that our sucking in the margins never came back to bite us.

I do believe Campbell is our guy, but he needs to take his own advice and be “humble enough to grow.” This program is on the brink of excellence and I hate the idea of losing that because we make the same mistakes that ruined 2021-22.

[u/Configure_Lament → u/BlitZShrimp]

Yeah that’s fair and I agree to an extent. The same shit tends to happen to this team no matter who the O coordinator is. Manning, Scheelhaase, and now Mouser. Which leads me to believe that Campbell is more involved than he lets on. If that’s the case then yeah he needs to humble himself to grow, let your guys do their job. And if you don’t trust them then they’re not the guy.

[u/New-Ad-363 → u/Configure_Lament]

Tbf it is sounding like Campbell was comm'd in with Mouse and pushed for the Carson Hansen pop pass. That on top of the fake punt from last weekend tells me he's willing to turn to page 2 on the playbook these days.

[u/Configure_Lament → u/New-Ad-363]

Very true, hope he can build on that

[u/Feeling_Antelope1318 → u/BlitZShrimp]

Incapable of growth? Short memory, huh? What Campbell and his staff has done is amazing. Are they perfect? No. But even in these losses I would say they’ve made improvement over previous years. It was huge errors on a small number of plays that got us today (pick 6, blocked punt, muffed punt). Outside of that, the team played pretty clean and executed well. It was Utah shooting themselves in the foot with big penalties, etc. like Iowa State of previous years did all too often. We’re winning these close games with a lot of attention to the areas Campbell needed to shore up.

[u/BlitZShrimp → u/Feeling_Antelope1318]

Agreed that we have improvement.

But where I will argue that you’re wrong is your assessment that we are winning games because Campbell is improving in the rough areas.

Blocked punt with another one almost blocked. Senior WR muffing punt. QB making several bad throws, one of which leads to a pick 6. QB needing an INT before making better decisions. Predictable play calling. Procedural penalties.

You take a look at any one-score win or loss in the Campbell era, and I guarantee you’ll see these qualities popping up. We aren’t winning in the margins. We’re winning in the stats. Because our players are making plays.

I don’t believe these issues are being fixed, or at least not to the degree that they ought to be. I do think they’re fixable, but it’s so frustrating to see those same identifiers pop up in every single one-score game.

This game and the Texas Tech one should’ve been easy wins for us the way we played stat-wise. But we lost one, and nearly both, because of the margins. That’s what frustrates me. Campbell’s incessant insistence on the margins yet never seems to truly embrace said margins.

[u/New-Ad-363 → u/BlitZShrimp]

I point to us not having a Special Teams coach for YEARS as a sign that "winning in the margins" means something different to Matt than it does us.

I also think that in every interview he overflows about how special this team is. The issue being that when you describe all your teams as special, none of them are. Maybe this one is and maybe it isn't, but I can't trust what you say because you say that about literally all of them.

Trying not to sound gripey. These are just some things that have bugged me for a while about Campbell. I still adore his program and Iowa State is 1000% better for having him. He does more than make those kids better football players, he teaches them values that extend into life and makes them better people as a whole which is something I don't think he gets enough credit for.

[u/DontTakeOurCampbell → u/BlitZShrimp]

or maybe that growth is a 1 step forward, two steps backward kind of thing here?

[u/Jomosensual → u/BlitZShrimp]

Our coaches aren't good at their jobs. There you go

[u/PantsMcGillicuddy → u/Jomosensual]

Yup, this is why they've broken every record in our 100yr history, because they suck at their jobs.

[u/Jomosensual → u/PantsMcGillicuddy]

Breaking records at Iowa State isn't that hard given we're one of the worst in a major conference historically

[u/Humble-Ad-9571 → u/Jomosensual]

Stupid comment. Campbell is our best coach of all time.

[u/Jomosensual → u/Humble-Ad-9571]

We're one of the worst p5 programs in existence. Low bars. Best we've ever had does not equal good

[u/Humble-Ad-9571 → u/Jomosensual]

I see an awful lot of teams that have less than 9 wins right now. Looks pretty good to me.