Texas Tech football: 3 things to know about Iowa State
When the Texas Tech football team travels to Ames, Iowa this weekend, these three Iowa State Cyclones will pose a tremendous challenge.
The job that Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell has done in Ames is nothing short of amazing. And his success has given rise to some serious envy on the part of Texas Tech fans.
While Tech has been busy spiraling towards the bottom of the Big 12’s hierarchy, Campbell has been busy orchestrating one of the more improbable turnarounds in the country.
When he took over prior to the 2016 season, the Cyclones were in the midst of six consecutive losing seasons, a streak that would reach seven in Campbell’s debut season when his team went just 3-9.
But since then, ISU has managed to win at least seven games every year with two eight-win seasons to boot. While that might not seem all that impressive, remember that ISU had not had back-to-back winning seasons since 2004-05. What’s more, they’ve had three-straight above .500 seasons just three times since the late 1970s.
Overall, Campbell is 28-26 as head coach in Ames. And what is bad news for the Red Raiders is the fact that he’s built that record in large part by dominating in the month of October.
Since 2017, Cambell’s program is 10-1 in October. What’s unfortunate for Tech fans is that all three years, Tech and ISU have met during that month and that’s again the case in 2020.
In 2017, ISU dominated and frustrated the Red Raiders in Lubbock. On their way to a 31-13 win, the Cyclones held Tech QB Nic Shimonek to just 207 passing yards.
A year later, in a 40-31 win, ISU picked off Red Raider QB Alan Bowman three times. Meanwhile, last year the Cyclones jumped out to a 20-0 lead in the first half on their way to a 34-24 victory in Lubbock.
But perhaps the most unbelievable showing Campbell has had against the Red Raiders came in his first year in Ames. That season, in a game on a cold November day, he managed to shut down Patrick Mahomes and a lethal Tech offense. In a 66-10 game, Mahomes was held to just 219 yards on 18-36 passing.
That was the first time we got a look at the now-infamous ISU 3-3-5 double cloud defense. Designed by defensive coordinator John Heacock, this extreme zone coverage scheme has befuddled the Red Raiders for the last four years.
Dropping as many as eight men into coverage on virtually every play, this defense entices offenses into completing short passes knowing that there will be plenty of defenders in the area to rally to the football. It’s a riddle that Kliff Kingsbury never solved and one that current offensive coordinator David Yost didn’t manage to defeat last year.
In that game, many fans were frustrated by Yost’s strategy of utilizing the wide receiver screen as an extension of the rushing attack. In fact, Tech ran 12 wide bubble screens that day, a plan that drew tons of criticism given that the Red Raiders averaged just 4.6 yards per pass that day.
We will wait to see just what strategy Yost will deploy this weekend but whatever it is, here’s hoping it is better than what we’ve seen the Red Raiders attempt to use in the last four editions of this series. So as we turn our attention towards Saturday’s game let’s take a closer look at the Cyclones to see just what we can expect from them and where the Red Raiders may be able to attack them on Saturday.