AMES - Iowa State had to fight through a messy, physical game at Iowa last Saturday and still came up short, 16-13, in Jimmy Rogers’ Cy-Hawk debut.
This weekend should look a lot different.
Bowling Green comes to Jack Trice Stadium on Saturday for an 11 a.m. kickoff on ESPNU, and the Falcons arrive at 0-2 after a home loss to Tarleton State and a 56-7 drubbing at Nebraska. Iowa State opened as a 23.5-point favorite, giving the Cyclones a much bigger cushion as they try to tidy up the mistakes from last week before turning to Big 12 play against No. 17 Utah.
Here are five Bowling Green names worth tracking.
Jay Kastantin has already shown he can move the ball. The 6-4, 235-pound junior transfer from Division II Assumption completed 24 of 30 passes for 262 yards in the opener, though he did not throw a touchdown.
His lone scoring pass of the season came in Lincoln, when he connected with fullback Leo Kemp on a 19-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter to trim the deficit to 35-7. Kastantin also threw his first FBS interception in that game, and it led directly to a touchdown.
Iowa State’s front should have a chance to make life uncomfortable for the D-I newcomer.
The biggest target in the passing game is Jeremiah Scoby. The true sophomore had a huge opener with 10 catches and more than 100 receiving yards, then was held to two receptions for 19 yards in the loss to Nebraska.
At 6-3 and 218 pounds, the Dickinson, Texas, native is rangy and athletic, and he already has five more catches than the next Bowling Green player through two games. That makes him a clear focal point for a Cyclone secondary that may or may not have Beni Ngoyi, who left last week’s game at Iowa with an apparent lower-body injury.
Either way, Iowa State has enough depth in the back end to make Scoby work for everything.
Bowling Green also leans on Austyn Dendy. The 6-1, 230-pound third-year back transferred from Missouri two seasons ago and is averaging 3.4 yards per carry through two games.
Still, his recent track record is worth watching: as a redshirt freshman in 2025, he ran for nearly 500 yards in five games, scored five rushing touchdowns and averaged 4.6 yards a carry. He also added four catches for 64 yards last season.
Against an Iowa State defense giving up just 2.16 yards per carry, which ranks 12th nationally, Dendy will have to earn every inch.
On defense, Dorian Pringle stands out as Bowling Green’s leading tackler with 23 stops in two games. The 6-0, 225-pound third-year linebacker had been on the verge of All-MAC recognition last season after piling up 27 tackles in the Falcons’ first three games, then tore his ACL and missed the rest of the year. He’s back now, and he’s also been a playmaker before, forcing two fumbles and picking off a pass in his shortened 2025 season.
JoJo Johnson brings a different kind of résumé to the secondary. His college path ran from Notre Dame to Iowa Western Community College to Indiana before he landed at Bowling Green. The 6-0, 188-pound corner from Merrillville, Ind., ranked sixth nationally in passes defended per game in 2025 at 1.27, a mark that also led the MAC.
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For Iowa State, the broader takeaway matters because the Cyclones are part of the same conversation as programs like Boston College, Duke, Arizona and Cincinnati, all of them trying to navigate a spending landscape that can shift quickly from year to year. The piece makes clear that these are ranges, not confirmed figures, and the real tension is how much room schools have to move when the competitive baseline keeps rising and some programs are already working from a thinner margin than others. [Read more 🡒]