AMES - Iowa State’s offensive line has found an unlikely new face in the middle of the shuffle, and Makai Sat has made the most of it.
Just a couple of weeks ago, the 6-foot-2, 335-pound lineman wasn’t dressing for games and wasn’t listed on the Cyclones’ depth chart. Then came a surprise start in a 39-3 loss at Arizona, and now he’s lined up to make his third straight start when Iowa State (4-4, 2-3 Big 12) meets Baylor (5-3, 3-2) at 11 a.m.
Saturday at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas. The game will air on FS1.
“It’s crazy,” said Sat, who joined the Cyclones as a walk on last season. “Everyone in the locker room finds it pretty crazy, but I try not to think of it as too crazy. Just trying to have same mindset as when I first got here.”
That mindset has carried him from longshot JUCO prospect to a key part of the front protecting the Big 12’s leading rusher, Aiden Flora, who is averaging 117.1 yards per game on the ground.
Iowa State head coach Jimmy Rogers made it clear in August that the depth chart would be fluid, not fixed. Players would move up, move down and maybe move back up again. Rogers said it was about performance, growth and earning every snap.
“It’s their job to go prove their truth,” Rogers said in early August.
Sat has done exactly that. Rogers described his rise as the product of “working his butt off.” First-year offensive coordinator Tyler Roehl said the staff didn’t have much to go on with Sat in fall camp because of injury, but the lineman kept flashing when the coaches watched him in practice.
“What a neat story,” Roehl said. “For someone like that who came here and really (hadn’t seen) any playing time - we didn’t get a good evaluation of him in fall camp because he was hurt.
So we don’t know. And you just kind of keep watching, and let him do some good on good, and he just kind of flashes.
(And) in the bye week and it’s like, ‘Let’s roll with this young man. He’s playing with violence.
He has good leverage. He has high desire to compete - and that’s all we need up front.”
Sat backed up that trust in last week’s 51-49 win over then-No. 24 Oklahoma State.
He did not allow a pressure on quarterback Jaylen Raynor, who threw for a season-high 308 yards and accounted for four touchdowns, three through the air and one on the ground. Freshman receiver Jamal Polite Jr. piled up 171 receiving yards, and Flora delivered again with 221 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
The Cyclones’ offense scored 51 points, its highest total in a Big 12 game since a 59-7 win over Kansas State five seasons ago.
Sat’s emergence is about more than one strong outing, though. Rogers said the way Iowa State is willing to move pieces around and reward performance sends a message to everyone on the roster that nothing is handed out.
“I think our willingness to move the roster around and give people opportunities is (proof) you’ve gotta earn your keep every single day, just as we do as coaches,” Rogers said. “I think when you’re honest with people and you tell them the truth, and then you change things based on what people aren’t doing, and allowing people to have their own time to shine, it allows for a heightened sense of awareness at practice, which I think is where great teams separate themselves.”
For Sat, the jump still feels a little surreal, even if he’s trying not to treat it that way.
“It was a bit of a surprise for me,” Sat said of finally earning significant playing time. “It kind of shocked me a little bit when I first heard it, but I quickly tried to go with the flow and act like that guy, act like that role, and go on about it.”
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