The Iowa State Cyclones are seven games into the 2026 season, and the picture is getting harder to like by the week.
It started with promise. Iowa State opened by beating the SEMO Redhawks 38-10, then dropped a tight road game to the Iowa Hawkeyes before rolling past the Bowling Green Falcons 55-7.
The first real setback came in Week 4 with a home loss to the Utah Utes. The Cyclones answered the next week by beating the West Virginia Mountaineers in a near-100-point thriller, but the last two games have gone sharply in the wrong direction.
Iowa State fell at BYU 24-10 and then was blown out 39-3 at Arizona.
At this point in the season, the coordinators deserve a hard look.
On offense, Roehl has done enough to keep the grade from falling apart, but the unit has real issues. He’s gotten strong production from Aiden Flora, Cameron Pettaway, Arnold Barnes III, and the run game as a whole.
Flora, in particular, has looked like one of the better backs in the country. That said, the passing game has been a problem all season.
Some of that falls on the quarterback situation. Roehl has been stuck trying to make it work with Jaylen Raynor and Connor Moberly, and neither has consistently thrown the ball well.
Even with that context, the playcalling has raised eyebrows. Early in the year, Iowa State kept taking deep shots with Raynor before he was connecting on them, and the team also leaned on quarterback-designed runs that simply haven’t paid off.
So while Roehl hasn’t been a disaster, there are still plenty of questions about how he’s managing the offense.
Defensively, Jesse Bobbit came out strong. Iowa State racked up six sacks in the opener against SEMO, held Iowa to 16 points, and limited Bowling Green to seven. Then Utah arrived, and the tone changed.
Since then, the Cyclones have struggled to adjust early in games. They haven’t looked ready for the different looks Big 12 offenses throw at them, and that has led to real damage in the opening quarter. Injuries are part of the issue, but that doesn’t fully explain how shaky the defense has been out of the gate.
Still, Bobbit has one clear win: he’s gotten the absolute best out of linebacker Sullivan Schlimgen.
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The predictions around the room reflect just how hard this one is to sort out, with different writers landing on different score lines and outcomes. What unites the analysis is the sense that Iowa State cannot afford a slow start or many wasted possessions if it wants to protect home field in a game that already looks like a real barometer for where this team stands. [Read more 🡒]