IOWA CITY - Iowa State had the Cy-Hawk game where it wanted it for most of Saturday: tight, tense, ugly, and still very much up for grabs late.
Then Iowa kicker Caden Buhr ended it.
Buhr drilled a 42-yard field goal with 15 seconds left, sending No. 21 Iowa to a 16-13 win and snapping Iowa State’s two-game run in the series.
The finish turned chaotic in a hurry after Cyclone quarterback Jaylen Raynor found Carter Pabst for a 24-yard completion near midfield as the clock appeared to expire. Iowa’s sideline erupted, an official said, “The game’s not over” - and only after review did the result become final.
“Obviously we don’t want to get to a point where the game’s in the ref’s hands, so we’ve got to do a better job of just executing in the times that we have the ball,” Raynor said.
For Iowa State coach Jimmy Rogers, the ending fit the frustration of a game his team had chances to control but couldn’t finish.
“I’m proud of the locker room as far as how we played, but we still lost,” said Rogers, whose Cyclones dropped to 1-1 in his first season. “And that was the message our guys just got. We came here to win the game.”
Iowa State actually led 13-10 late in the third quarter after Kyle Konrardy’s 51-yard field goal, but the Cyclones never managed to create enough separation. Iowa tied it on Buhr’s 32-yard kick with 6:12 left, then finished the job in the closing seconds.
The Cyclones had jumped ahead 10-0 in the second quarter on Konrardy’s 29-yard field goal and Raynor’s four-yard touchdown pass to Vince Benetti. Iowa answered before halftime with a one-yard touchdown run by Hank Brown and a 45-yard field goal from Buhr, setting up the back-and-forth second half.
Rogers pointed to the miscues that helped swing the game, including a holding penalty and an illegal substitution flag that helped back Iowa State up before Konrardy’s final long kick.
“You can’t give that team and that defense hidden yards,” Rogers said. “Because they’ll expose you.”
Even with the loss, Iowa State showed some real strength at the line of scrimmage. The Cyclones outgained Iowa on the ground 138 yards to 93 and at times moved the Hawkeyes off the ball. Aiden Flora led the way with 89 yards on 19 carries, including a 34-yard run that helped set Iowa State up at the Iowa 19 before the penalties pushed the drive backward.
Jake Taylor, the transfer offensive tackle, didn’t sugarcoat it.
“My standpoint, the offense we put up a good effort, but a good effort will only get you so far,” Taylor said. “We need the results.
We need to win. … I’m gonna put all the responsibility on me.
This game’s on me. I’m supposed to lead the offensive line and this offense, and I just couldn’t do that enough today.”
Raynor finished 10 of 19 for 117 yards, though much of that came on the final play that ultimately didn’t matter. Iowa State’s defense did its part in limiting Kamari Moulton to 57 yards on 15 carries after he ran for 183 yards and two touchdowns a week earlier, but the Cyclones couldn’t get the key stops when Iowa needed them most.
“There (are) always plays you’re gonna want back as a defense,” said Max Baloun, the seventh-year defensive tackle who also played for Rogers at Washington State and South Dakota State. “I think there (are) gonna be a handful that we’re gonna want back (on Saturday). I think they executed well towards the end.”
Rogers said the loss won’t change the work ahead.
“We’ll continue to get better,” Rogers said. “The guys are committed.
The guys are hurting. At the same time, we have ten games left.
And we need to work and get ourselves ready to win every one of them.”
In Other News...
Iowa State Showed Something In Cy-Hawk Loss That Fans Will Debate
Iowa State left the Cy-Hawk matchup with plenty to argue about after taking an early 10-0 lead and then watching No. 21 Iowa claw back to a 16-13 win. The Cyclones did enough in spots to keep the game tight, and their defense had real positives to hang onto, especially with Iowa's rushing attack held to 93 yards.
Still, the second half told a different story for Iowa State's offense, which could not sustain drives once the game tightened up and let the momentum swing away. The result will linger because the Cyclones showed they could control stretches of the rivalry game, but they also left enough unfinished business for fans to wonder what this performance says about how far the offense can carry them when the margin gets thin. [Read more 🡒]
Iowa State Let A Statement Cy-Hawk Win Slip Away Late
Iowa State had the kind of early edge that can make a Cy-Hawk win feel like it is already taking shape, building a 10-0 lead and leaning on a defense that had Iowa scrambling to find a rhythm. But the game never fully loosened for the Cyclones, as the Hawkeyes kept answering enough to stay in striking distance and turn a rivalry day that looked promising into a tense, possession-by-possession fight down the stretch.
Iowas rally kept the pressure on Iowa State until the final moments, with the Hawkeyes tying the game twice before the finishing kick settled it late. For the Cyclones, it was a missed chance to keep their recent run of dramatic rivalry victories going after they had taken the previous two meetings on late field goals, a reminder that in this series even a solid start can disappear fast when the game reaches its sharpest edge. [Read more 🡒]
Iowa State Let Another Rivalry Gut Punch Slip Away Late
Iowa State spent much of the afternoon in a grinder of a rivalry game that felt exactly like one of those meetings where every yard has to be earned. No. 21 Iowa had to dig out of a 10-point hole to pull level, and both sidelines came away talking about how physical and competitive the matchup was, which only fit the tone of a matchup that never offered much margin for error.
The part that will sting the Cyclones is how close they were to forcing the issue late before the game slipped away in the final moments. A single defensive stand or one cleaner sequence at the end could have changed the entire conversation, but instead Iowa left with the kind of gut punch that lingers in a rivalry and sends Iowa State back to the film room wondering how a tightly contested afternoon turned so quickly. [Read more 🡒]