Inside Iowa State’s chase for its first conference title in 112 years

AMES, Iowa — Matt Campbell stood before his Iowa State football team on a Tuesday morning in October and asked the Cyclones if they were tough enough to stay the course.

They had surprised everyone during a 7-0 start and rise into the AP top 10. Three nights earlier, they had rallied for a last-minute victory over UCF. The Cyclones hadn’t been dominant but sure had a flair for the dramatic.

The head coach preached with passion for 30 minutes about what it would take to continue playing to their potential. He said he was looking for decisive excellence. No more leaving things up to chance. When you get to November, he says, great teams go for the kill.

“I ain’t flinching from this,” Campbell declared. “We’ve got more talent and we’ve got better players right here, right now, than we’ve ever had. You’re better than any of those teams the last seven or eight years that have tried this. So there’s no excuse. We’re not saying, ‘Nah, we’re not good enough.’ That’s a bulls— excuse.”

He reminded them of the history they were determined to overcome.

“One hundred and 33 years, men,” Campbell said. “Nobody before you has ever touched what you’re trying to do. You want to talk about legacy? You want to talk about creating change? Real hope for the future? Oh, buddy, it’s big-time.”

Nobody inside that room is shocked by where Iowa State stands today. For the first time in program history, the Cyclones have achieved a 10-win season. They’ll play for a Big 12 championship Saturday against Arizona State (12 p.m. ET, ABC) with a College Football Playoff bid on the line. Their senior leaders had big dreams at the beginning of the year: They wanted to be champions. Now they’re one win away.

The squad is chasing Iowa State’s greatest season of all time and its first conference title since 1912. The Cyclones aren’t led by big-name stars like Brock Purdy and Breece Hall. In fact, they have only one first-team All-Big 12 player. But it’s their most cohesive, selfless and resilient team yet. Iowa State got this far with tireless work and close wins. This is five-star culture at its finest.

The Cyclones got this far during the COVID-19 season in 2020 with NFL-caliber talent. They couldn’t live up to great expectations the following year. The program backslid hard in 2022. The fallout of a gambling probe left the team too young to contend last season. There were moments when Campbell feared he might not be able to get it fixed. But this season, he has built something special.

“Everything that’s happened has not been a surprise for everyone in this building,” defensive lineman J.R. Singleton said.

THE MESSAGE IS found all over Iowa State’s Bergstrom Football Complex, and it’s posted prominently above the gated entrance to the practice field.

WE BEFORE ME

That’s easy to say but hard to achieve in this transactional era of college football. Campbell has long believed that if you can recruit enough players who get it, who genuinely love football and put the team first, you’ve got a chance. And when those players develop into seniors who are your best leaders and playing their best football, you can achieve great things.

“If it’s not about the team, then you shouldn’t be here,” Campbell said. “When we maybe were off-kilter, it’s become more about you than about the team. That has paralyzed us here. That just doesn’t work.”

Before the season kicked off, Campbell told his players that if they hoped to do something special in 2024, it would take “leadership for the ages.” That’s what he’s seeing week after week from this team. He calls the 10-win season a byproduct of one of the greatest displays of senior leadership he has ever witnessed.

Wide receiver Jaylin Noel, safety Beau Freyler, cornerback Darien Porter and Singleton have led the way among the Cyclones’ 20-man leadership committee. The group meets with Campbell every Monday night to talk through players’ questions and concerns. Coaches point to Noel as one of the best leaders they’ve ever had.

“I just hate losing,” Noel said. “We’ve been through it so much in the past here. At some point, you’re gonna get tired of it. Guys don’t want to lose and aren’t willing to lose, so they’re willing us to victory.”

The roster Campbell and his staff have assembled in their ninth year in Ames is about as low-ego as it gets. One of the themes this team embraced throughout the year is the Buddhist concept of “mudita,” the joy one feels when another person succeeds.

“We’ve got the most boring, lame football team ever in history,” offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser joked. “They’re just the best, most behaved kids of all time.”

It’s a collection of players whose success was hard-earned. Leading receiver Jayden Higgins had only FCS offers coming out of high school in Miami and began his career at Eastern Kentucky. Jarrod Hufford, Iowa State’s sixth-year center from small-town Ohio, has played almost every spot on the offensive line. Porter, a converted receiver, has become an impact corner. Stevo Klotz, a former walk-on linebacker, is one of the Big 12’s best H-backs. Another walk-on, Carson Brown, emerged as the Cyclones’ No. 3 receiver this season.

Few are more beloved, though, than Freyler. The senior safety has dealt with a seriously damaged right shoulder throughout his career. Team doctors didn’t know how much longer he could keep playing. Freyler refuses to give up.

“Any day I get to suit up and play football is a great day,” Freyler said. “I’m gonna play ’til the wheels fall off.”

“He’s a warrior,” Campbell said. “He’s as great as we’ve ever had.”

Those mentally tough players define the Cyclones’ culture. And their young quarterback, Rocco Becht, is the one who brings everybody together. Coaches and teammates love his poise and ultracompetitive nature. Becht had to grow up quickly last season as a redshirt freshman starter but is comfortable leading now. Campbell says the 3,000-yard passer brings unbelievable humility, almost to a fault.

“He doesn’t think he’s a great player,” Campbell said. “He has truly outworked people to earn the right to be a really good football player.”

This Iowa State team doesn’t have a “Corn Jesus,” as former Iowa State tight end Charlie Kolar liked to call Purdy, now the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers. It’s not all on the QB or any one star player to deliver week after week. This season, the team truly needed everyone.

Entering the Big 12 title game, 95 Cyclones players have earned playing time this season. That’s out of necessity, not luxury, as they’ve battled injuries and tested their depth. Longtime defensive coordinator Jon Heacock said he has never experienced anything like the issues they endured at linebacker. Six have missed significant time with injuries, including projected starters Carson Willich, Caleb Bacon and Will McLaughlin. For weeks, they were just trying to survive at those spots. By midseason they were starting Rylan Barnes, a redshirt freshman walk-on from Britt, Iowa, whose farmer parents had to miss his first career start due to the fall harvest.

What people didn’t see, though, is how hard Willich and Bacon worked behind the scenes to prepare those young backups daily, from position meetings and film sessions to the practice field.

“Nobody really realizes that stuff,” Becht said, “but it’s why this team is so great.”

They’re all here because of Campbell. Becht, Higgins and plenty more teammates have been offered more money to transfer elsewhere. They stay for the brotherhood and for a coach who focuses all his energy on creating the best possible environment for his players’ growth.

If the Cyclones do get into the College Football Playoff, they’ll run into foes like Oregon, Texas and Ohio State who’ve assembled the best teams money can buy. Campbell couldn’t care less. He knows what works at Iowa State.

“Team and culture matters,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if somebody’s paying $32 million for a team in college football and somebody’s paying $1 million for a team. Culture matters. If you can get aligned and you can get the most out of your team, you still have a chance to win on Saturday, no matter what your budget is.”

EVERY MONDAY AFTERNOON, Campbell sits at the head of a conference room table surrounded by his trusted cabinet.

The head coach added this directors meeting to the calendar two years ago. He reserves this time each week to gather the leaders of Iowa State’s support staff and discuss the progress of every player in the organization. Players are sorted into a full depth chart, written in Campbell’s neat, tiny handwriting, and everyone gets a chance to chime in.

Campbell is flanked by director of strength and conditioning Reid Kagy and director of football performance ops Aaron Hillmann. Throughout the hourlong session, he takes in feedback from Nicole Kiley (sports nutrition), Amber Giese (academic services), Mark Coberly (sports medicine), Catelyn Fix (mental health & well-being), Justus Jones (student-athlete development), Mikie Schiltz (equipment), Derek Hoodjer (player personnel) and Skip Brabenec (chief of staff) on everything his players are dealing with.

How the players performed on Saturday is often immaterial to these conversations. They discuss not just injuries and grades but also mental health and personal or family problems. They’re paying attention to the strengths and struggles of every player, scholarship and walk-on. Who needs more help? Who needs to be challenged? Who had a good week or is heading in a bad direction?

Campbell began convening these meetings in the aftermath of a gut-wrenching 2022 season that prompted him to reconsider how he was leading this program.

“I felt like I was so down the rabbit hole on X’s and O’s in the season that I wasn’t doing a good enough job of being the head football coach,” Campbell said. “It was a great reminder that the alignment of the whole football program is my responsibility.”

From that standpoint, the past four years have been deeply challenging for Campbell. The Cyclones broke through in 2020 with a 9-3 run that ended with a Fiesta Bowl win over Oregon and their first ever top-10 finish. They were expected to be even better in 2021, with 19 starters returning and more than enough NFL-caliber players — including Purdy, Kolar, Hall, Xavier Hutchinson and Will McDonald IV — to field a serious CFP contender.

How does a team with that much talent go 7-6? Campbell spoke constantly during the program’s rapid rise about embracing “the process” and developing his players into the best version of themselves. He can’t say they achieved that in 2021. He learned so much from what he did wrong that year. “Instead of really challenging that ’21 team, I kind of was just grateful they came back,” he said. By focusing on catering to those proven players and keeping them healthy, he started to drift away from the mission of developing a bigger, faster, stronger team.

Iowa State paid the price for that during a brutal 4-8 season in 2022. A two-month stretch of painfully close losses exposed the need for serious repairs to the program culture. “There was a lot of ego, entitlement and selfishness,” Becht said. Campbell needed to make significant changes to his coaching staff and the day-to-day approach.

At the conclusion of Iowa State’s first losing season since 2016, as he weighed the difficult next steps, Campbell asked Mouser: “Can we get this back on track?”

He fired offensive coordinator Tom Manning, his longtime assistant and best friend, and brought in three new coaches on offense. He fired strength coach Dave Andrews and hired Kagy away from Boise State. He kept his player leaders heavily involved in the process, even bringing them onto Zoom interviews to ask questions.

“We had to revamp everything,” Singleton said. “I think that’s a credit to the head ball coach and his humble approach. I think a lot of head coaches that have success at the Division I level struggle to look at themselves in the mirror.”

In August 2023, Campbell had to confront another unanticipated issue. Quarterback Hunter Dekkers and four more senior starters were charged in a state investigation into illegal sports wagering by Iowa and Iowa State athletes. Four of the five players exited the program. Freyler called it an “uncomfortable time,” one that forced several players to step into leadership roles for an inexperienced team during an up-and-down 7-6 season.

“Last year was a really tough thing that happened, but I think it really galvanized this building,” Heacock said. “It was very difficult on everybody.”

From Heacock’s vantage point, Iowa State winning 10 games this season didn’t start with its offseason training in January. This current run was sparked by how the locker room and coaching staff responded to that moment of truth last season. Campbell refers to their difficult three-year stretch as a period of “implosion and rebirth.” Leaders such as Freyler, Noel and Singleton were the reason they survived it.

“We knew good things were going to come from this season,” Freyler said, “because of all the work, sacrifice and scars this team has.”

The history of Iowa vs. Iowa State during the Campbell era has been mostly heartbreak. His teams lost five consecutive Cy-Hawk games after he took over. These rivalry games typically come down to which team made more mistakes. And that team is almost always Iowa State.

But this year was different.

The Cyclones made plenty of mistakes in the first half and trailed 13-0 as they walked into the visitors locker room inside Kinnick Stadium. Campbell read the room. The moment didn’t call for a fiery halftime speech. His guys were locked in.

“What I appreciate about every one of you is there’s not panic,” Campbell told the team, “nor should there be.”

They’d been in plenty of these games before. They knew what to do. Iowa State’s offense got hot; the defense got five fourth-quarter stops; and the Cyclones outscored the Hawkeyes 20-6 the rest of the way, rallying for a 20-19 win on a last-second, 54-yard field goal by Kyle Konrardy.

“Everybody believed we were able to win that game,” Becht said.

From that point forward, these Cyclones didn’t just believe they could compete with anybody; they proved they could play fearless. They’ve faced double-digit deficits several times since. Against UCF, they needed an 80-yard touchdown drive with no timeouts in the final two minutes and Becht delivered.

“When we’ve been down a touchdown or two, no one has freaked out on the sideline,” Freyler said. “No one is cursing each other out.”

Campbell became the winningest coach in program history this season by once again constructing a team that can win close games. Almost half of the games Iowa State has played during his tenure have been decided by one score. The Cyclones have won 22 — including 10 against ranked opponents — and have lost 31. For this program, the margin for error has always been razor-thin. This season, they’ve had what it takes to win four of their five close calls.

“Magical seasons have magical moments,” Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard said. “I liken it back to when TCU had their year [in 2022]. I remember distinctly watching a couple games where you’re like, ‘How did they do that?'”

Campbell embraced a more aggressive mentality on offense this year when he promoted Mouser from tight ends coach to offensive coordinator. The 33-year-old staffer has worked under Campbell for the past decade and got his start stuffing envelopes as a recruiting intern at Toledo. When OC Nate Scheelhaase joined the Los Angeles Rams‘ staff this offseason, Campbell wanted continuity and handed the keys to one of his most trusted assistants.

Mouser had a clear vision for the offensive identity from the start: feared and fearless. Iowa State’s offensive operation has been another testament to internal alignment, a collaborative effort between coaches and analysts all season to put together the best possible plan. But Mouser hasn’t been hesitant to fire away. The first thing he told Becht upon taking the job? It’s time to let it loose.

On the first play of the season against North Dakota, Becht connected on a 54-yard vertical shot to Noel. They went tempo, and, on his next throw, Becht tossed a 21-yard touchdown to Higgins. Message sent. The Cyclones have two 1,000-yard receivers with bright NFL futures. Their coach knows how to get them the ball.

“We have the people to be aggressive, and that’s gonna make us different,” Mouser said. “I think being creative, being ballsy, being bold and just being different has helped get us here.”

“He’s not scared to call anything,” quarterbacks coach Jake Waters said.

Mouser reached deep into his bag against Utah in one of the most high-pressure moments of the season. The Cyclones trailed 28-24 with two minutes left and faced a third-and-1 at the Utes’ 29-yard line. And Mouser called a halfback pass.

“Honestly, there was a lot of crickets when I brought that play up at the time,” he said with a laugh.

High risk, high reward. Becht ran a toss right to Carson Hansen, who stepped back and floated a 26-yard pass to tight end Gabe Burkle. Hansen punched in the go-ahead score on the next play to win it.

Can’t be tamed🌪️🌪️#Big12FB | @CycloneFB pic.twitter.com/95s9BDXFqP

— Big 12 Studios (@big12studios) November 24, 2024

After back-to-back losses to Texas Tech and Kansas, the Cyclones had no choice but to win out if they hoped to reach the Big 12 title game. They ripped off three consecutive wins and got some fortunate help in the form of BYU and Colorado losses. But the way this team responded after a 7-0 start fell apart was telling. In this gauntlet of tight Big 12 games, Noel believes the more desperate teams win. That’s how Iowa State has played. The way Mouser sees it, the contests the past three weeks have been playoff games.

The payoff is a return trip to Arlington, Texas, and a shot at a Big 12 title. The last time the Cyclones played inside AT&T Stadium, they came up one drive short in a 27-21 loss to Oklahoma. The head coach is the same. Much of the staff is, too. Iowa State still has a few seniors who were freshmen back then. But the story of this season isn’t that the Cyclones finally recaptured the magic of 2020.

To Campbell, Iowa State is a completely different program today than the one that just felt lucky to get this far last time. Coaches say the toughness of this group is unmatched. They have the scars to prove it.

“He’s rebuilt the program twice,” Mouser said, “which a lot of people can’t say. And he’s done it the right way.”

When he accepted the Iowa State job back in November 2015, he told Mouser he was aspiring to do something that had never been done before. Nine seasons later — and 133 years after the program started — they’re one win away.

“We’re probably the closest to being what we envisioned this program being,” Campbell said.