K-State Up After One Quarter Of Play, Leading Iowa State 3-0

I’d love to be at this game, but I’ll tell you – they’re showing fans in parkas and rain coats sitting on the hill in Ames. I don’t mind relaxing at a bar with ready beer and wings.

John Hubert can’t be beaten one-on-one. It’s that simple. The offensive line also provided great seams on the first drive (for the most part) and good pass blocking so far. If they could keep up this play the rest of the game, go ahead and record another win on the season.

I really liked the first drive for K-State, even though it didn’t end in a touchdown. First play, Collin Klein takes a stutter step, hands off to John Hubert, than pretends to keep the ball running right. Second play, Klein takes a stutter step, fakes the hand-off to Hubert, and keeps the ball to run right. Result: 1st down K-State. Later on in the drive, Hubert was stuffed up the middle. Klein overthrows a short pass on second down. It’s now 3rd-and-11, Iowa State is playing great coverage, and Klein scrambles on the broken play. I looks like he’ll pick up six or seven yards, short of the first down. He gets 12 by finding some higher gear I still can’t believe he owns. 1st down K-state. A chop block resulting in a personal foul ends up pushing the Wildcats back into kicking a field goal on the next set of downs. Anthony Cantele proves his worth again, nailing a 41-yarder to take a 3-0 lead.

Speaking of that personal foul, this quarter has been pretty uncharacteristic so far. The team has been burning time outs, also recorded a false start, and got hit with a holding penalty (which was declined when the Cyclones recorded a sack on the play). Credit those in attendance with getting LOUD today so far – the crowd was just as responsible for forcing a punt as the Cyclone defense on K-State’s 2nd possession. Iowa State moved the ball almost unchallenged on their final drive of the quarter, running left, right, and up the middle. We end the first 15 minutes with K-State up, but the Cyclones have the ball at third and goal and look ready to punch it in when we pick up the next quarter.

Quick stats: K-State has 29 rushing yards to Iowa State’s 41. They also only have 39 passing yards to Iowa State’s 48. This is what happens when you only have two possession to your opponent’s three. However, K-State still leads time of possession with 8:48, compared to Iowa State’s 6:12.