We went back to work on Sunday night and had a very upbeat meeting and practice with the guys on Sunday. I told them, and I tell you guys the same thing, if anyone has their dang dauber down, you need to regroup quickly. We lost to a Top 10 team, so that’s just what happened. Fortunate to be able to play two more games. We’ve had a great year. No one can take that away from us. Not going to let, not going to tolerate people talking about how we didn’t do this or didn’t do that. It’s all about moving forward and what we did do and what we have done and the truth of the matter is we’re 8-2. There’s a whole lot of teams in the country who would do about anything to be 8-2. We have two games left. Fortunate to be able to have two games left. We’re excited about that opportunity. We have a lot to play for. It was fun being in the conversation about winning the Big 12 but we lost to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Those two teams will battle in two weeks to see who wins the Big 12. Two really good football teams that are both Top 10 teams right now. We’re 8-2, had a good year. Need to move forward, need to continue to press forward, there’s a lot to play for. Have a chance to get to our ninth win on Saturday. That hasn’t happened since we joined the Big 12. We have a chance to get to our sixth Big 12 win, that hasn’t happened since we joined the Big 12, and then we have another game after that. We’ll start talking about senior day and all of that good stuff after that. There’s going to be bowl positioning going on, lots of good bowl games that we’re going to be able to be in the mix for, so tons to play for. Iowa State is a good football team. Everyone says ‘Oh my gosh, what happened with them last week’, well let me tell you something, they’ve been playing good football all year. If you go back and look at the games we’ve played against them over the last four years, they’ve all been tough. Iowa State, they have great fan support, there’s going to be a lot of people there at the game. It’s going to be a great Saturday afternoon for football. Quality opponent. They beat the heck out of Texas Tech last week. They have things rolling. They have won two games for the first time in a long time in conference last week, so they’re going to gain momentum from that. It’s going to be senior day, have 22 seniors. They’re going to have a lot to play for as well, so we better strap it on and have a great week of practice. We better prepare like we have all year. This is a great week for football. If you’re playing football on Thanksgiving, then you’re fortunate. We have very minimal distractions this week that we’ll be able to focus hard on our opponent and get ourselves ready to play. It’s going to be a challenge. You look at their schedule they started slow, but about game four once they played Baylor these guys have been in every game. I think they were up 21 points on Baylor at one point, they were up around 10 points at Oklahoma State at one point, they were up 6-0 at halftime against Texas, toe-to-toe with Kansas State, toe-to-toe with Oklahoma and then they beat Kansas and Texas Tech. This is a good football team. They’re well coached, have a lot of energy with coach (Iowa State Head Coach) (Matt) Campbell, a lot of optimism, reason for hope that sort of thing, so we definitely have our hands full.

 

Offensively, they move the ball, they score points, averaging over 400 yards a game and 28 points, so it’s a completely different team from what they had last year. They were very senior-oriented last year. They have one of the best receivers in the Big 12 in (Iowa State junior wide receiver) (Allen) Lazard, he’s a big kid now. He’s a matchup nightmare, they move him around a lot. It seems like he’s been there for a decade, and he’s only a junior, but he’s really a good player. You have to keep your eye on him. Everyone is talking about their two quarterback system that they have and it’s good. (Iowa State junior quarterback) (Joel) Lanning started against us last year, he played a lot. Throws the ball well, didn’t realize he ran as well as he does until I saw him this year, but he threw it all over the place last year, is a really good quarterback, and then they have the (Iowa State redshirt sophomore quarterback) (Jacob) Park kid, the JuCo kid from Northeast Louisiana comes in, big kid, throws it really well. What you have to be on guard for is saying okay when (Joel) Lanning is in there, they’re just going to run it, and when Park is in there, they’re just going to throw it that’s not true. Those guys can do both, so we have to prepare for what we’ve seen on video. They play hard, they don’t turn the ball over, they use a ton of shifts, a ton of motions to try to create matchups. It’s a headache to prepare for and these guys are pretty good at what they do.

 

Defensively, their secondary is kind of what stands out to me more than anything. They have recently been playing a ton of man coverage, and they do a good job of it. Ever since Baylor rushed for a lot of yards they started adding people in the box and when you do that you have to make a decision on what kind of coverage that you’re going to play, so they’re going to add people in the box. Their nose tackle is a great player, the (redshirt senior defensive lineman) (Demond) Tucker kid. They’re going to add people up in there, and they’re going to play a lot of man coverage, so that’s going to be a challenge for us offensively to look for some matchup that we can exploit. They blitz a lot. They do a great job of disguising coverages and holding things, then they bring it and we have to identify it, we have to ID it and then we have to win at man coverage.

 

Special teams, a lot of schemes. They do the same things, a lot of schemes on all three sides of the ball. Do a lot of that with their kickoff team, with their punt team, and then you have to pay attention to what they’re doing in the return game as well. A team that tries really hard regardless of what the situation is, regardless of what their record is and really regardless of who is coaching them. It’s a team that tries really, really, really hard and it’s going to be a challenge for us, and I know it’s one that our kids are going to be looking forward to.

 

Probably. I think it probably grabs everyone’s attention. If that would have been the other way and (Texas) Tech would have won then we would have said then Tech got things going on offense, they scored a lot of points blah blah blah, it wouldn’t change our opinion on Iowa State. All you have to do is put on the video and look at them and say ‘Wow this is a bunch that really plays hard.’ They’re well coached, it means a lot to them, and they play hard, but to answer your question, yes that’s going to get everyone’s attention, so I don’t know how we’re going to defend a team that scored 66 points. I don’t know how we’re going to call offense against a team that held them to 10 points, just picking, we know what we’re getting ourselves into. They’re a good team. We’re going to know what they’re going to do, and we’re going to go out there and get into a great frame of mind and go play ball.

 

No, college football players don’t get vacations like that. If you’re playing football around Thanksgiving you should be fortunate to be able to do so. Thanksgiving is about your football family. If you’re playing during Thanksgiving and you’re playing during Christmas, then you’re in a good place. There are less distractions because there’s no school, there’s no students, there’s no time restraints, there’s none of that, so it’s easier to get our guys’ attention, it’s easier to prepare. We’ll celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday with our football family, which typically involves a lot of the coaches and the coaches’ families and all of that stuff. We do that, we’ve done it the same way for the last five years. Then we’ll bring them up here Friday morning, then we’ll travel like it’s a normal Saturday game.

 

There’s only so much you can do. This is the time of the year going into week 11 where the wear and tear of the season has set in, so there’s not a whole lot more you can do. It just makes it easier from a meeting perspective. You’re not rushed. Today the guys came in, they have to come in on their own and lift, and then this afternoon they get up here and do some media stuff, they have to hurry up and dress and go into meetings which is quick and then we have to get outside and hurry up, there’s just no hurry. We’ll bring them up in the morning and do a lot of meetings and get to feed them more, it’s easier to feed them, do more meetings, do more recovery downstairs in the weight room and then let them rest up. Then they come back and we’ll go practice for a couple of hours. It’s an NFL schedule, just because the NFL is not limited by the amount of time, they’re not going to take their guys out there and practice five hours a day especially in November, December.

 

I don’t think we are there yet. We will talk a little bit about it, we haven’t had to do that yet. Last year, we had to do it game seven or game eight, whatever game it was. Haven’t had to do it yet this year because we have been in a good place and the importance of last week’s game took care of itself. We will start talking about it a little bit. This is the last time that we travel. This is the last time the seniors get to. I did say this Sunday night, I’m like ‘you 22 seniors, most of you guys won’t be playing football next year.’ The reality of it is that most of those guys will not be playing football next year. ‘When this time of the year hits and it’s Thanksgiving and you are wherever you are enjoying Thanksgiving Day, you are going to think of this week with your teammates.’ This week there are a lot of guys that bond a lot and it’s all about the football family. They realize that there are about four practices and two games and one is on the road and another is Senior Day at home, they realize that it is about done. Whatever happens in the next two weeks is going to dictate where we are at in December and we all want to position ourselves to go to the best bowl possible. I think a lot, and it’s sad, it’s sad in college football, where the media makes such a big deal out of the College Football Playoff. It’s all everybody talks about, which is nauseating. There are four teams that go. You want to go, our goal is to win the Big 12, our goal is to go to the college football playoff. Well, how many teams are going? You position yourself to where you get to go to a good bowl game and there are a lot of really good bowl games out there. That’s going to be something that these guys will remember for a long time.

 

I don’t know who is going to start, I don’t know when they are going to pull one out and when they are going to plug one in. It’s fairly random. I don’t know if that makes it easier or harder to prepare for. I don’t know, we have the plays that those guys do specifically, we are going to try to develop some tendencies and try to have an idea of what to expect, but they do a pretty good job of not allowing that to happen. You have to prepare for a lot when it comes to both of them. 

 

I don’t know what you want me to say, they are trying to score. I don’t think they are saying, ‘OK, I am good now, I have only gotten 40 yards here, I think I’m going to take a knee.’ We have challenged our receivers to try to spring them a little bit more. We have to do a better job with our receivers of trying to make some key blocks downfield. Look, if you watch (junior running back) Justin’s (Crawford) runs, he made guys miss, he has blocked well, (senior quarterback) Skyler (Howard) made good decisions because he has a part in it. Justin made some guys miss, he got out into the open, he cut back, he made another couple of guys miss and a lot of times he ran out of gas and he was done. How could you be mad about that? It was brought to my attention a couple of times people saying ‘Wow, that looked like Tavon (Austin).’ Well, there is only one Tavon, because if Tavon gets out into the open there isn’t anyone catching him. Justin is not that guy yet. Maybe he will be with an offseason, he has never had an offseason, so maybe he will become that guy with an offseason. What is more disturbing is you get down there and then you do stupid stuff and you put the ball on the ground or you don’t make the appropriate checks or the appropriate throws or I make stupid calls, whatever it is. We got down there twice in the second quarter and didn’t score. You flat out can’t win. That’s more disturbing than guys going the distance, because I don’t know how you coach that.  

 

Yeah, it worked well. We felt like we needed a little bit more inside presence against those guys they were heavy inside. They played basically a bear front, three heavy guys inside, so we needed some heavy guys. (Redshirt junior offensive lineman) (Kyle) Bosch played his best game, (redshirt senior offensive lineman Tyler Orlosky) T.O. played like T.O. always plays and (redshirt senior offensive lineman) (Adam) Pankey played well. He is a better guard than he is a tackle right now. With that said, he can go out and play tackle if we need him to. It has happened because (redshirt freshman offensive lineman) Colton McKivitz is pretty versatile right now, he can go both right and left. (Redshirt junior offensive lineman) (Grant) Lingafelter had a bum leg, he is cleared to go this week. Matteo has been struggling with some lower body stuff as well. (Redshirt junior offensive lineman) Marcell (Lazard) stepped in, I thought he played well, I thought he did good, he has played a lot of ball for us around here but having a redshirt freshman like Colton to go both right and left, there aren’t many people doing that as a redshirt freshman so I thought he did well. Iowa State has a pretty strong presence inside. Their nose guard is something now. I don’t know what his measurables are but that dude is in the backfield all the time. We are going to need some heavy inside presence. As long as the tackles are holding up then we can do it. Lingafelter started in this game two years ago against Iowa State and Tony started a lot of games for us as well, those guys need to play. Which means Pankey, we are probably going to have to move him around some. 

 

It hasn’t been us. When we went there four years ago, that is the coldest that I have ever been. If you remember what that game was like, it was like eight degrees with a wind chill of minus 80. It was cold. I grew up in that state and it hasn’t ever been that cold. Two years ago it was alright, this Saturday it will be alright. It was pretty cold last Saturday there from what I have heard and the wind blows. I don’t know, I can only speak for our team. I don’t know, it is a hard place to play. They are rowdy. Their in-game entertainment is pretty good, those kids play hard there.

 

Let’s hope he is ready to go this week. Two weeks in a row he has practiced minimal. We put him in two weeks ago, we probably shouldn’t have, but we did because we didn’t have anyone else to put in there. This past week he went through warm-ups and I saw a limp and I said ‘Look, (freshman running back) Kennedy (McKoy) is coming off of the best week that he has had and (junior running back) Justin Crawford has had a great week of practice.’ When Kennedy went down on the first snap, I’m like ‘gosh dang, here we go again’ but then Crawford went in and did great. Having (redshirt junior tight end/ fullback) (Elijah) Eli (Wellman) pieced it together some, I came really close to pulling (freshman running back) (Martell) Pettaway’s redshirt in the fourth quarter but I didn’t and I am glad we didn’t. Russ wants to play, nobody wants to play more than him. He sits right there and he listens to everything that is being said. He is engaged, he is tuned in, he is a senior leader and he wants to play.

 

It’s a question I have never thought about. Don’t they have an offensive player of the year and a defensive player of the year? Why do you never see a corner win defensive player of the year? Probably because of the stats that linebacker I would imagine, or pass rushers have it. (Redshirt senior cornerback) Rasul (Douglas) is playing really well, he made another great play here this past week. Being able to have the amount of passed defended and interceptions and making a difference on a defense that is considered one of the best ones in the league, I think he is in pretty good position.