Box Score Iowa State got 172 yards from its beleaguered ground game and relied on the stingiest defense in the Big 12 to defeat West Virginia 31-14 in a late Saturday afternoon Big 12 game here at MidAmerican Energy Field at Jack Trice Stadium.
 
The Cyclones (4-5, 1-5), owning the No. 1-ranked defense in the Big 12 allowing just 295 yards per game, have been a virtual stone wall in the second half of games, giving up an average of just six points and 114.1 yards per game after intermission.
 
Today, West Virginia (3-6, 1-5) managed just 3 total yards and no first downs after the break before backup quarterback Garrett Greene replaced JT Daniels on WVU's final possession of the game.
 
Greene, facing mostly Iowa State backups, orchestrated an eight-play, 75-yard drive that led to his 8-yard touchdown pass to Sam James. Greene connected on four of his five pass tries for 43 yards and added 27 yards on the ground.
 
Daniels had his worst afternoon in a WVU uniform. The junior completed just 8 of his 22 pass attempts for 81 yards with a touchdown and an interception. He was sacked twice.

"The story of our game was the inability for our offense to move the ball at all," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said. "The stats were putrid. We gave ourselves no chance to win the game. Credit to Iowa State; They have been good on defense for a while and they may have their best unit this year. But we got nothing going." 

Hunter Dekkers completed 24 of his 36 pass attempts for 219 yards and two touchdowns for the Cyclones. Leading receiver Xavier Hutchinson caught 10 of those Dekker passes for 123 yards and a touchdown.
 
Deon Silas gained 77 yards on just six attempts, while Cartevious Norton contributed 69 yards on 18 attempts.
 
West Virginia's first six offensive possessions of the game netted just 49 total yards, five ending in punts and the other culminating in Anthony Johnson's sliding interception on Daniels' underthrown ball to Reese Smith down the far sideline.
 
Following a defensive stop, the Mountaineers got the football back at their own 39 with 3:23 remaining and used a 17-yard Daniels to James pass play on third down to move the ball to midfield.
 
A couple of Justin Johnson Jr. runs netted 13 yards and gave WVU another fresh set of downs at the Iowa State 37, and a Daniels scramble three plays later for 12 yards got the ball to the 25. Here, Daniels located Bryce Ford-Wheaton down the far sideline for a 25-yard touchdown, his sixth TD catch of the season.
 
Ford-Wheaton made a nice adjustment on Daniels' pass, gently gave Cyclone corner T.J. Tampa a little nudge and then caught the ball before falling out of bounds.
 
Prior to that, Iowa State got a Jace Gilbert 30-yard field goal with 1:47 left in the first quarter and added a DaShawn Hanika 16-yard touchdown catch from Dekkers on its next possession. The Cyclones used controlled passing from Dekkers to drive 86 yards in 13 plays to compensate for the loss of top ground gainer, Jirehl Brock, who suffered a lower body injury on the opening play of the drive.
 
Iowa State had the ball for nearly six minutes to begin the third quarter but failed to score points when Gilbert hooked his 41-yard field goal try left of the uprights. Two plays prior, Dimitry Stanley couldn't hold on to Dekkers' pass in the end zone and Jordan Jefferson sacked Dekkers for a 7-yard loss.
 
Jaylin Noel also had an opportunity to make a touchdown catch early in the first quarter, but linebacker Jasir Cox got just enough of Dekkers' throw to knock it off course.
 
The game's big moment came early in the fourth quarter with WVU poised to get the football back after a three-and-out Iowa State possession. But Reese Smith committed a personal foul attempting to block Tyler Perkins' punt, giving the Cyclones a new set of downs at the 36.

"The roughing the punter penalty was huge. It was a 10-7 game at that point," Brown pointed out. "We had the chance to get the ball back around midfield. I thought he got blocked into him, but we'll see on the tape. That was the play of the game." 

After a Hutchinson drop, third-string running back Silas broke free for a 38-yard run to the Mountaineer 26. Two plays later, Dekkers found a wide-open Hutchinson down the near sideline for a 24-yard touchdown.
 
Iowa State, which came into today's game averaging 62 yards per game rushing in Big 12 play, got a big chunk of its 64-yard scoring drive on the ground to take complete control of the game. Silas got loose for a 33-yard run up the near sideline and then Norton did the rest, crossing the goal line from the 5 to give the Cyclones a commanding 24-7 lead.
 
Iowa State used a short field to gets more points when Norton crossed the goal line from the 3 with 3:52 remaining. Back-to-back sacks of Daniels forced Oliver Straw to punt from his own end zone into a stiff wind, and Iowa State took possession of the football at the Mountaineer 34.
 
Overall, Iowa State outgained West Virginia 391 to 200 in total yards. The Cyclones limited the Mountaineers to 2 of 12 on third down and an average of just 4.1 yards on their 49 offensive plays.
 
The Cyclones were only 4 of 13 on third down but were 4 of 5 in their red-zone scoring opportunities. WVU got into the red zone once at the end of the game and scored a touchdown.

"We just haven't played complimentary football very well this year," Brown said. "Today we played good defense, but we played bad on offense. Last week in the first half we played really good offense, not good on defense. We haven't been able to play both sides of the ball consistently very well."

WVU returns to Morgantown to face Oklahoma next Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium Stadium. The Sooners dropped a 38-35 home decision to Baylor earlier today.