Paul Rhoads
Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads hopes a big home crowd will be on hand this Saturday when the Cyclones host Kansas. I.S.U. evened its season record at 4-4 with a 41-7 victory at Texas Tech.
He says they’ve already shattered the season ticket record and hope to get another crowd of 50,000 or better.
The Cyclones dominated the game at Tech from start to finish and Rhoads wishes there were a way to “bottle” that effort. He says if you could there would be a lot of successful coaches and teams.
Rhoads says you just have to prepare like they did for the game and hope to be successful again on Saturday.
Rhoads says it was their most complete effort by far on offense, defense and special teams on the road against a ranked Big 12 opponent.
In his first start, freshman quarterback Jared Barnett led the Cyclones to their first Big 12 victory of the season and Rhoads says he was most impressed by his ability to run the ball.
Rhoads says Barnett has a gift as a runner to cut back and make people miss and says he rides the fake a little longer to create more doubt in the mind of the defense about who will have the football. After spending the past few weeks as a substantial underdog the Cyclones will be favored against a Kansas team that is 2-6.
Rhoads says their focus is to improve instead of avoiding the pitfalls of a great victory, as he says they’ve seen what they can do if they play a complete came and want to continue building toward that this Saturday.