IOWA CITY, Iowa — As Iowa quarterback Cade McNamara’s Hail Mary heave fell 7 yards shy of the end zone and landed in the hands of Iowa State defensive back Darien Porter, shock turned into acceptance for the Hawkeyes.

After a dominating first half and twice leading by double digits, the No. 21 Hawkeyes taught a master-level class on how to blow a winnable ball game in a 20-19 loss to Iowa State. The blame is all-encompassing from scheme to execution. Everywhere you look, there was either a personnel breakdown or a head-scratching coaching decision. Everyone takes a bite of this sandwich.

Rather than address the issues chronologically, let’s begin with the Cyclones’ game-winning sequence. Iowa State kicker Kyle Konrardy drilled a 54-yard field goal with six seconds left to provide the winning margin. But the Hawkeyes committed two critical mistakes to put Konrardy in range. Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht completed a 30-yard pass up the right sideline to receiver Jaylin Noel, who streaked past defensive back Sebastian Castro for the reception. Castro was in man coverage but passed Noel off to safety Quinn Schulte, which left the receiver wide open.

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That play might not have mattered had Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz chosen a different option on the previous possession. With time dwindling inside one minute, Iowa faced fourth-and-8 from its 46-yard line. Rather than call timeout, Ferentz elected to take a delay-of-game penalty with the clock hitting 40 seconds left. The decision backed the Hawkeyes up 5 yards for a punt that was fair caught at the Cyclones’ 22-yard line with 34 seconds left. The extra 5 yards were worth more than one extra second on the clock.

“I didn’t think yardage was very significant at that point in the field,” Ferentz said. “We were at midfield. Six of one, half-dozen of another. There was really no benefit, unless I’m missing something.

“He could punt the ball out of the end zone. It didn’t matter. The yardage really wasn’t important. But to your point, we could have. We took a couple timeouts home with us.”

But those plays don’t end up under a microscope if it wasn’t for the Hawkeyes’ goal-line calamities.  Twice in the second quarter, the Hawkeyes had the ball first-and-goal inside Iowa State’s 3-yard line — including one series starting at the 1 — only to wind up with field goals.

Both times, the Hawkeyes lined up in a four-tight end formation on first down. With first-and-goal at the 1, McNamara had a reverse-pivot handoff to running back Kamari Moulton, who was leveled by Iowa State defensive tackle Domonique Orange. The Hawkeyes attempted an inside zone but asked tight end Johnny Pascuzzi to block down on Orange, who tossed him aside. The run ended in a 3-yard loss. The next play was a reverse action run by receiver T.J. Washington for a 1-yard loss. A third-down incompletion led to a field goal. This entire series was set up by Iowa linebacker Jay Higgins’ interception at the ISU 12.

Three possessions later, Iowa drove the ball from its 20 to the Iowa State 3. On both first and second down from the 3-yard line, Iowa lined up with four tight ends. The first play was an incomplete pass and the second was a run for no gain. On third down, Iowa shifted to its two-tight end, two-receiver formation.  McNamara threw toward tight end Addison Ostrenga in the back of the end zone. While coverage was tight, it wasn’t an impossible throw.

In both cases, Iowa strayed from the personnel groupings it used to advance down the field. On the first series, offensive coordinator Tim Lester got too cute. The second time, Iowa State dropped eight defenders in the end zone on passing plays.

“We’ll obviously be reevaluating that again after (Sunday) when we look at the film and see what we need to do to be better, but it’s just an ongoing thing,” Ferentz said. “You want to have those things available certainly down in there where things are pretty tight. There are a couple plays there that obviously we could have executed better that pushed us back, set us back.”

Iowa could have survived the red zone issues and the late-game breakdown had the passing game been remotely effective for the final three quarters. After the first quarter, McNamara was 8-of-11 passing for 72 yards. Over the final three quarters, he was 5-of-18 for 27 yards and two interceptions.

Timing-wise, McNamara’s first interception ranks as the worst passing decision in recent Iowa memory. With a 13-0 lead early in the third quarter and the ball on Iowa State’s 42-yard line, McNamara rolled to his right, then threw across his body toward the left sideline. He badly underthrew tight end Luke Lachey, and Porter pulled down the interception. It came directly after a 30-yard Iowa State punt to open the second half, and the Hawkeyes could have ended the game’s competitive phase with a scoring drive. Instead, they gave the Cyclones life.

“I just made a dumb decision,” McNamara said. “I should have just thrown it away. I just can’t force a ball in that situation.”

McNamara’s inconsistency remains an issue for the offense. Last week, he completed 8-of-17 passes in the first half then hit 13-of-14 in the second. Regardless, Ferentz remains unwavering in his support of McNamara.

“We expect him to be our quarterback,” Ferentz said. “I expect some ups and downs. I’ve been saying it pretty consistently. He’s still working his way back into shape, as is our whole team with the offense and whatever. But we’ll get better. We’ll improve.”

Iowa’s defense is built to stop the run and not give up big plays. Yet in the third quarter, the Hawkeyes inexplicably gave up a 75-yard touchdown pass from Becht to Noel. Lining up in the right slot, Noel had a free release and had no mandated re-route when he reached the second level. Noel then raced past safety Xavier Nwankpa and was wide open for the score. Higgins took the fall for failing to re-route Noel while defensive coordinator Phil Parker benched Nwankpa for Koen Entringer.

Finally, the game might have gone to overtime had the Hawkeyes made a different choice one snap before Noel’s touchdown. Iowa running back Kaleb Johnson burst into the end zone from the 3-yard line to put the Hawkeyes ahead 19-7. Instead of kicking the extra point, Ferentz opted for a two-point conversion, and McNamara’s pass toward Reece Vander Zee fell incomplete. An extra point was critical.

“I thought it gave us our best chance to win the football game,” Ferentz said on why he opted for the two-point attempt. “To me, the bigger issue is us not getting one touchdown out of those two field goal opportunities, and we had the ball down inside there close. That’s obviously an area we’re going to have to improve on.”

It took a collection of errors and bad decisions for Iowa to lose this game, and that’s by no means a slight to Iowa State’s resilience. A week into September, questions are piling up for the Hawkeyes. There’s still time to come up with the answers, but the stench of this defeat will stick with them for the rest of this season and beyond.

(Photo of Cade McNamara: Matthew Holst / Getty Images)

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Matt Campbell was seething.

The Iowa State coach paced the sideline at Kinnick Stadium in the third quarter Saturday, incensed by a special teams blunder in a game that had been filled with them for his team. Campbell lit into an assistant. He dropped his play sheet and picked it up, before resuming the screaming.

“Our kids’ poise was probably better than their head coach’s,” Campbell later admitted.

Campbell became so wound up because he felt the Cyclones once again were “teetering on the edge” of being out of the game against No. 21 Iowa, a chief rival and a team that had often brought out the worst in Iowa State during Campbell’s successful tenure.

But the Cyclones bounced back, erasing deficits of 13 and 12 points and rallying to win 20-19 following Kyle Konrardy’s 54-yard field goal with six seconds to play. The victory was Iowa State’s second straight at Iowa as it improved to 2-6 in the Cy-Hawk series under Campbell.

“The teams that have elite success in our sport, it still takes mental toughness, I don’t care if it’s Georgia or Ohio State or if it’s Iowa State,” Campbell said. “That’s the best I’ve seen at Iowa State in my time here, having the ability to respond in a football game in an environment like this. I’ve never seen it.”

Iowa State finished the first half with 101 yards, zero third-down conversions, five penalties — mostly of the pre-snap variety — one turnover and no points. The Cyclones started two drives inside their own 6-yard line, which prevented them from even launching their offensive game plan.

But Iowa couldn’t fully capitalize, twice settling for field goals inside the ISU 6-yard line. When Cyclones cornerback Darien Porter intercepted a cross-field throw from Iowa’s Cade McNamara, a switch flipped.

“My freshman year, I used to guard him all the time, and he was tough to guard at receiver,” cornerback Myles Purchase said. “To see him be able to do this in his senior year, his last year, to be able to perform like this is something special.”

Iowa State went 75 yards in nine plays, scoring on a 3-yard pass from Rocco Becht to Jayden Higgins against an Iowa defense that hadn’t allowed a point through its first six-plus quarters. Then, after Iowa responded with a touchdown, Becht found Jaylin Noel for a 75-yard score.

“We wanted to be more aggressive in that second half, because we thought we were pushing the ball in the first, just couldn’t get over those little humps, the pre-snap operations,” Becht said. “We couldn’t really get past the 50-yard line, so we had to pivot a little bit.”

The Cyclones maintained an assertive approach on the game’s decisive possession, down 19-17 with no timeouts and the ball at their 22-yard line. Becht found Noel streaking up the sideline for 30 yards, a late-game play that ISU had not practiced all week but kept stored for the right moment.

Konrardy had not attempted a field goal in a game before Saturday, while wowing teammates and coaches during practice with a leg that can connect from more than 60 yards. He missed a 41-yard attempt before halftime, but Campbell wasn’t worried, grateful to only be down 13 and with full faith in Konrardy.

The redshirt freshman hit easily from 46 yards early in the fourth quarter and was called upon again with nine seconds to play. As he walked out, Becht reminded him: “This is just like practice.”

“Not think,” Konrardy said of his pre-kick routine. “That’s it. Just go out there, not think and do what you do.”

Iowa State recorded its largest comeback since 2020, when it trailed Baylor by 14 points, and its biggest on the road since 2017, when it dug out of a 14-point hole to stun No. 3 Oklahoma. The rally also marked ISU’s biggest against Iowa since 2002, when the Cyclones came from 17 points down to beat a Hawkeye team that went 11-2 and finished No. 8 nationally.

“We talk in our own program, it’s a law of progression, nothing ever just goes straight to success,” Campbell said. “You’re going to have failures, you’re going to have blips, but the great teams, man, the special ones, they can make those down moments blips and get right back on the road to success. For our kids to be able to show that, in this environment, against this football team, it’s really impressive.”

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz returned Saturday from a one-game suspension stemming from a recruiting violation, entering the field in warmups as 50 Cent’s “Many Men” played in the stadium. Ferentz said he remained committed to McNamara, who completed just 13 of 29 passes for 99 yards and had just 19 passing yards after halftime.

“It’s a big game for everybody in the state, certainly no bigger than the players on both sides and the coaches,” Ferentz said. “After a loss like this, it’s tough. There’s not much you can say to make anybody feel any better.”

The Cyclones had experienced plenty of bad feelings in the series under Campbell, but Saturday’s win could propel them toward bigger goals.

“Whenever we would get down in this game, we knew in our hearts that we would be able to come back,” Purchase said. “None of us got down. That’s a big growth from what we’ve had in the past.”

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