It takes a complete football team to win a championship. Iowa State is finding that out with each passing week.

Seemingly left for dead in the heated Big 12 Conference race, the Cyclones now find themselves one win away from competing for the league title following a thrilling 31-28 victory over Utah Saturday night.

Iowa State (9-2, 7-2) reached the nine-win mark before a bowl game for the first time in program history, and could end one of the longest droughts in NCAA history by reaching 10 wins. The Cyclones and Vanderbilt are the only remaining Power 5 programs to never reach 10 wins, as Indiana did earlier this year.

After taking a 24-13 lead on Utah midway through the third quarter, the Cyclones needed a rally, scoring the game-winning touchdown with 91 seconds to go. The defense forced a missed field goal to seal the win.

Here are three stars from Iowa State’s win over Utah: 

Known for his power running, Carson Hansen showed off his arm on a key third-down trick play that led to his second rushing touchdown. Hansen, a sophomore, took a halfback pass and found Gabe Burkle for a 26-yard completion. 

That put the ball at the Utah 3 and Hansen would plow his way into the end zone on the next play for the game-winning points. He finished the night with a team-high 57 yards on 14 carries to go along with the 26-yard pass while also catching two balls for another 28 yards. 

At 6-2 and over 220 pounds, Hansen is the thunder to Abu Sama’s lightning. He now has 11 rushing touchdowns on the year to go along with 560 yards after rushing for just 67 last season as a freshman.

Anytime Rocco Becht needed to make a big play in the passing game, he looked in the direction of Jayden Higgins. And Higgins stepped up for his quarterback, who was not quite as sharp as he typically has been.

Higgins finished with nine receptions for 155 yards and a touchdown, surpassing 1,000 yards for the season. The 6-foot-4 senior out of South Miami became just the seventh different Cyclone to reach the number after missing out last year with 983 yards. 

With at least two, and maybe more, games to go, Higgins sits sixth on the school’s single-season list for yards with 1,015. Hakeem Butler is first with 1,318. Higgins and teammate Jaylin Noel, who has 976 yards, are set to become the first Cyclone teammates to eclipse 1,000 yards in the same season in school history.

Higgins is also just two yards away from becoming just the 10th Iowa State receiver to reach 2,000 career yards, joining the likes of Allen Lazard, Xavier Hutchinson and Charlie Kolar, along with Noel. 

It’s been a difficult season in regards to injuries on both sides of the ball for Iowa State. But the defense has really been hurt with Malik Verdon out.

Verdon, a junior, recorded a team-leading 12 tackles including a sack, as the Cyclones held Utah to just 99 yards of total offense through three quarters. 

And while the Utes were able to finally put together sustained drives in the fourth, when they needed to make a play, Iowa State did. Verdon went out for a short time after appearing to reinjure his arm that has a cast due to a hairline fracture, but would return to the field later in the fourth.

The Iowa State football team has two weeks to solidify themselves and possibly land a spot in the Big 12 championship game in December.

Part one of the two-piece series starts Saturday night, as the Cyclones (8-2, 5-2) make a visit to Salt Lake City to play Utah (4-6, 1-6).

Sitting a game behind co-conference leaders BYU and Colorado, Iowa State is in position but on the outside looking in for the time being. They also have red-hot Arizona State to contend with, as the Sun Devils have quickly climbed the standings and sit tied with ISU.

Utah has dropped six straight since starting the season off 4-0 as preseason favorites to win the Big 12. Of those six losses, four have been decided by eight points or less. Last Saturday, though, they suffered a 25-point setback to Colorado.

Along with several tough losses, the Utes have been without star quarterback Cam Rising since the losing skid began. Rising is out for the season following multiple injuries, as Isaac Wilson – the brother of NFL QB Zack Wilson – has replaced him. 

Iowa State and Utah have a bit of a history, playing each other five times between 1970-2010. The Cyclones won the first four meetings between the two while the Utes won the most recent, claiming a 68-27 victory. Utah was undefeated and ranked 10th in the country during that encounter.

The oddsmakers have the Cyclones set as a 6.5-point favorite. ESPN’s FPI puts them at just over 63 percent to win the game. 

Here are the details on how to watch, stream and follow Iowa State’s game at Utah on Saturday night:

Iowa State at Utah TV Channel, Live Stream, Odds

Who: Iowa State at Utah in a Big 12 football game

When: 6:30 p.m. CT | Saturday, November 23

Where: Rice-Eccles Stadium | Salt Lake City, Utah

Live Stream: Stream Iowa State-Cincinnati live on fuboTV (Start your free trial)

TV Channel: FOX

Betting Odds: Iowa State is favored by 6.5 points. Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportbook

Our Prediction: Iowa State 24, Utah 10

Live Updates, Highlights: Follow the game on Iowa State on SI for live updates, in-game analysis and big-play highlights throughout Saturday’s matchup.

* Latest betting odds for Iowa State

* Matt Campbell talks up the Utah defense

* Cyclones right back into contention in wild, wild Big 12

*Three stars in Iowa State’s win over Cincinnati including Stevo Klotz

*Complete game recap of Iowa State’s win over Cincinnati

Utah lawmakers will consider changes to how recently-retired public employees are paid if they later choose to work or volunteer as emergency responders during the upcoming legislative session.

The change is largely administrative, Kory Cox, director of legislative and government affairs for the Utah Retirement System, told lawmakers on Tuesday. The proposed bill would change the compensation limit for first responders like volunteer firefighters, search and rescue personnel and reserve law enforcement, from $500 per month to roughly $20,000 per year.

Some public employees already serve as first responders in addition to their day jobs, Cox and other advocates told the Retirement and Independent Entities Interim Committee at a hearing Tuesday. The current statute has forced those employees to put their service on hold after they retire in order to keep their retirement benefits.

Volunteer firefighters do get paid, despite what their title suggests. Volunteer organizations pay their emergency responders every six months, said Cedar City Fire Chief Mike Phillips, so their paychecks almost always amount to more than $500. Switching from a monthly compensation limit to an annual compensation limit means new retirees can keep up their service, or take up new service, without jeopardizing their retirement benefits.

“As volunteer agencies, a lot of our employees are government employees,” said Cedar City Fire Chief Mike Phillips. “They work for county and state governments because they allow them to leave their employment to come help us fight fires.”

Clint Smith, Draper City fire chief and president of the Utah State Fire Chiefs Association, told lawmakers Tuesday that volunteerism, “especially in rural volunteer fire agencies,” but also across Utah and the United States, is “decreasing dramatically.”

The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) reported 676,900 volunteer firefighters in the United States, down from 897,750 when the agency started keeping track in 1984. A U.S. Fire Administrations guide book about retention and recruitment for volunteer firefighters published last year wrote that the decline “took place while the United States population grew from nearly 236 million to over 331 million in the same time frame, indicating that volunteerism in the fire and emergency services has not kept pace with population growth.”

The consequences, the guide says, are “dire.”

Roughly 64% of Utah’s fire agencies are volunteer-only, according to the U.S. Fire Administration.

“Anything we can do to help make sure that [volunteers] are not penalized when they separate from their full regular [employment] with the state, to be able to still act in that volunteer capacity is vital to the security and safety of our communities,” Smith said Tuesday.

It was an easy sell for lawmakers. The committee voted unanimously to adopt the bill as a committee bill in the 2025 legislative session with a favorable recommendation.

Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.