Did Iowa State’s rushing attack struggle vs. Baylor? Stats say yes. Matt Campbell says no.

AMES — After six-straight years of NFL running backs in the backfield, the standard for rushing the ball at Iowa State is high.

David Montgomery and Breece Hall made things very good for the Cyclone offense for a very long time. It also changes — elevates — the definition of what constitutes a successful run game.

The 66 yards on 27 carries — 2.4 per carry — that Iowa State officially posted Saturday against Baylor certainly wouldn’t qualify.

Those numbers include starting running back Jirehl Brock’s last attempt going for 37 yards and a touchdown, making the Iowa State’s running game until the game’s second-to-last offensive possession even more gnarly.

That was not the case, though, according to Iowa State coach Matt Campbell.

“I don’t even think that’s a real statement, to be honest,” Campbell said when asked about a lack of rushing success before Brock’s long fourth-quarter run. “When you’re playing from behind a little bit, you’re leaning on the passing game to try to get you going. The reality of that is that even handing the ball off a little bit, there’s a couple three-and-outs, the stats make it look different than the reality of it.”

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Campbell certainly has a point, to a degree.

Most obviously, the 20 yards lost on four sacks of Hunter Dekkers is noise in the Cyclones’ final rushing tally. Without those, Iowa State got 86 yards on 23 carries, which averages out to 3.7 yards per carry. Iowa State was averaging 4.3 yards per carry coming into the day while they averaged 5.1 in each of the last two years and 4.2 in 2019 (not adjusting for sack yardage).

Until Brock’s 37-yarder, and adjusting for sacks, Iowa State carried 21 times for 53 yards. That’s 2.5 yards-per-carry.

“They’re really good inside, and they have a really good scheme of how to force you back inside to their big guys,” Brock said of the Bears. “We were doing everything I thought we could. There were sometimes a big run would break, but they did a really good job scheme-wise of eliminating us in the run game.”

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The day started out promisingly enough for the Cyclones with four of Brock’s first five carries going for at least four yards. In his five carries before the 37-yarder, though, none went for more than three.

That 37-yarder, though, does count, and it shouldn’t be discounted as part of evaluating the running game. It wasn’t, though, without its own drama.

Baylor cornerback Lorando Johnson (11) knocks the ball out of Iowa State running back Jirehl Brock’s arm in the fourth quarter at Jack Trice Stadium. Brock recovered the ball in the end zone for an Iowa State touchdown, on what was ISU’s top run of the game.

Brock beat the Baylor defense down the left sideline, and he looked as though he would easily cross the goal-line to bring Iowa State back within two scores. The Bears’ Lorando Johnson, however, knocked the ball from Brock’s arms at the 1-yard line.

It was initially ruled the ball went out of the end zone — which would be a touchback and Baylor ball — but a video review determined that Brock recovered the ball in the end zone before going out of bounds, resulting in a touchdown.

“I would describe it ‘blessed,’ I guess,” Brock said of the play. “It’s not always that the ball bounces right back to you when that happens. That’s on me. I can’t have that mistake. I have to finish that run and get through the end zone without the suspense of it being a fumble or a touchdown.”

A touchdown it was, though, giving the Iowa State running game an undisputed highlight in a game where Iowa State threw it 36 times while recording 16 rushes from its running back and seven for quarterback Hunter Dekkers.

“It was more a flow of the game than it is actual, ‘Man did they have trouble rushing the ball or not?’ Campbell said. “It was kind of the flow of the game and some of the statistics that didn’t allow a rushing game to really start to get rolling in the game.”

Travis Hines covers Iowa State University sports for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or  (515) 284-8000. Follow him at @TravisHines21.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Matt Campbell defends Iowa State football running attack vs. Baylor