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.”