4 reasons why Texas football could ravage Iowa State in Week 7
Texas football and head coach Steve Sarkisian will be seeking their third straight win in Big 12 play this weekend when they host head coach Matt Campbell and the Iowa State Cyclones at home on Oct. 15 at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Meanwhile, Iowa State will be looking to snap a losing skid this weekend by pulling the upset of Texas.
There is plenty of momentum on the side of Sark and the Longhorns coming into this one after two straight wins over the Oklahoma Sooners and West Virginia Mountaineers by a combined margin of 67 points. Last weekend, the Longhorns downed the Sooners in the Red River Rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas by the final score of 49-0.
On the other hand, Iowa State comes into this contest riding a three-game losing streak. Last weekend, Iowa State fell short by a razor-thin one-point margin at home against the No. 20 Kansas State Wildcats. Iowa State has now lost its last three games by a combined margin of 11 points. And none of those three losses came by more than one score.
Iowa State has played a lot of close games. But the fact of the matter is that the Cyclones just don’t match up too well on paper with the Longhorns.
Why Texas football can dominate Iowa State in Week 7
With that in mind, here’s a look at four reasons why the Longhorns could decimate the Cyclones in Week 7.
T’Vondre Sweat single handedly wrecked this 4th & 1 🥵 pic.twitter.com/OGfidSFfSG
— Landon Holifield ✭ (@TheLandoShow) October 10, 2022
Texas can dominate the line of scrimmage vs. Iowa State’s ground game
One aspect where Texas can get an edge on Iowa State in this game is at the line of scrimmage in run defense. Texas should have a pretty massive advantage when it comes to successfully defending a struggling Iowa State ground game.
Iowa State doesn’t have that usual bell cow of a running back that we’ve gotten used to under head coach Matt Campbell (i.e. Breece Hall and David Montgomery). And the running backs that Iowa State does have are pretty banged up at the moment.
According to Campbell’s press conference on Oct. 11, redshirt junior running back Jirehl Brock and freshman Cartevious Norton both weren’t 100 percent against Kansas State last weekend. And it still doesn’t sound like there is certainty surrounding their injury status heading into the Texas game.
Moreover, even when healthy at running back this season, Iowa State wasn’t very effective on the ground. According to College Football Data, Iowa State ranks at the bottom of the Big 12 in rushing play success rate (41.1 percent), which is also good for 96th in the FBS.
To make matter worse for Iowa State, Texas ranks at the top of the Big 12 in terms of run play success rate allowed this season (32.7 percent), which is also good for top 10 in the FBS.
Leading the way for this standout run defense is the interior defensive line trio of sophomore nose tackle Byron Murphy, senior Keondre Coburn, and senior T’Vondre Sweat. These three interior defensive linemen rank among the six best in the Big 12 this season in run defense grade.
Texas holds the clear advantage against Iowa State’s ground game, which will make it tough for a one-dimensional offense to move the ball behind the arm of quarterback Hunter Dekkers. But we’ll get more into the issue with putting the game in Dekkers’ hands later in this list.