The Texas Tech Red Raiders could not halt their three-game losing streak to the Iowa State Cyclones as the Cyclones down the Red Raiders 34-24.

There was a moment where a momentum shift occurred after Red Raider cornerback DaMarcus Fields intercepted a pass from Cyclone quarterback Brock Purdy, setting up Tech inside Cyclone territory. Three plays later, kicker Trey Wolff pushed right a 42-yard field goal. Another three plays later for Iowa State, running back Breece Hall ran in a 30-yard dagger to swing the momentum back the Cyclones.

“Congratulations to Iowa State. They won it. The message in the locker room is a couple things: first of all, when you play a team that’s as good as them, and the program that they’ve built and where they’re at, you can’t come out of the gate and just spot them 20. Obviously, we weren’t dialed in at the beginning enough. Something just wasn’t there, to be honest with you. Don’t read into that wrong. I thought we were emotionally ready to play, but there was just something, you know, really on both sides of the ball that weren’t there, and we didn’t have the fast start, especially on defense that we had before. The second thing coming out of that deal is it was very interesting to see us fight back. You get it to 20-10, and then we fought. We came out of halftime, put a good drive together. Unfortunately, it finishes with a field goal, and then it’s right back. We almost had a walk-off, basically right there, they get another lead and we kind of fought back. So, on the one front, it seemed like it was about to crumble and was going to be not in the game, and all of a sudden, we had a few guys that step up and make plays. We had a pick, and unfortunately, we don’t convert it in a touchdown late after (DaMarcus Fields’s) interception. We had some guys fight…”

After the DaMarcus Fields interception, the crowd felt a swing in momentum after getting a stop before on the last Cyclone drive. The pick set up the Red Raiders comfortably in Iowa State territory. After a three-and-out, kicker Trey Wolff pushed right a 42-yard field goal.

Three plays on the following Cyclone drive, a 30-yard touchdown from Breece Hall sent fans to the exits.

Wells said he was disappointed after the kick but tried to keep his head held high with his place kicker.

“It’s an emotional game,” Wells said, “but I try to keep a level head and a lot of that stuff, but Trey has had a good season. He just didn’t get his hips through. He knew it right when he came over; he said, ‘Coach, I didn’t get my hips through it. That’s on me.’ But I mean, it’s absolutely within his range.”

The offense didn’t produce as well as it has in recent games, with Duffey throwing 239 yards on 40-52 passes and one score. RJ Turner led the team in receiving for the second straight game with 11 catches for 76 yards. TJ Vasher had the lone air-touchdown on the day. On the ground, SaRodorick Thompson ran for 57 yards on ten carries and two touchdowns. Still, the offense combined for 407 total yards.

Many of the plays called were designed screens, much different from the Oklahoma State game which was an air-fest.

Wells said the offense was not effective and did not do a good job blocking on the perimeter, negating time for quarterback Jett Duffey to maneuver his options.

“We had some shots early,” Wells said, “protection breakdown. Jett didn’t see it, a couple times we had guys open. We certainly need to take more shots, we need to execute better shots, to be dead honest with you.

“When I say take more shots, don’t read into that that David didn’t call enough shots. That’s certainly, probably internally we’ll look at a handful that maybe you could’ve called a little bit more, but you can’t put yourself in 3rd & 8, 3rd & 10, 2nd & 10. Any of us know what’s coming next in terms of that.”

With the loss, Iowa State is now 10-0 in the month of October in the last three years (Alabama is the only other school to do so in the same time period). In addition, Tech rides a two-game losing streak heading into a road game at Kansas. Tech has yet to win a game on the road and have ample opportunity to end that streak with the 6 p.m. start next Saturday.

Tech drops to 3-4 on the season and 1-3 in Big 12 play heading into Lawrence next Saturday night.