IOWA STATE

OFFENSE Part of me wants to go full chaos and say Sam Dekkers, but I’ll refrain from doing that. Instead I’m going to pick the Iowa State receiving corps, just as an entity. They’ve been severely lacking, and you can’t place all the blame on the QB. There were times where Purdy had a lot of time to throw the ball, or extended the play and just didn’t have anywhere to throw it.

Xavier Hutchinson is the only Cyclone with more than 100 receiving yards this season, and it’s still early, but someone else needs to step up. Whether it’s Tarique Milton (5 receptions for 59 yards), Darren Wilson (3 receptions for 62 yards), or Joe Scates (A whopping 2 receptions for 9 yards) someone needs to get open for our passing game to be worth anything.

DEFENSE Will McDonald should scare the daylights out of every living QB left on our schedule. He gets held damn near every play, and it simply does not matter. That guys gets to the QB, pressures him, pushes him, or sacks him on what feels like every other play. McDonald already has 2.5 sacks on the year and is closing in on the career mark that Ja’Quan Bailey set a year ago.

If Iowa’s O Line had a hard time containing Will, I don’t have high hopes for UNLV. I expect McDonald to have a big day Saturday.

UNLV

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

OFFENSE “You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this position” says Doug Brumfield. I have no idea how or why this happened, but what a photo by Christian Petersen here. Brumfield is the starting QB, for now, so we’re going to focus on him. It seems like passing is a last resort option for Brumfield, and his first read is to run. Iowa State has infamously struggled with mobile QB’s, but our defense against UNI gives me hope that we’ve cracked the code on how to contain a dual-threat QB.

Brumfield has only passed the ball 26 times in the first two games, and completed 11 of them for a less than stellar 42% completion rate. He is the team’s second leading rusher with 70 yards on the season. I think Iowa State should be able to stack the box, and dare Brumfield to throw it over the top and beat us through the air.

DEFENSE Jacoby Windmon leads UNLV in tackles and sacks. Windmon is a sure tackler, but can also make the big play. He was top 10 in the conference last year in both sacks and forced fumbles.

The defense as a unit, isn’t up to par with the defenses we’ve played over the past two weeks. They’ve allowed 35 points to both of the first teams they played. One of them, FCS west coast powerhouse, Eastern Washington beat UNLV 35-33 in a double OT season opener. Please, please, let us beat this team by 30+ points. ULM 2019, round 2, please.