Arnold Barnes III

102 total yards of rushing offense, 85 of those came from Aiden Flora.

Arnold Barnes was the only other running back to get a carry on Friday, because we wanna talk about positives.

I guess the positive would be we thought Aiden Flora blew out his knee for about .3 seconds there, and everybody was freaking out, 'cause he's holding the back of his leg like, "What the hell is going on?" And he jumps back in.

Barnes takes one carry, and the rest was history.

He caught a couple of balls.

He was in some of the passing game.

Arnold Barnes looks healthy.

And what about River Peppers? We talked about him.

Does have a game in there against West Virginia, but still a very solid stat line.

Arnold Barnes, your second running back, at 25 carries, Camp Pettaway at 21.

They have 90 and 51 yards respectively.

I'm a little concerned about this running back room.

Um, I think that there are other talented backs in the room for Iowa State.

Arnold Barnes and Camp Pettaway are your number two and three running back as far as, uh, yards on the season.

And then you also have River Peppers who came in for that West Virginia game.

Love to know more about that, but, um, those kinds of guys can help split up the carries.

So I'm gonna go with river peppers here.

I think he's kind of now that RB two, I think him being back just kind of shoved Arnold Barnes back to RB three at for the moment.

Um, So I think he's going to be that – he could be that secondary back behind Aiden Flora.

And Aiden Flora got so much – like, he's going to get so much attention.

So you, you gotta take advantage of those opportunities when you can get them.

We've seen Iowa State come up short in some third and three opportunities this season, and when you are in those opportunities, just like Jimmy Rogers said after the Bowling Green game after I asked him about Arnold Barnes' performance, which we all thought was pretty good, 80 yards, couple touchdowns.

He said, "Well, he got stuffed on fourth and one.

Can't happen." I- it's plays like that where Iowa State is going to have to bat 1,000 to be in this ballgame and potentially win it.

The only reason we haven't seen more of the playbook is because the situation has not called for it or the situation has precluded the possibility of opening, opening up the playbook more, and, um, be interesting to see what other types of creative wrinkles, uh, they throw out there on that side of the ball as well.

And I think, too, like you go back to some of those guys that you mentioned, like, you know, what can Iowa State add for River Peppers? I thought when he played, those were the first steps he's gotten all season were that West Virginia game in that second quarter, and he looked pretty good for a guy that's coming off an Achilles injury, and I know he only had a handful of plays.

But, I mean, that's a guy that you can keep working into the offense to get more comfortable as the season gets on, and, you know, how great is it to have a guy like that who can take some pressure off Aiden Flores, who doesn't have to run the ball 20-plus times a game, and say, "Hey, Arnold Barnes, here's your f- five, eight carries you're gonna get a game.

Hey, eight, River Peppers, here's your 10 carries that you're gonna get." That way you don't have to rely on, you know, Aiden Flores, one of the best running backs in this league.

I think he's kind of that star, but within that running back room, we did get some more kind of developments today.

River Peppers made a season debut after missing almost all of last season with an achilles injury so behind floor is also a good question because my pick to click didn't really click today with arnold barnes kind of only going barnes only carried the ball twice for two yards and got stopped when they kind of sent him in there and a goal line situation but river peppers was kind of that welcome they he had the same amount of carries as hayden floor the first half they both had six carries in the first half

Yeah, and that was something I asked Jimmy Rogers after the game, how important it is to have an offensive playmaker like this for the early stages of a program and was asking specifically about Aiden Flora.

And he obviously said it's a great deal to have someone like Aiden Flora performing the way that he is so far this season.

And it looks like River Peppers could be the person.

Kim Petaway, week in, week out, continues to not look like... that type of player in Iowa State's offense.

I think Arnold Barnes, you can say the same thing about.

The two of them combined for five carries and 10 yards today.

Then kind of recedes a little bit and then shows up in the big, uh, get in the way block and Camp Pettaway's, uh, 100 yard kickoff return, and then makes a, a big touchdown on a f- a, a catch on a fade in the Utah game to help bring the Cyclones back to, to close to, to, to really making that a full game.

Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, if, if I'm their defensive coordinator that's a ma- uh, absolutely what I'd do because Flora, Pettaway, Arnold, Barnes, I think in the way that offensive line operates, if, if you get that rolling early, that'll make Rainer more comfortable.

They can utilize a little bit of the tempo that he operates best in.

If you forced him to do it right away, it's a different situation.