Iowa State football mailbag: How much did officiating hurt vs. Baylor? Let's take a look.

AMES — If you like weird and wild, Jack Trice Stadium was the place for you Saturday.

Controversial penalties, lengthy reviews, bizarre touchdowns and an improbably-but-ill-fated comeback made No. 17 Baylor's 31-24 victory over the Cyclones one of the stranger 60 minutes of football at this stadium in some time.

Ultimately, though, it goes down as the first loss of the season, and the Cyclones' first here against a Big 12 opponent since 2019.

What grand conclusions should be made from a game that unfolded with such peculiarity?

Let's get into it in this week's mailbag.

How much did the early penalties have to do with the loss?

Iowa State got hit with three brutally damaging personal foul penalties in the first half that contributed to two Baylor touchdown drives.

The first was a targeting (and ejection) for Beau Freyler in the game's opening minutes. Freyler wasn't initially flagged for a penalty, but a video review led to the call from the officials. Later that drive, Colby Reeder was hit for unnecessary roughness for pushing a Baylor player down to the ground in the open field. Finally, safety Anthony Johnson was called for an illegal block below the waist of a Baylor offensive lineman.

It's indisputable that Iowa State was the recipient of a bad whistle here. The thing to evaluate, I suppose, is whether bad means unlucky or unjust.

More: Iowa State football can't keep pace with reigning Big 12 champs Baylor

When it comes to targeting, the rule is so vague, confusing and infrequently applied that it defies comprehension. I, someone who gets paid to watch and understand this sport closely, am uncertain of what will and won't be flagged for targeting, years into its insertion into the rule book.

There have been instances of targeting that looked more like targeting to me than what Freyler was flagged for, undoubtedly.

So, in my book, that's just a poorly written and executed rule that Iowa State was on the wrong end of against the Bears.

As for Reeder, it certainly wasn't an egregious act of unsportsmanlike conduct, but he did shove a receiver — who wasn't in the play nor was it after a tipped pass — to the ground. So while not some football mortal sin, doing something like that in the secondary is going to draw attention and scrutiny from officials, is my thinking.

The Johnson call? I got nothing on that one. Seemed to just be a poor call with bad consequences for Iowa State.

So however you want to weigh all that — bad unlucky or bad unjustified — those plays were obviously major disruptions to the normal flow of a game.

They didn't, though, allow Baylor to convert a fourth-down for a touchdown in the first quarter. Nor did they surrender the 36-yard pass that preceded Johnson's penalty.

Every play influences the one that flows through it, and every play happens on its own merits. It's what makes sports so entertaining and so maddening as well.

The margins in these Big 12 games is so small that any call that's borderline, let alone egregious, is going to drive fans — or, as Matt Campbell's sideline demeanor showed, coaches — batty, and understandably so.

Is Iowa State bad?

There's plenty of nuance to get into about what to make of Iowa State after its first loss, but I don't think the conclusion that Iowa Sate is "bad" would be a particularly useful or accurate one.

Put that into the fact Baylor is the defending league champ, a top-25 ranked team and has been solid through its first three games, this loss does not portend any great collapse after the 3-0 start.

I do think there are certainly areas of concern for the Cyclones that need to be addressed.

The running game has been boom-or-bust. Hunter Dekkers had his least productive game of the season. The Iowa State defense had its poorest tackling game of the year.

All those could prove to be flukes, or they could persist through the season. I don't think any of them rise to the level of concern that Iowa State is "bad." They may be a work in progress and they probably aren't Big 12 contenders, but this seems to be a solid football team, in my estimation.

We'll find out more next week at undefeated Kansas.

Is turnover differential going to be an issue?

In its two games against Power 5 opponents, Iowa State has turned it over four times while only forcing a pair of turnovers.

Small sample size, so we'll see.

The issue at hand that's tangential to that question, though, is playmaking.

The two blocked punts by Iowa weren't an interception or a lost fumble, it they're as much — if not more — impactful. Going 99 yards against the Hawkeyes is a masterful bit of playmaking over the course of 12 minutes.

Iowa State is going to need to sometimes tilt things in its direction with big plays. They've made their fair share this year, but limiting the opponent in that category is almost just as important.

Travis Hines covers Iowa State University sports for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or  (515) 284-8000. Follow him at @TravisHines21.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State football mailbag: How much did officiating hurt vs. Baylor?