Iowa State football's maturation under Matt Campbell comes into focus

AMES – The roster made it obvious.

Iowa State football was moving into a new era with so many of the players responsible for the unprecedented success of the previous five years departing the program. With coach Matt Campbell still at the helm, it would be the same program, but the challenge would be to sustain success rather than create it.

It didn’t take any special insight to see what was coming, but, at the same time, something a little more subtle was taking place as well.

While Iowa State the football team was getting younger, Iowa State the football program was maturing into something akin to middle age.

After six years under Campbell, Iowa State football has shifted from up-and-comer to a blueprint that other programs are looking to replicate. It also illustrates how the task at hand has shifted for the Cyclones.

“That’s a program in many ways we look to emulate,” second-year Kansas coach Lance Leipold said. “It’s a high compliment to Matt Campbell and his staff.”

Leipold has an even deeper hole to dig out of with the Jayhawks than Campbell had with the Cyclones, but it’s not just Kansas (4-0, 1-0), which hosts Iowa State on Saturday (2:30 p.m.; ESPN2), that looks to Ames for some inspiration.

Even the defending Big 12 champions envy what Campbell has built and is trying to build upon.

“The view of who you want to be and consistently look like,” Baylor coach Dave Aranda said last week, “Iowa State is that in a lot of ways.

“They’re a tough outfit. A lot of respect for them, a lot of respect for their coach.”

That makes two weeks in a row that opponents have pointed to the Iowa State program as something to mimic.

It underscores how far the Cyclones (3-1, 0-1 Big 12) have come since Campbell took over a program that won eight total games from 2013-15. It also highlights that the challenge he and the program now face is something different.

It’s not building a foundation for success. That’s been done. Now it’s about going higher – and staying there.

“When I talk about my respect for Matt Campbell and the staff and the program, it’s because you could see that they didn’t have to go out and add a lot to keep themselves going in the direction,” Leipold said, “which goes again to culture and development and retention and all the things you strive for.”

The project of ushering Iowa State into this next chapter is only four games old, but the results are promising. The Cyclones are 3-1 with a one-possession loss to a top-25 Baylor team the lone blemish. Perhaps more important, though, the Cyclones don’t appear to have made a major talent downgrade despite the losses of so many all-time program players.

It’s what happens in the next weeks – and years – that will determine if Iowa State remains the model for programs trying to move up the ladder from the ground level.

“They looked a lot different than we did,” Leipold said of the Cyclones’ 59-7 beatdown of the Jayhawks last year. “When we pulled up to their facilities, how different that was.

“That was an eye-opening, humbling, 30-some hours there. It helps start setting my expectations of what I need to do here.”

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 success something 4-0 Kansas looks to 'emulate'