Meanwhile, Iowa State is still in eighth place in the Big 12, but the Cylones are percolating. They’ve won two in a row and embarrassed Texas Tech Saturday. They’re still playing for plenty, too. Iowa State hasn’t won three straight games since 2012 and haven’t won four overall games or three conference games since the same season.

“I think we’ve been learning the whole season,” Campbell said. “You saw a team get better as the season’s gone on leaning how to practice, learning how to prepare, what detail looks like. When we played Kansas, I didn’t think we played our best football early in the game.

“I think my greatest challenge was that, even though there was a lot of relief we won a game, my challenge to the football team was by the end of the season, can we put forth 60 minutes of our best football and play at the level we have the ability to play at? One thing this team hadn’t done yet was play a consistent four quarters. We practiced well last week and certainly earned the right to attempt to do that.”