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Well, that's one Big 12 game in the bag, and thank goodness we don't have to deal with Farmageddon in Ames until 2016. It was not an easy victory by any means, but it was also exactly the sort of hard-fought road win a team needs to set itself up for the rest of the season. This game was a wake-up call. The defense needs work as a unit, and especially in fundamental football skills like tackling. Tyler Lockett was possibly hampered by injury, and if we never see the wildcat formation again, it will be too soon. The special teams were less-than-special, and especially on kick/punt coverage. But there were also patches of brilliance in this game. The opening drive showed us how impressive this offense can be when it's firing on all cylinders. The two-minute drill at the end of the first half was as brutally efficient a drive as any K-State team has ever put together. The defense righted itself somewhat in the second half, keeping the Cyclones out of the end zone, and the drive that put the game away was fueled by sheer determination more than anything else. The biggest thing to come out of the game was this: Jake Waters went into the game a quarterback and came out of it a leader. He took the team on his shoulders and he refused to lose, and that is the most Collin Klein thing anyone not named Collin Klein has ever done. Here's a quick list of post-game recaps: from the K-State SID, from Boxscore, from FOXSports, from ESPN, and from our own Jon Morse: The Great Escape. ETA: Don't miss this Campus Insiders video clip of the weekend's most creative catches, including Lockett's first quarter 57-yard grab. The mainstream media also has more in-depth coverage of K-State's win over Iowa State: Ken Corbitt writes the K-State defense rose to the occasion and had its own two-minute drill of sorts in the second half. Kellis Robinett reports on K-State's furious fourth quarter rally, but this article is mostly about Waters. Trying to explain the game, Waters said "[a]nother side of me came out. I really haven't shown it a lot, but I wanted it so bad." His teammates were as surprised as the fans, prompting Curry Sexton to wonder "[w]ho is that guy out there, running around on that last drive?" Kevin Haskin also notes Waters' emergence as a leader and a Sams-like runner. I think we need to stop invoking the name Daniel Sams every time our offense falters a little bit. Bob Lutz is suitably impressed with Waters: Zombie Killer. He also laments the passing of smashmouth football, perhaps suggesting that Lutz himself is more dinosaur than anything else. But it was not all sunshine after the game. Bill Snyder still has Iowa State's number, but that didn't stop him from being especially caustic. This is the money quote: "I've got a tape recorder and two (memory) cards full of mistakes." He also has twelve days to fix those mistakes, or else that game against Auburn is going to turn into a purple waking nightmare. The Collegian grades the game, and while the offense grades out at a B, the rest of the team is barely passing. David Ubben (whose byline I generally react to with "yay!") rounds up Week 2 in the Big 12. There's a good reminder here not to panic, because (a) college football teams don't have static values, i.e. what happens one week does not have an absolute impact on the next week; and (b) any conference road win is a good win. Pete Volk of the mothership riffs on the three things learned from this edition of Farmageddon. I'm not quite on board with him pegging K-State as a distant third to both Oklahoma and Baylor. A conference road game is a different beast than playing either Tulsa or Northerwestern State. K-State barely escaped Ames with a victory, but Iowa State is still looking for answers, and especially on the lack of review on Lockett's catch that set up the K-State touchdown at the end of the first half. Rhoads is angry, but Jarvis West and Sam B. Richardson saw mostly positive things. I think Iowa State might be better than their game against North Dakota State suggested. On that Lockett catch, Mike Pereira thinks the replay officials made a critical error in not reviewing the catch, and not stopping play to review it. I query whether the replay official would have been able to overturn the call on the field, or whether it would have mattered to the outcome, as this happened on first down. Maybe. Highlights from this second week of football? Well, the B1G is terrible, the Pac-12 (or at least Oregon) is sort of awesome, and oh yeah, there's no such thing as a bad Saturday. K-State cross country had a strong showing at the J.K Gold classic duals, with Morgan Wedekind taking first overall and notching her first win in competition. The equestrian team held its Purple-White scrimmage this weekend, with White beating Purple in all but one event. The underclassmen in particular did well at the event. The VolleyCats won the Varney's Invitational event, first with a sweep of Arkansas and then a victory over UCF. The win extended K-State's winning streak at Bramlage to 7-0 and its home winning streak over non-conference opponents to 15.