page_title: History of Iowa State Cyclones football
section_title: 2012 Liberty Bowl
hierarchical_section_title: History of Iowa State Cyclones football / Paul Rhoads era (2009–2015) / 2012 Liberty Bowl
caption_attribution_description: Iowa State University Football coach Paul Rhoads during a game wtih University of Northern Iowa on September 5, 2013.
context_page_description: The Iowa State Cyclones football team represents Iowa State University in American football.
context_section_description: The Cyclones opened the 2012 season 3–0 including a 9–6 win at Iowa for the first time in 10 years. The other major highlight of the season was ending TCU's at then-current longest winning streak in college football. They upset the #15 ranked Horned Frogs in Fort Worth 37–23. The 2012 season ended 6–7 and a berth in that year's Liberty Bowl against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.
  Iowa State stormed out of the gates with a Jeremy Reeves returned an interception 31 yards for a touchdown to put Iowa State up 10–0 with 7:44 remaining in the first quarter. After Tulsa responded with a nine-play drive that resulted in a touchdown, Sam Richardson hit Ernst Brun, who scampered in for the 69 yard score to make it 17–7 at the end of the opening stanza. That would be all the scoring for the Cyclones as Tulsa responded with the final 24 points of the game. Richardson, who battled illness, finished 10-for-21 for 129 yards in the air. The redshirt freshman also had a team-high 46 yards on the ground. Brun finished with four catches for 102 yards to lead the Cyclone receivers. Senior linebacker A.J. Klein capped off his career with 19 tackles.
  While things appeared to be promising to move in a positive direction for the Cyclones, Rhoads' future teams were unable to recapture the success of his earlier teams. In his final three seasons, the Cyclones won just four Big 12 games (including a winless conference record in 2014) and went 8–27 overall. The 2015 season proved to be particularly difficult, as in two games, the Cyclones held double-digit halftime leads against both Oklahoma State and Kansas State only to lose late in the fourth quarter. Following a 38–35 loss to Kansas State on November 21, in which he came under heavy criticism for play-calling in the game's final 90 seconds, Rhoads was fired as head coach, effective the conclusion of the season.
caption: Rhoads finished his career 29–45 at Iowa State
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