Rocco Becht Makes Wild History With Stat Line for Iowa State Cyclones Against Arizona

Rocco Becht made some history with his rushing stats against the Arizona Wildcats.

Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Iowa State Cyclones came out of their bye determined to keep their positive momentum rolling against the Arizona Wildcats in Week 5, and that is exactly what they did. In a dominant performance, they picked up their fifth victory of the season and second in the Big 12.

There were a lot of great takeaways from the performance. How well the defense performed against a dynamic quarterback in Noah Fifita was encouraging moving forward. Only 14 points were allowed in the blowout victory.

Something to keep an eye on with that side of the ball is the health of their secondary. Star cornerback Jeremiah Cooper was already announced out for the season, and several other players went down with an injury against the Wildcats.

On the other side of the ball, it was encouraging to see the Cyclones continuing to stick with the run game. They ran for 111 yards, averaging only 2.4 yards per rush on 46 attempts. But a big drag on those numbers was the production of quarterback Rocco Becht.

Rocco Becht makes history with rushing performance

Reese Strickland-Imagn Images

He made some unique college football history with his rushing numbers against Arizona. Because sacks count toward a quarterback’s rushing numbers, he was credited with nine rush attempts in the game, but he gained -10 yards.

Becht may not have racked up yardage, but he made his rushing attempts count. He scored three touchdowns with his legs, plunging into the end zone from one yard out on all three occasions.

As shared by Alex Gookin on X, that made him only the sixth college football player since 1995 to have negative rushing yards in a game and score three touchdowns. His yardage is the worst of the players on the list, beating out Trevor Siemian, who had -8 yards on five rushes for the Northwestern Wildcats against the Penn State Nittany Lions, 11 years to the day of Becht’s historic performance.

Rocco Becht is just the 6th college football player since 1995 to record negative rushing yards AND 3 or more rushing touchdowns. His -10 yards are the least (most least?) yards among that group. pic.twitter.com/B849pgtg4Y

— Alex Gookin (@_AlexGookin) September 28, 2025

That was all the scoring the star quarterback provided in the game. The other two touchdowns scored by the Iowa State offense came on the legs of running back Carson Hansen, with all five touchdowns coming via the rush.

Becht didn’t throw for a touchdown, but completed 14-of-20 passes for 243 yards while throwing his second interception of the campaign. It wasn’t the most prolific passing game for him, but he did more than enough to help his team get the win.

He and the Cyclones will be back at it next week, heading out for their first true road game of their Big 12 schedule when they travel to take on the Cincinnati Bearcats.