Peterson: Iowa State needs tailback Cartevious Norton to stay healthy this season
AMES – Let’s rewind a moment. Let’s go back to Iowa State’s 2022 season-opening football game against Southeast Missouri State at Jack Trice Stadium – a 42-10 Cyclones victory – and the glimpse we got of running back Cartevious Norton.
Seven-yard rush on the first try of his collegiate career. Three yards and a first down on the next play.
Iowa State’s coaching staff knew it had someone special in the true freshman from Waycross, Georgia. In a span of two plays and 10 yards, the coaches saw it for the first time in a real college game.
Then came the torn hamstring that resulted in a multi-game absence. Then came Iowa State trying to salvage a season that eventually went haywire – largely because it could not win close games.
Then a 4-8 record, the off-season and uncertainty about who the next starting running back would be.
Fast forward to Friday's media day, when it became apparent that Jirehl Brock, the team's veteran rusher, is not participating in preseason fall camp practices (for an undisclosed reason).
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Enter Norton, now a sophomore and very likely poised to be the featured back this program has lacked since Breece Hall in 2020 and 2021. Big. Fast. Comparable to the Dallas Cowboys' Ezekiel Elliott?
At least two of those three descriptions fit the 5-foot-11, 225-pound Norton as we head into a season that opens Sept. 2 against Northern Iowa at Jack Trice Stadium.
Unless something goes wildly askew, the guy Cyclones fans have been buzzing about will get Rocco Becht’s (or J.J. Kohl’s) first handoff. Unless there’s something unforeseen, Norton will get every opportunity to show the running brilliance Iowa State football fans didn’t see enough of in 2022.
“He has elite traits,” Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell said, “but it’s not about elite traits alone. It’s having those elite traits show up game in and game out, day in and day out.”
That was among the team’s biggest issues last season – the Cyclones' 108 rushing yards per game was the program’s lowest average since the 2006 team averaged 101.8 yards.
Brock was injured. Norton was injured. Eli Sanders wasn’t ready yet for the rigors of the Big 12 Conference. The same went for Deon Silas.
“Young pups,” Campbell called them during last season.
And here we are again. Still 'young pups' if Jirehl Brock doesn’t play.
Norton is a sophomore. Sanders is a redshirt sophomore. Abu Sama and Carson Hansen are true freshmen. Stanford transfer A.J. Harris is a redshirt freshman.
Among them, they have 145 collegiate rushing attempts for 510 yards. That’s it, as Iowa State tries to recover from the 2022 disappointment.
“I look at that (running backs) room, and I see five guys right now that are practicing − that are ready to compete to be the guy,” Campbell said.
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Norton oozes with talent as long as he’s healthy. Sanders, who picked Iowa State ahead of offers from Arizona and Arizona State, needs to hone his consistency. Sama and Hansen have eye-popping high school statistics, so we’ll see how that translates. Harris was a four-star recruit who had just two rushes at Stanford.
That stamps home Campbell’s point about a youthful roster – one of the youngest in his 12 seasons as a head coach.
It’s not an excuse. It’s reality. It’s life when you’re trying to rebuild a position group.
Campbell knows standout tailbacks when he sees them. His NFL running back alumni include David Fluellen and Kareem Hunt when he coached at Toledo, and David Montgomery, Kene Nwangwu and Breece Hall at Iowa State.
Norton might have that opportunity, too. He first must stay healthy, not only for his future but for this year's team.
With the uncertainty surrounding Brock, and with a quarterback roster that’s younger than the running backs, keeping possessions alive falls on a tailback who has shown flashes of being very good.
“Part of Cartevious’ issue has been health ... things you can’t control,” Campbell said. “What I’m most proud about Cartevious is the development of mental toughness over the course of the last year and a half. We’re excited to have a healthy Cartevious Norton.”
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He needs more moments like in the 2022 opener. And how about the Iowa State-West Virginia game last season in which Norton carried 18 times for 69 yards while also catching four passes? That earned him a Big 12 Conference newcomer of the week award.
The bottom line is that if Norton is on his A-game, he’s very good. If he’s not? Then the Cyclones’ offense could suffer again,
“We want to get back to having the ability to be really good on the ground,” Campbell said.
That's a must. Maybe the biggest must right now in the program.
Iowa State columnist Randy Peterson is in his 51st year writing sports for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at rpeterson@dmreg.com, and on Twitter @RandyPete
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Peterson: Iowa State's offense needs a healthy Cartevious Norton
