Peterson: Chill out on Iowa State bowl game speculation, and on early Breece Hall-David Montgomery comparison

AMES, Ia. — It wasn’t long ago that just meeting bowl qualification was big news around Iowa State football. Now, that’s where defining Cyclones football success starts.

A win during Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. game against Oklahoma State at Jack Trice Stadium means a third bowl invitation in a row for the first time since the Insight, Independence and Humanitarian bowls between 2000 and 2002.

Two years ago, it was the Liberty Bowl. Last season, coach Matt Campbell’s team advanced to the Alamo, the school’s most prestigious bowl invitation, so what could be next?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The first College Football Playoff poll won’t even be released until Nov. 5, so anything you read or hear is purely speculation.

For anyone, the ultimate is being one of the four teams picked for the College Football Playoffs. For an Iowa State team that’s 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the Big 12, the next-best would be the New Year’s Six Sugar Bowl.

That’s all for entertainment only, because there’s still five regular-season games to play. Nothing is a given, and if you’re thinking Kansas to be an automatic win — well, you haven’t heard the one about how the last-place Jayhawks darn near won at second-place Texas last Saturday.

So, let’s stick with what’s known — that tailback Breece Hall has been so good that he’s already drawing comparisons to David Montgomery.

Quarterback Brock Purdy alluded to it after Saturday’s 34-24 victory at Texas Tech. A handful of people that know college football, either texted the same to me, or said it face-to-face, but fact-to-fact?

Montgomery rushed for 563 yards on 109 carries during a true freshman season in which he averaged 5.2 yards a carry in 2016. Hall enters his seventh game Saturday with 399 yards on his first 63 college carries. He’s scored five touchdowns. He averages 6.3 yards per rush.

Montgomery was so powerful that he sometimes made his own hole. Hall is powerful, too, although he uses his blockers a little more. Both were adept at running through arm-tackling.

“There’s a long way to go,” Campbell said Monday when asked what he would tell Hall’s fandom. “The reality of it is David set such a great standard here of excellence in everything — from how he practiced, to how he played, and to certainly what he did in this community.

“I think the great thing is to have a guy like David that can kind of set a standard of excellence not only in how he played, but also how he carried himself in all areas.

“That’s a positive for a guy like Breece — to have somebody like that to look to, that’s not so distant away from the program, that he can really look at and see and maybe hold himself to the standards off the field that allowed David to be so good on the field.”

Hall has 11 carries of 10 yards or more during his first college season. He has 183 and 132 yards in consecutive games. He’s smooth. He’s a one-cut-and-go guy. Find a video of his 75-yard touchdown run last Saturday against Texas, and you’ll see he already knows how to use his blockers.

“He’s certainly unique,” Campbell continued on the Big 12 teleconference Monday. “Sometimes it looks like he’s not running, then the next thing you know, is that he’s kicked it into high gear. He’s a really smooth athlete. That smoothness is something unique and different.”

Right now, he’s closer to a player Campbell coached at Toledo than the Montgomery he coached at Iowa State.

“He reminds me of Kareem Hunt, who had that same type of unique athleticism for sure,” Campbell said of the former third-round draft choice of the Kansas City Chiefs.

So, cool it on the Montgomery comparisons — for now, anyway.

“It’s way too early to tell,” Campbell said. “I do think that Breece certainly has shown in the last two weeks, that he’s got the ability to be a successful running back. Time will tell here he can take his talents.”

Iowa State columnist Randy Peterson has been writing for the Des Moines Register for parts of five decades. Reach him at rpeterson@dmreg.com, 515-284-8132, and on Twitter at @RandyPete. No one covers the Cyclones like the Register. Subscribe today at Des Moines Register.com/Deal to make sure you never miss a moment.