Iowa State football coach Paul Rhoads wants his Cyclones to make strides in a couple of areas during the final week of spring. The Cyclones host their spring game on Saturday.

“I want to be a better fundamental football team at the end of this week, and I want to be a more intelligent football team this week. It’s been a big priority for us to become a smarter football team this spring, and we have four more opportunities to get that done,” rhoads says.

Rhoads says Saturday’s format will remain the same as the three previous years with a standard scrimmage but no winner or loser with the first team offense against the first team defense.

There is a new offensive coordinator this spring but Rhoads says the transition to Courtney Messingham has been a smooth one. He says there’s familiarity with Messingham because he has coached player groups and says that has made things go smoothly.

Rhoads says there are some changes under Messingham but they are not major in nature. He calls them “tweaks” but not wholesale changes and says one of the changes has been in the coaching of quarterbacks.