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.

Iowa State junior running back Jeff Woody says the change in offensive coordinators has gone smoothly during spring drills. Courtney Messingham is directing the offense after Tom Harman left to join Urban Meyer’s staff at Ohio State.

“It’s different from what we’ve done before…there’s subtle changes, but there’s still enough to make it an entirely new offense,” Woody says. “The terminology is the same but the assignments that we are performing are a little bit different. I like, I know now what was going on and why we’re doing it.”

He says Messingham is a little more conversational than Harman was in explaining why they are doing things. Woody carried the ball 90 times a year ago and says he is working to become a better blocker. He says he wants to do whatever he can to get himself on the field, and he says they are moving more toward having him be a fullback type that blocks in the two back set.

Woody rushed for nearly 400 yards last season even though he felt his season got off to a slow start. “Up until about probably the Texas game, I was a lot more tentative, a lot more cautious in what I was doing…then something clicked,” Woody says.

 He says once things go going he felt he had a successful season. Woody scored the winning touchdown in the upset over Oklahoma State.

Iowa State’s spring game is April 14th.

With Kelechi Osemele and Hayworth Hicks likely headed to the NFL center Tom Farniok becomes the leader on the offensive line at Iowa State. Farniok started every game as a freshman last season and anchors a unit that has three starters returning.

Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads who says Farniok did not perform like a first year starter in 2011 and was remarkable the way he played. He says the center makes all the line calls and that was something Farniok did, and that allowed them to raise the bar as far as what the offense could do.

Rhoads expects Farniok to be even better next season as he has put on weight and increase his strength and says their offsides penalties went down as the season wore on as they relied on the center for the cadence.

Iowa State’s spring game is April 14th

Paul Rhoads (file photo)

The Iowa State football team is starting the second week of spring practice and coach Paul Rhoads likes the progress his team has made.

“If I could describe practice in two words, it would be intense and physical,” Rhoads says. “Very pleased, even the first two days in helmets only, how we started, how we practiced and what the tempo was.”

A few regulars on defense are being held out of spring drills due to injury. That includes senior linebacker Jake Knott who was bothered by a shoulder injury last season.

Rhoads says Knott is working hard off the field but they want to make sure he starts next season healthy, and he will not practice this spring.

He says they want to get Knott through the summer healthy so that he goes into the fall ready to go. Rhoads says they are using this spring to build some depth on defense. Rhoads says they are without some guys that will be important, but that allows others to get the work they need to improve.

Knott says the Cyclones are motivated by the loss to Rutgers that ended last season and that has been evident in practice. “After the last game in the Pinstripe Bowl in that loss, I think that really humbled and hungered our team even more so,” Knott says. He says they want to work so they come out with a victory in those type of situations.

Knott says being held out of spring practice will help him for next season. He says he’s been hurt every summer going into fall camp, and that set him back after all the work he put in during the winter. Knott says the type of workouts he is doing now will help ensure he is the strongest and fastest he’s ever been.

“When I’m healthy there’s a lot more things that I can do than when I’m hampered by something nagging me, and that’s going to be one of the biggest things going into the fall,” Knott says. He says it’s hard to watch everyone and not being able to practice this spring is tough, but he says it makes more sense to be fully healthy in the summer and into the fall.

Iowa State’s spring game is April 14th.