Sophomore quarterback Grant Rohach took the first team snaps in the ISU football team’s spring game on Saturday. But ISU coach Paul Rhoads said that does not mean anything just yet.

Rohach along with junior Sam Richardson and redshirt freshman Joel Lanning are in the midst of a quarterback competition for the starting position this fall. While the starting spot may still be up for grabs, Rohach took advantage of his opportunity to play with the first string on Saturday.

“From my vantage point there was good composure back there and getting people lined up and running the offense,” Rhoads said. “I would say Grant was probably the top performer of the day that doesn’t put him on top of the stack necessarily.”

Lanning took the first snaps of the game but was playing with the second-string offense. Richardson was the last of the three top quarterbacks to play in the spring game and took snaps with the third team.

Rhoads said the spring game is not representative of a final depth chart for the quarterbacks because they are rotating in practice. He said, however, that Iowa State should have two “leading candidates” for starting quarterback by the end of spring practice.

“I’m not really worried about it,” Lanning said. “I’ve got to do what I can do. Grant’s got to do what he can do. Sam’s got to do what he can do. The other quarterbacks do what they can do. It does get old. It’s kind of funny because that’s like all anyone cares about. They don’t care about anything else.”

Rohach led the other quarterbacks in passing yardage. He completed 22 passes in 38 attempts for a total of 171 yards during the spring game. Rohach also had an 8-yard rushing touchdown during the second quarter.

However, Rohach did throw two interceptions during the spring game. Redshirt freshmen defensive backs Kamari Syrie and Ezra Reiners were both able to pick off the quarterback.

“Towards the end I tried to force a few throws, tried to make too many plays,” Rohach said. “Overall, I think I did alright. I was pleased how the offense started out but when we hit the lull it was kind of disappointing.”

Both of the other two quarterbacks in the running had much fewer attempts than Rohach. Lanning completed seven of his 14 pass attempts. He threw for 44 yards, behind both Rohach and Richardson.

During the spring game, Richardson threw for 55 yards including a 12-yard touchdown pass to redshirt sophomore wide receiver Damein Lawry. Richardson finished the game with eight completions in 13 attempts.

Their performances in the spring game, however, were not the last chance for the three quarterbacks to make their case for one of Rhoads’ final two spots. Iowa State will have two more practices next week before the end of its spring season.

“There comes a point that you really get concerned about timing and making sure the lead guy is getting the majority of those reps with those number ones,” Rhoads said. “Whether I’ll announce that in April when we get through practice Wednesday or we’ll wait to see what happens in August.

“You’ve got to remember, there’s a lot of things that could happen in May, June and July leading up to August that could change things.”