For the first time in two years, the starting quarterback for the ISU football team doesn’t have to look over his shoulder.

Sam Richardson, a redshirt sophomore, will be under center for Saturday’s season opener against the University of Northern Iowa. His emotions going into the game will be remarkably different than his first big action when he was thrown into the fire midway through the first quarter against Kansas last year.

“Just having the mindset of going into the game first, you know you’re going to be in those situations, so it’s not something you’re guessing at,” Richardson said. “Compared to something like West Virginia, it’s not much different. I’m just trying to go out there and win a football game.”

Richardson finished the Kansas game connecting on 23 passes and completing 83 percent of those passes, while accounting for four touchdowns through the air and one on the ground.

He finished the season at 541 yards passing with an 8-to-1 touchdown to interception ratio, while scampering for 233 yards and a single score.

The only question now is with Richardson’s consistency — he’s only started two games, played most of the Kansas game and didn’t even attempt a pass in his garbage-time snaps against Western Illinois early in the season as the game was already in hand.

But he undoubtedly has support from one of the team captains in Jeff Woody, who can expect handoffs from Richardson in short yardage situations this season.

“The best quality Sam has is he’s always composed; he’s aware of everything that’s going on,” Woody said. “He’s got a good arm. The dude can run. But the best thing Sam has got is between his ears. It instills confidence in the team because we know what’s going on with Sam, and there’s no question as to what he’s going to do.”

Iowa State prepared for hard-fought game

It was a mere two years ago when, without heroics from quarterback Steele Jantz, Iowa State would have lost to UNI at home, leaving ISU coach Paul Rhoads with the only blemish on his record in opening games.

Despite UNI’s size and playing in the Football College Subdivision, the school has been a good fit for Iowa State. Even as the Cyclones have won three of the past four meetings between the teams, two of those were one point wins.

“UNI, they know how to win football games,” Rhoads said. “You read their media printout and look at the playoff appearances, the semifinal appearances, the national championship game appearances, the number of postseason honors.

“That game [in 2011] was a dogfight as we expected. We expect this one to be a dogfight, which is why we have to have great preparation.”

The Panthers return to Ames with Sawyer Kollmorgen — a sophomore who is coming off a year where he was dubbed Missouri Valley Football Conference Newcomer of the Year as well as Freshman of the Year — taking the snaps.

Kollmorgen finished last season with 21 touchdowns and nearly 2,500 yards — good for second in the Mississippi Valley Freight Coalition in total offense.

Lining up behind the UNI quarterback is David Johnson, a 6-foot-3, 214-pound second-team running back for the coalition. Last year Johnson finished with more than 1,000 yards rushing and accounted for 18 touchdowns.

Rhoads and the players also touted UNI’s defense as one of the quickest they’ve seen on film, expecting them to bate Richardson into making mistakes.

Woody echoed much of his coach’s and teammates’ comments, describing what it was like to see the scoreboard during film sessions when UNI was the team that was beating the bigger ISU team.

“There’s a lot of times when the Panthers had a higher number than the Cyclones, and that’s something you can’t get around,” Woody said. “So when you watch the film on UNI, you know there’s nothing close and absolutely nothing easy about it; they are just as good as any other team we’re going to play.”