On an intense last day of spring practice for ISU coach Paul Rhoads, his arguably deepest position on the team was one he was most pleased with: the running backs.

Redshirt sophomore DeVondrick Nealy grabbed Rhoads’ attention in Saturday’s spring game because of his 142 yards and two touchdowns with his longest run coming on a 20-yard scamper.

“DeVondrick Nealy [is] certainly running like we thought he was capable of and going into his third season,” Rhoads said. “Very encouraging to see.”

Even though Nealy was pleased with his performance, he said he needs to start trusting in his offensive linemen more than he has.

With Iowa State’s implementation of the pistol offense into its playbook, trusting the linemen may be more important this season than it was before.

“It’s still a lot of things that I need to get better on, running my track and trusting my offensive linemen [that they’re] going to get the job done and just doing the things I need to do to be a better runner,” Nealy said. “Actually it’s just me just trusting, trusting, trusting, trusting and that will make it much better.”

While Nealy gained the most yards of any running back on Saturday, he was not the only one that stood out to Rhoads. The ISU backfield will also be returning redshirt seniors James White and Jeff Woody, redshirt sophomore Rob Standard and junior college transfer Aaron Wimberly.

Senior Shontrelle Johnson will also join the position group when he is rehabilitated from an ACL tear that he suffered near the end of last season.

“James White is James White — runs hard, smart, knows everything about the offense and certainly is tough,” Rhoads said. “Aaron Wimberly, I think you saw enough of him to understand our excitement and certainly why we recruited him. Rob Standard is not the athlete that the other group is, but he’s productive every time we play.”

Now that he has completed his first spring with the Cyclones, Wimberly said he has been able to adapt well to the pistol offense and recognizes how useful it will be with the number and talent level of running backs on the ISU sideline.

Wimberly finished with 87 yards on the ground with his longest run on the day being a 13-yard burst.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of playmakers,” Wimberly said. “We could spread the field out with just running backs, we’ve got a lot of talented running backs in the group so coach tries to use it as much as he can.”

Redshirt sophomore quarterback Sam Richardson also took notice to the level of play of the running back position. He said it is an “amazing” feeling to be able to have a position so strong on the offensive side of the ball.

Richardson passed for 156 yards and two touchdowns in Saturday’s spring game.

“Obviously it’s a huge part of our offense and it’s only going to make our job easier as a quarterback so it’s being able to balance and run past or even maybe a little bit more around than past,” Richardson said. “But obviously the play-action off of that is looking to be a huge part of our offense so it’s nice having those guys back there.”