One month worth of practice and scrimmages isn’t enough to get a full picture of what the ISU football team will look like when it takes the field at Jack Trice Stadium on August 31, 2013.

The team that arrives for fall camp will include new faces as freshmen arrive. There is also hope that t to be progress will continue to come from current players between the conclusion of the team’s spring season and fall camp.

“You’re never satisfied,” said ISU coach Paul Rhoads following the annual spring game on Saturday, April 20. “There are certain spots that I would have liked to have gotten further along with and certain spots that maybe we overachieved at and that would be true of individuals as well.”

Rhoads said until he sifts through film, grades it and collects evaluations from his staff, he can’t shed light on specific areas of focus stemming from the spring season. Two areas that may become focuses come August, however, are the team’s kicking game and the depth of a young defense.

The position battle for kicker seemed to take a swing toward redshirt freshman Cole Netten early in the spring game as he hit 29- and 45-yard field goals while senior Edwin Arceo missed two kicks from the same distances. Later in the scrimmage, though, Arceo evened things out, hitting a 53-yard field goal while Netten missed from both 50 and 53 yards out.

That back-and-forth has become pretty common for an ISU kicking battle, which the Cyclones will now enter fall camp with again after Arceo knocked Netten into a redshirt last fall.

“It does feel a little different,” Arceo said of the kicking battle compared to last season. “There’s a little more pressure I think because Cole’s come a long way since last fall.”

The back-and-forth at the position is two-fold for Rhoads.

“I think that shows, one, inconsistency, and it also shows, two, we’ve got two guys very capable of playing winning football as kickers at this level,” Rhoads said.

Inconsistency hasn’t only been prevalent with kickers, it has also come into play with a young, inexperienced defense.

“I think there is a clear separation between the majority of our [No.] 1s and the majority of our 2s,” Rhoads said. “We’ve got some depth — meaning two-deep — at some spots and others we’re not there yet.”I’d be very fearful if we were playing game No. 1 tomorrow and some guys had to take the field.”

With the loss of linebackers A.J. Klein and Jake Knott, along with defensive lineman Jake McDonough, there has been a shakeup in some areas of the defense beginning with the spring season.

The learning curve will be solved with time and for now the Cyclones have that on their side.

“We’re not playing [the first game] tomorrow and we’ve still got time,” Rhoads said. “There’s no question all of them are hungry to learn and physically at some point are capable of playing.”