On the ISU football team’s media day Aug. 2, Jerome Tiller said most fans probably have forgotten he is still on the team.

Having gone from the team’s starting quarterback to wide receiver following a year of academic ineligibility, Tiller has become one of quarterback Steele Jantz’ seven targets at wide receiver in the first two games for the Cyclones (2-0).

“Running routes was the difficult part,” Tiller said. “I felt like I always had the lightbulb on. Fundamentally it was a little different. It’s knowledge of the game, I felt like I already had it.”

Tiller, who played in 15 games at quarterback in his first two seasons at Iowa State, has five catches for 50 yards so far this season — having notched a career-high three catches for 33 yards last Saturday against Iowa.

“The thing that’s really been good for him is he obviously knows the offense so well that transitioning to the receiver position hasn’t been hard from the knowing what to do,” said Courtney Messingham, offensive coordinator. “The key has been just now becoming more and more comfortable as a wide receiver.”

Jantz said Tiller brings seniority and confidence to the otherwise younger receiving corps having come to Iowa State in the days when Gene Chizik was coach.

Switching over from quarterback to wide receiver is not too uncommon at the college level, but doing so late in his career has given Tiller an extra challenge knowing he has just one season remaining in cardinal and gold.

“He’s done a great job, but that’s kind of what we expected of him,” Jantz said. “He’s shown that [he] can do that in the spring and summer camp, so we’re going to keep expecting him to do that.”

Between being a role player and an every-down receiver, Messingham said Tiller has grown into becoming the latter of the two with his knowledge of the offense and the seniority he brings to the table.

“I don’t know the exact number of snaps he had our first game, but I know our second game it was more than our first,” Messingham said. “I don’t see any reason why it won’t continue to grow.”

In his weekly news conference on Monday, ISU coach Paul Rhoads said he expects to get more receivers involved in the offense to diversify the number of targets Jantz has to throw to.

For Tiller, this now means he has a little more competition if he wants to keep his production from declining.

“You’ve got to prove it, they want to see who wants to play and who’s coming to play,” Tiller said. “You’ve got to prove it to the coaches to get on the field.”