While touchdowns and big hits will be on the mind of football-hungry fans in attendance at Saturday’s Cyclone Gridiron Club spring game, ISU coach Paul Rhoads is looking for his team to be more fundamentally sound and smarter in its final practice before fall camp.

“I want to be a better fundamental football team at the end of this week, and I want to be a more intelligent football team this week,” Rhoads said at a news conference on Monday. “It’s been a big priority for us to become a smarter football team this spring.”

Constant teaching was the plan for Rhoads and his staff this week as they concluded the third and final week of spring practices.

The final week was dedicated to importing as much knowledge as possible before players put their helmets and shoulder pads back in their lockers until August.

“[Rhoads] knows that we can physically do it and that we’re very capable of doing everything,” said defensive back Deon Broomfield. “Being smart and playing smart is just going to make it that much easier for us.”

“Once we figure out how to play smarter and do things right and do them better, then I think it’s just going to make it that much easier for us to actually be successful on the field.”

On Monday, Rhoads pointed to linebacker C.J. Morgan, who has the tendency of focusing his eyes in the wrong spot when the offense begins a play, as a specific example of the team needing to recognize more both pre- and post-snap. 

“We’ve got to have a more thorough understanding with this call,” Rhoads said. “This is your priority; this is what you have to get done and on and on and on with the various positions and players.”

Sophomore linebacker Jeremiah George has received additional repetitions and additional coaching this spring because of the absence of junior Jake Knott in the rotation as he rehabilitates from shoulder surgery.

“I feel like I’ve learned more over these three weeks than maybe I have over the last two years being here at Iowa State,” George said.

Saturday’s scrimmage will be the first in front of fans but the third overall for the Cyclones this spring. George said that in the first scrimmage two weeks ago, the intensity of the defense was low but the defense did a good job making “splash” plays last Saturday, forcing the offense into five turnovers.

“In this spring game, I just want to see us come together with that intensity with those turnovers and really dominate so we can show that we are that fast-playing Big 12 defense,” George said.

Although coaches and players on the offensive side of the ball throughout the spring have indicated the offensive schemes are similar to last year, fans will get their first chance to see if there will be any new wrinkles to the playbook under new offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham.

Rhoads described the transition from Tom Herman to Messingham as smooth but not seamless, saying there have been tweaks to the offense but not “wholesale changes.”

“We’re a long way from playing our first game,” Rhoads said. “You’ve had 11 practices, you get four more and then you’ve got all of those opportunities in August, and I think by the time we get to September you’ll clearly see [Messingham’s] fingerprints all over every bit of the offense.”

In addition to a new coordinator, the offense will reveal a few new faces on the field as freshmen who joined the team and redshirted last season play in their first spring game.

Running back DeVondrick Nealy, a freshman from Monticello, Fla., joins a stable of running backs that returns redshirt juniors James White and Jeff Woody.

“In high school I was the feature back; now I’m more down a level,” Nealy said. “It’s a good thing just to be behind someone that’s older that knows what they’re doing so I can stand behind them and just learn from them a little bit until I get my wings off and then I can start flying by myself.”

The spring game gets underway at 2 p.m. Saturday at Jack Trice Stadium.

The athletic department has advised that fans should enter Jack Trice Stadium through gate one on the north side of the stadium. Seating for the game will be limited to the east side of the stadium.