Game day may be right around the corner, but these four days until Saturday’s kickoff of the ISY college football season couldn’t come sooner for coaches, players and fans of the game. Saturday will mark 287 days since Iowa State last took the field at Jack Trice Stadium in a 14-0 loss to Missouri.

“Game week, finally. It’s been a long time coming and I’m sure this week will be equally as long,” Rhoads said at a press conference Monday.

When the season does kick off Saturday night, both ISU and UNI fans will see their teams try to capitalize on speed, not power, to gain an advantage on the field.

The Panthers, who are picked to repeat as champions of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, return 18 starters — eight on offense, nine on defense, and one on special teams — from a 2010 team that finished 8-5 and was eliminated from the NCAA FCS Playoffs after a first-round loss to Lehigh.

“Nobody has to tell our football team the challenge that they will be faced with this Saturday night,” Rhoads said. “UNI is a football team and a program that certainly understands how to win.”

Leading the eight starters on UNI’s offense is an experienced backfield led by dual-threat senior quarterback Tirrell Rennie, who in 2010 became the first quarterback in program history to pass and rush for 1,000 yards in the same season.

“They’re skill speed will match, I would think, a number of teams on our schedule because it’s national type of speed, it’s track speed, it’s [4×100] sprint relay speed and it will be a great challenge for our defenders to bottle those kids up,” Rhoads said.

Junior Carlos Anderson accompanies Rennie in the backfield and also is lethal in the return game, ranking 14th among FCS players with an average of 27.2 yards per kick return and two returns for scores last season.

“With UNI they might as well be a Big 12 team with the speed that they have,” said ISU junior linebacker Jake Knott. “Just watching them on film you can see the explosion, the quickness all of that stuff they have it so we’ve got to prepare for them just like a Big 12 team.”

On the ISU side of the ball, it’s not so much the personnel that will be relied on for gaining the edge on the perimeter but rather the tempo at which the offense runs plays. Rhoads expects at times on Saturday that the ISU offense will be aligned and ready to run a play even before the officials have the ball spotted.

“You never know from week to week how quick each crew will get that ball spotted, if they are doing that on time I think it will be noticeable to our fans the level at which we operate and execute,” Rhoads said.

According to sophomore running back Jeff Woody, during a scrimmage two weeks ago, a member of the ISU strength and conditioning staff timed the ISU offense as spending only 17 to 20 seconds in between the whistle signifying the end of a play and the snap of the ball for the next play. At any point in the game, ISU offensive coordinator Tom Herman can relay a signal to the quarterback, which will indicate to the offense to change gears and start with what they call “Jet Tempo” to try and establish an offensive rhythm and keep the opposing defense off balance.

“The great thing about is we don’t know when it’s coming and thus the defense doesn’t know when it’s coming, so it’s a very useful tool,” Woody said.

Notes:

Senior wide receiver Darius Reynolds had the cast on his left foot removed yesterday as he will try and ready himself for Saturday’s opener. Rhoads said that Reynolds’ status for the opener is still questionable, but he will be doing aquatic therapy this week to try and speed up the recovery process.

Junior college transfer Henry Simon completed his physical yesterday and is expected to be on the practice field today. Rhoads said the 6’3 302 lb. junior will not play for the Cyclones on Saturday.

With the absence of Simon and freshman defensive lineman Quinton Pompey due to knee surgery, Rhoads announced that redshirt junior Jon Caspers has moved from offensive guard to defensive tackle.

In addition to starting quarterback Steele Jantz and wide receiver Aaron Horne, Rhoads anticipates that freshmen wide receivers Quenton Bundrage and Ja’Quarius Daniels, junior college transfer tight end Ernst Brun Jr. and freshman defensive back Jared Brackens will all be on the field for Saturday’s opener.