Saturday’s spring game for ISU football will be telling for an offense that is returning just six starters from a year ago.

After averaging 21.7 points per game last year, 97th in the nation, with a passing game that was 95th in the nation at 174.3 yards per game, a need for improvement in production has been addressed.

“[We’re doing] a lot better than we were in the past few years, we are miles beyond what we had been,” said sophomore running back Jeff Woody. “We’re more consistent, we’re more explosive.”

Redshirt junior Jerome Tiller is listed as the No. 1 quarterback on the depth chart, carrying a chip on his shoulder after backing up three-year starter Austen Arnaud for the past two seasons.

“I think he’s got the knowledge and the experience, moreso than the other three, and so there’s a comfort level with that,” said ISU coach Paul Rhoads in a news conference Tuesday.

In the past two seasons, Tiller played in 14 games and started two for the cardinal and gold, one of which was the historic 9-7 victory at Nebraska in 2009.

Steele Jantz, transfer student from San Francisco City junior college in California, is No. 2 on the depth chart at quarterback and is expected to produce in Tiller’s absence.

“From Steele, when we get in the fall in a game situation if he’s good enough to go in and play I would expect the offense to run smoothly,” said offensive coordinator Tom Herman.

Despite Jantz’s lack of experience with the schematics of the ISU offense, he is where the coaches would like him to be in terms of his play at this point in the spring.

“You can do all the book learning you want and film study, but you’ve got to be out there taking snaps with four defensive linemen in a bad mood coming at you and having to move and step up and execute, and he’s had 11 days of that,” Rhoads said.

“By the time you get through all the opportunities we get in fall camp, he’ll be at a point where we need him to be to lead this football team if indeed he does the things physically he needs to to be that guy.”

However, Rhoads said if he had to pick one player on the offense who he thought was having the best spring, he would pick running back James White.

“James, he’s got maybe one of the highest top speeds on the team,” Woody said. “I mean, the kid can run, flat-out run.”

White is competing with three other players — Woody, sophomore Shontrelle Johnson and freshman Duran “Duck” Hollis — for the starting spot at running back. However, the competition has not created any animosity toward one another.

“It’s not one competing against the other, it’s competing with the other,” Woody said. “We’ll joke with each other when someone does something wrong or when someone does something well.”

Johnson, who rushed for 218 yards and two touchdowns as a true freshman last season, is listed as the starting running back, but will likely split time with Woody to accommodate the different situations in which the offense may find itself.

Josh Lenz returns to the receiving corps after sustaining an ankle injury in a game of pick-up basketball while he was home in Dubuque that kept him out for most of spring practice.

Lenz, a junior who caught 14 passes for 170 yards and two touchdowns last season, will start alongside Darius Darks and Darius Reynolds as the go-to receivers for whoever earns the starting job at quarterback.

“They’ve played much better than in the fall,” Herman said. “Whether that will translate into Saturdays, hopefully it will.”

Despite being on the outside looking in at the top three spots, freshman Jarvis West has been making a name for himself this spring with the coaches and his teammates for his performance.

“He’s real elusive, he’s not easy to tackle, he’s quick,” Lenz said. “He’s everything you look for in a receiver.”