ISU starting quarterback Austen Arnaud threw a pass in the dirt, and the coaching staff in the booth made the switch. Jerome Tiller caught some of Jack Trice Stadium’s lights glaring through his visor and ran out on the field.

Stepping in for an injured Arnaud during the second half against Baylor on Oct. 17, Tiller threw 7-of-8 and ran for 74 yards, including a 20-yard blazing touchdown run. He produced numbers, provided game management and control that aren’t expected from backup quarterbacks in their first action against a Big 12 opponent and he’s seen two more games since then.

“He’s getting trial by fire right now, which is good,” offensive coordinator and quarterbacks’ coach Tom Herman said of Tiller.

Tiller finished off the win over Baylor, led the landmark victory against Nebraska in his first start and quarterbacked an injury-rattled and tired team during the Texas A&M loss on Saturday. His journey this season will likely resume on the bench against Oklahoma State this weekend, but it would extremely uncharacteristic of the 21-year-old to not pull positives out of his brief experience.

“Any time you go to any college, you’re there to win. You never want to lose; losing is the worst thing you can do,” Tiller said. “It always feels good to win, but the things you learn from the most are the losses.”

The coaching staff redshirted Tiller in 2008 to give him an extra year of growth while Arnaud passed for nearly 2,800 yards and 15 touchdowns as a redshirt sophomore. The time gave the San Antonio Lee High School graduate months of lifting and practice while not having to be under duress on the field. He wasn’t projected as a starter until Arnaud leaves Iowa State, but he has seen plenty of action this season, throwing the ball 72 times and keeping it as a runner 44 times.

“The biggest reason I came here was playing time,” Tiller said. “They had two young quarterbacks, and I thought I had a good chance to play early.”

Arnaud is a leader of the 2009 Cyclones, and no one disputes that, but no one is disputing Tiller’s potential either.

“It’s off the charts,” Herman said. “He’s got a strong arm — he’s got to quicken his release — but he’s gotten light-years better at that since the spring, when we first got here.

“He can run, and football is very important to him. He’s very competitive, to a fault at times, so being a redshirt freshman, the sky is the limit potentially for him, if he puts into it what needs to get put into it, and I have no doubt that he will.”

Fans know his skill set: a quick pair of feet and an upright throwing motion that gets plenty of pop on the ball as it flies through the air toward his receivers.

“He’s got more velocity on his ball than Austen does, and that’s important for a quarterback,” coach Paul Rhoads said.

Rhoads was confident Tiller was capable of stepping in for Arnaud, an offensive captain and an Ames High product that is currently ISU football’s all-time leader in completion percentage. The playbook was open, and while Tiller’s experience leaves him 1–1 as a starter, there are plenty of things to work on before he attempts to dethrone the hometown hero.

“He needs to become more accurate with his throws; he needs to become more comprehensive with his understanding of the offense,” Rhoads said. “Those are things where he lags behind right now, but those are things that he can attain. Because of that, there’s lots of upside to Jerome Tiller.”

Tiller’s performances in the 2.5 games of steady action certainly showed some highs and lows of the young signal caller. Collecting 487 total yards and scoring three touchdowns during the five-half stretch, Tiller’s completion percentage moved to 56.9 on the season, the slightest notch above Arnaud’s 56.8 percent.

Tiller’s double-take inspiring runs have made highlight reels since he took over the reins, and even running backs coach Kenith Pope has taken notice of the freshman’s work during Arnaud’s injury stretch.

“Jerome has got a lot of great quickness, I think he is probably a fast-twitch guy,” Pope said. “He’s got good acceleration to get through the holes and those types of things.”

Arnaud was a vocal leader when he was out, and it definitely was a struggle watching the game after playing in 18 straight before sitting out against Nebraska. Tiller is young and shadowed by the captain, but sitting out a year and a half when the word “bench” isn’t in your vocabulary isn’t easy.

“I wanted to play right away, but of course I wasn’t ready. It takes a lot of adjustment to get used to it,” Tiller said. “I talked to my parents, they kept me motivated and told me, ‘Your time will come next year.’”

Tiller is working to make sure things get better. Listening to Arnaud and getting the chance to learn from the experienced captain is a chance some players don’t get the opportunity to have.

“[Austen’s] a great coach, to be honest, he helps when I need help, he’s there so I can learn from him, he goes before me in reps so that I can see what he’s doing,” Tiller said. “He helps me get better.”

There isn’t a solution from day to day to understand everything happening to a quarterback during the course of a football game, but watching a little more should bring down his sack numbers — Tiller took four sacks in his 2.5 games as opposed to Arnaud only taking two in his seven games of action.

“[Tiller’s] presence is something that lacks right now,” Herman said. “The ball is snapped and all of a sudden it’s organized chaos for him — that’s the biggest thing he’s gotta work on.”

The quarterback, called “JT” by his fans, has plenty to learn before he morphs into a Heisman winner, but with hyperbole about progress thrown around by his own coaches, there’s no doubt that Tiller’s ability is very real.

“I’ll continue to take coaching, and I’ve got three more years,” Tiller said. “I’ll always be a student, and being a student I can lead people below me or the same level as me, but becoming a leader will take time, so I’ll just wait until that time comes.”