With the spring football game a little over a week away, position battles are heating up on the practice field for the ISU football team. For one unit, the battle is nothing new.

The defensive line returns ample experience and is expected to be the heart of a Cyclone defense that struggled against the Big 12’s dynamic spread offenses. Three seniors this year will be looked upon to provide leadership and poise to run the defensive schemes set up by defensive coordinator Wally Burnham.

“When we put the ball down [in practice] and they make three yards or more, we’re not successful,” said Burnham. “If we go third and long in any situation out here and they make it, we’re not successful. We keep telling them that this is a mindset. It’s a mindset that you’ve got to know the down and the distance. You’ve got to do all of those things, and we’re going to help you with calls and depth to remind you of what it is. There’s little tag words and things that helps them, hopefully.”

Senior nose guard Nate Frere serves as the anchor in the middle to disrupt the opposition’s rushing attack. The Cyclone front line lacked the explosiveness and agility to handle the run last season, as the team was gashed for 176.5 yards per game on the ground.

“Some of those teams I hadn’t played before, and they move the ball fast, you know. They throw the ball around, there’s a lot of running, and you’ve got to be in very good shape to play with teams like that,” Frere said. “Tackling is just all about your feet and getting in the right position. Coming through your hips and wrapping up is big… We’ve just got to flat out get off the ball better and stay lower and work our hands, work our hips, work our feet and put it all together.”

Frere will be joined by junior Austin Alburtis, sophomore Stephen Ruempolhamer and others who are competing to fill departed senior Michael Tate’s defensive tackle position.

A strong center to a defensive line is typically used to jumble up the box and create disturbance in the offenses’ run game, which in turn is targeted toward making a team one-dimensional, forcing them to throw the football. The only problem with shutting down the running game in the Big 12 is that it might not necessarily get a team out of its comfort zone. In fact, it could put them right into it.

The Big 12 conference led the nation in offensive production, specifically through a well-orchestrated aerial assault led by eight quarterbacks who finished in the top 40 in passing yards — four of those were in the top 10.

Stopping the pass-happy teams in the conference requires immense pressure on the quarterback, and the Cyclones know that area must be improved.

“We don’t have a true pass rush guy where we can say, ‘Alright, this is their worst offensive tackle, we can put you over here and we know we’re going to get a rush on the quarterback.’ We don’t have that right now,” Burnham said. “We’re going to get trapped every once in awhile, we’re going to get things that will happen to us, but we’re going to also make things happen.”

A pair of senior defensive ends, Rashawn Parker and Christopher Lyle, will have the honor of harassing the opponent’s quarterback.

“We need to focus on the guy in front of us,” Parker said. “A lot of times I’d find myself looking in the backfield at the quarterback instead of focusing on just the tackle or the guard or whoever’s trying to block us. We just have to beat the man in front of us first and then get to the quarterback. So we’re focusing on that and getting more pressure on the quarterback.”

Last season Parker led the team with five quarterback hurries, while Lyle contributed to a team-high five sacks on the year. Providing a tenacious pass-rush will not only require an intense physical pace, but also a mental edge over the opposition.

“We’ve just got to believe we can do it for four quarters all the time,” Parker said. “A lot of times we’ll be in the game first or second quarter, but then we’ll have one play here or one play there later in the game that will hurt us.We need to be disciplined as players because we know what we need to do to go out there and win a game, and it comes down to us players going out there and making plays.”

A tough pass rush is definitely a must —Iowa State allowed a league-high 67.4 completion percentage for opposing quarterbacks last season, while registering only 17 sacks.