After injuries and poor play, Iowa State’s offensive line only has one starter in the same position as the beginning of the season.

Iowa State shook up its offensive line last weekend against Nebraska, hoping to improve its blocking schemes.

Senior left guard Reggie Stephens has moved to right guard, where he hasn’t played since the last four games of the 2006 season. Stephens was replaced at left guard by freshman Kelechi Osemele.

Ben Lamaak moved from right guard to right tackle, where he started all of last season, and sophmore Alex Alvarez filled in at center for junior Mike Knapp while he was recovering from surgery. Knapp will be back this week. Left tackle Doug Dedrick is the only offensive lineman who hasn’t moved.

The moves, however, did not seem to work well Saturday; Iowa State only gained 113 yards rushing against Nebraska, 67 of which came on sophmore running back Alexander’s Robinson’s touchdown run.

“The bottom line is, we have to block better up front,” coach Gene Chizik said. “We have to give those running backs a chance.”

Stephens said that moving the line around shouldn’t have much of an effect on the team.

“It’s really just five guys working together to get this thing done, so it really doesn’t matter who is in there,” Stephens said.

Despite the Cyclones’ disappointing offensive line play, they still feel like some things are going right.

“There are still positive things we are doing, it’s just, we aren’t doing enough to win the game for us,” Stephens said. “As an offensive line, you can take control and win games for your team, and we haven’t been able to do that yet.”

Poor play calling

To those fans who groaned every time Iowa State called a wide receiver screen or quarterback draw: The coaches agree.

“We understand we aren’t very good at [play calling] right now,” Chizik said. “Down after down we see it, and we are working on things to try to get it fixed.”

One of the things offensive coordinator Robert McFarland believes will help them offensively is more aggressive play calling.

“I was a little bit too conservative I think this last game,” McFarland said. “Obviously there are plays we can run that will give us a little bit better chance. Obviously we had reason for doing what we were doing. Hoping to get something quick, get something on the run. Obviously that didn’t work out.”

Injured Arnaud

Last weekend against Nebraska, sophomore quarterback Austen Arnaud played with a bad shoulder.

“It was still bothering him a little bit,” McFarland said. “You know, I just wanted to make sure I kept him healthy and so sometimes when you do that you get a little bit too conservative. I went with plays that hopefully would have given us an opportunity to get a good catch and run and those just didn’t work.”

Arnaud might have been hampered last weekend, but McFarland is confident it won’t be an issue this week.

“He is feeling great now,” McFarland said. “… He is really back to himself, just wingin’ the ball.”

Terrific Taylor

Senior defensive end Kurtis Taylor is second in the league in sacks during conference games, with three sacks since the conference season began. He is currently second on the team with a total of four sacks this season.

Backup defensive end, junior Christopher Lyle, leads the team with five sacks. He is tied for seventh in conference games, with two.