The smile and comments say it all.

The smile, a giant grin that spreads across the face of backup quarterback Phillip Bates can’t be missed. The comments, which range from, “Phillip Bates is my hero,” to “I love Phillip Bates,” never stop coming from Cyclone teammates.

“They clown, talk trash about me, but it’s all good,” Bates said, smiling as a teammate whispers a comment to him.

While he may just be becoming an adult – he turns 18 Thursday – it’s his play with the Cyclones this season that has many of his teammates beginning to look at him as a veteran.

The 6-foot-2 freshman from Omaha broke his high school record for passing with 2,963 yards in just two seasons. He also set the Omaha North High School record with 2,326 all-purpose yards as a quarterback. Bates, nicknamed by teammates as “The Phenom,” is the “baby” of the team, and until Thursday, wasn’t old enough to do many things without a call to his mom in Nebraska.

“When they were recruiting him they said he was a good player,” said junior wide receiver R.J. Sumrall. “But we recruit a lot of people, they said were really good players, so you have to wait until two-a-days to see what they can really do. He opened up our eyes for everybody – the coaches and the players.”

Now, he’s opening eyes at other spots. The freshman who has lined up at quarterback, running back and even wide receiver this seasonwas only taking snaps from the center in high school.

ISU coach Gene Chizik and offensive coordinator Robert McFarland decided against redshirting the freshman and have used him in numerous roles.

“He (Coach McFarland) comes up to me like three days before two-a-days were over and said to me that he thinks I’m ready to play now,” Bates said. “He doesn’t think I’m fully ready to play quarterback right now, but he wanted me on the field now, so I said whatever I need to do to help I’m going to do.”

What Bates does is spend the majority of his practice rotating between the quarterbacks, wide receivers, and running backs. Beginning the day warming up with fellow quarterbacks Bret Meyer and Austen Arnaud, Bates typically heads off to work with receivers or throws with the quarterbacks and randomly mixes in with the running backs.

“They keep it simple for me,” Bates said. “But whatever formation I’m in, it’s always on a piece of paper and they’ll call it out and I’ll go in. It’s pretty simple.”

What hasn’t been simple is living the life of the youngest player on the team. At 17-years-old for the majority of his early career with Iowa State, Bates would have to call home to get permission to be worked on by team doctors. Still a teenager, he would be the subject of numerous pranks, including coming to practice and finding his helmet without pads.

Bates is usually the guy getting tossed around by teammates in the locker room and getting shouted at during interviews.

“That’s called tough love,” said senior wide receiver Milan Moses.

Bates looks at it as another family. After Saturday’s win against Iowa, the family love for Bates got much deeper after he pulled down a 38-yard pass from Meyer and setting up kicker Bret Culbertson for a game-winning 28-yard field goal.

“They just drew it up in the dirt basically,” Bates said. “Coach McFarland saw it upstairs that they had a linebacker on me and they just threw it downfield.”

After using him at three different positions, Chizik said his coaches are still looking at other spots to use the freshman, possibly even as a kick returner.

“We’re really investigating some things,” Chizik said. “We just want to get him on the field, but we want to make sure we don’t overload him with too much stuff.”

While Bates said he realizes Cyclone fans will remember him for his game-changing catch against the Hawkeyes, the freshman continues to smile and said he hopes to one day be the guy who delivers the big pass.

“I still am a quarterback,” Bates said. “I’m always going to be a quarterback, but whatever I need to do to help right now, I’ll do.”