Still slowed by injuries, the Cyclone football team will play host to a talented University of Texas team this weekend.

“We’ve got some questionable guys, of course,” head coach Dan McCarney said. “It’s kind of day-to-day right now with Jordan Carstens, [Harold] Clewis and [Nik] Moser. We’ll see how they do.”

McCarney said, despite the injuries, he is optimistic about his team’s chances this weekend after very close games in past seasons.

“[It’s been close] the last couple of times we’ve played them — 44-41, 21-10 last year and it was 14-10 in the fourth quarter last year,” he said. “We did play good football and we’re counting on that. We’ll be able to go out and get that same kind of effort and providence.”

He said Cyclones have been able to score on the Texas defense during the last few years and expects much of the same from this year’s team.

For the first time in a couple of weeks, the focus for Iowa State isn’t on special teams. After having two punts blocked against Iowa, the Cyclones have been almost perfect in that area.

Against Oklahoma, they held record-setting punt-returner Antonio Perkins to minus-one yards returning. The only flaw was when the Sooners’ Mark Bradley returned a kickoff for a touchdown.

McCarney said Adam Benike’s kicking has been solid as well.

“He’s had a tremendous year so far — five out of six on field goals; about 83 percent,” he said. “He’s hit all his PATs, 16-of-16, and we’re very proud of him. He kind of gets lost in the shuffle of losses in recent weeks but he has really been consistent and has done a heck of a job for us.”

Because special teams isn’t in the spotlight this week, attention turns to the quarterback competition between senior Cris Love and freshman Austin Flynn. Flynn was benched early in the second quarter during a 52-21 loss to Texas Tech last Saturday and Love replaced him.

Love passed for two touchdowns, one interception and over 250 yards in less than three quarters of play and led the Cyclones back from a 21-7 deficit to tie the game 21-21 at the beginning of the third quarter.

McCarney said the quarterback change was needed because of some miscues early in the Texas Tech game. One instance was when Flynn failed to connect with tight end James Wright early in the game — a play that looked to be an automatic touchdown.

“I mean it’s done, it’s a touchdown, second play of the game, we’re right where we want to be, or should have been, in the end zone,” McCarney said.

McCarney stressed that the decision to make a change was not made solely on Flynn’s performance against Texas Tech. He said the coaching staff has been evaluating all of the quarterbacks since the start of the year.

“If a guy is struggling or is not quite as consistent as we want him to be then you give another guy an opportunity, and that’s really what we did,” he said. “I don’t want to make any more out of this than it is, it’s just a situation where we’re trying to be more efficient, more productive, score more points.”

McCarney said he didn’t intend to play two quarterbacks against Texas Tech and he doesn’t plan to run a dual-quarterback system for the remainder of the year.

“We want to play one, I hope we can,” he said. “Both of them have to be ready, and if that’s what it takes and we can keep defenses guessing as far as what we want to feature then we’ll do it. My preference would be ‘Here’s our starter’ and ‘Here’s our reliever’ and I think our quarterbacks realize that.”

McCarney said the coaching staff will use all of this week’s practice to evaluate the quarterbacks. A starter will be named toward the end of the week.