With the graduation of players like Seneca Wallace and Matt Word, the door is wide open for ISU football players to step up and become team leaders.

Head coach Dan McCarney said leadership is something he will look for in this year’s spring practices.

“That’s one of the things you evaluate through practice — who your leaders are and who are your most developed players,” McCarney said. “There’s a lot of good potential leaders on the team. It’s an excellent group.”

Senior Jordan Carstens said he leads by actions more than words. The 6-foot-5, 300-pound defensive lineman started all last season and has improved steadily since walking on to the team in 1999.

“I think one of the best ways to lead is to lead by example by just playing hard and doing my best out there,” Carstens said. “If someone’s down, you’ve got to pick them up, keep the defense going, keep them excited and keep them playing together.”

Carstens said that it’s not necessarily just seniors who need to become team leaders.

“There’s a lot of guys here that need to take ownership of the team,” Carstens said. “We need guys to step up whether they’re seniors or not.”

Right now Carstens said his main goal on defense is to get the team back in rhythm.

“It’s kind of tough to get back in a rhythm coming off such a long season, but I think we’re finally finding ours and the defense is coming on strong,” Carstens said.

On the offensive side of the ball, senior wideout Lane Danielsen is a team leader mentally as well as statistically. Danielsen, who led the team in receiving last year with 1,073 yards, wants to make his last year his best.

“It’s my last spring and I’m trying to make the most of it and just try to come out here and get better every day,” Danielsen said.

Along with Carstens, Danielsen tries to lead by example, but isn’t afraid to speak out to players.

“I try to lead the offense by being as vocal as possible and always staying positive,” Danielsen said. “You’ve got to let guys know when they’re doing a good job, but you also have to let them know when they’re doing something wrong.”

Danielsen has been to a bowl game every year since he enrolled here and he doesn’t want that to change.

“We know how to win around here. We seniors have been to three straight bowl games,” Danielsen said. “We know how to get it done and now we’ve got to get it done again.”

With underclassmen looking up to the seniors, Danielsen knows that they have to be the ones taking control of the team.

“The seniors need to step up and take this team by the horns and lead them,” Danielsen said.

McCarney is confident that by the end of this spring he will have the team leaders that he needs.

“We’ve got 29 seniors,” McCarney said. “Once the dust settles on spring practice, there’s no doubt that we’ll have some good leaders on this team.”