Winning may not be a major concern for the ISU football players at this weekend’s annual spring football scrimmage, but one thing is on their mind: making the starting squad come fall.

With Seneca Wallace gone, the question on people’s mind this spring is who will play quarterback for the Cyclones. ISU head football coach Dan McCarney said the position is still wide open, but the spring game will have some bearing on his final decision.

“This game will be a factor in determining a quarterback, but not a big one,” McCarney said. “As close as it’s been all year and with Waye Terry not even being in the mix with a broken thumb, whoever comes out of this game on top will have an edge, but it’ll be a slight edge.”

McCarney will even split playing time at quarterback on the first string offense between senior Chris Love in the first half and freshman Austin Flynn in the second half.

“That’s how close it is,” he said.

Another position that has had some competition this spring is running back, but as of now McCarney has a starter — last year’s leading rusher, Hiawatha Rutland.

“Hiawatha’s our starting running back going into the spring game. He’s earned it,” McCarney said. “Running back’s a really healthy position for us, but he’s our starter.”

Other players vying for the position include senior Michael Wagner and redshirt freshman Stevie Hicks.

On the whole, McCarney feels great about how his team looks heading into this weekend’s game.

“The competitiveness of this team is very impressive,” McCarney said. “I love the way they come to work every day.”

Something McCarney has noticed in spring practice is how well his team has improved over the off season, especially defensively.

“Work ethic has been great, the attitude’s fantastic, the seven or eight starters on defense that came back have all played really well and our secondary’s the best it’s ever been,” McCarney said. “There’s only a handful of guys that haven’t improved. For the most part our whole team has shown great improvement this spring.”

Senior defensive lineman Jordan Carstens said one of the things the defense has been working on this spring is stopping the running game.

“We’ve also improved on our red zone and short yardage situations — times where we need big stops,” Carstens said. “I think we’ve really come up big this spring.”

As for any weaknesses that he sees in his team, McCarney was reluctant to disclose much of that information.

“I’m not going to give a scouting report to Iowa and Northern Iowa, but there’s plenty of things that we can work on,” McCarney said. “We could always use more depth and more backups that can play in the Big 12, and we’re always looking to improve special teams.”

Another thing McCarney is looking for in the spring scrimmage is guys who will step up and take control of the team.

“We’ve lost some real impact players like Seneca Wallace and Jeremy Loyd, but for the most part, most of the team is back and those kids have really stepped it up,” McCarney said.

McCarney said he will treat this game just like a practice in that every player will be under constant watch.

“It will be our final evaluation this spring. We’ll be checking every play,” McCarney said. “We’ll make our final decisions on our starting 11 after the spring game.”

Even though winning or losing is not really a concern, McCarney wants the same things out of this game that he would any other.

“We want a clean game without a bunch of penalties or turnovers. I don’t want to come out there sloppin’ around,” McCarney said. “I want to look like a Big 12 program that’s won 23 games over the last three years, and a team that’s ready to win a lot more games next year.”