Six former Cyclones will try to make it in the NFL next season.

Running back Ennis Haywood, the Cyclone thought by NFL scouts to go in the middle rounds of the seven-round NFL draft, took the free agent offer from the Dallas Cowboys Sunday after the draft’s end.

“I’m very, very disappointed I didn’t get drafted,” said Haywood, who led the Big 12 in rushing last season and finished third this year. “I really want some answers.”

No one offered any, and that’s what has him confused.

“Everybody I talked to said I would go between the third and fifth rounds,” he said.

His open field speed was questioned, but not his speed between the tackles or his size, his strength or his durability, he said.

“Evidently, I need to improve on more than I think I do.”

Sunday night, after watching a draft that left him “deflated,” Haywood got calls from the Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Jets, Arizona Cardinals and Dallas asking him to come to their respective rookie camps as a free agent.

Haywood picked Dallas. He’s from the area, and it’s the team he idolized growing up.

“I’ll do anything” to make the team, he said. “I’ll go to kicker if I have to.”

But, “it’s going to be hard” making it as a free agent, he said. The draft picks are looked at more and scrutinized less, he added.

He reports to rookie camp on Thursday.

From then until August, he will be evaluated through subsequent camps by coaches, kept on if they like him, tossed aside if they don’t.

If nothing else, “I’m happy I still got a chance,” Haywood said.

Tight end Mike Banks was the only player from Iowa State drafted – by Arizona as the 12th pick in the seventh and final round.

Like Haywood, he’ll do anything to make the team.

“All that matters is that they carry four tight ends. And I want to be one of them.”

To do that, he said he needs to block well, run passing routs well enough to separate himself from defensive backs and be healthy.

He feels the latter of these kept him from being drafted earlier.

On Jan. 23, he broke his right collarbone, then on March 4 at the NFL combine – a series of athletic tests in front of NFL scouts – he broke it again.

If his collarbone mends and he doesn’t find a spot at tight end, perhaps the Cardinals will use him as a special teams player – something he participated in all four years at Iowa State.

“I think it’s one of the reasons they picked me,” Banks said.

On May 2 he reports to his own rookie camp. By August, he’d like to be a part of the 53-man roster. He believes around 90 men are trying out.

The Detroit Lions like Marcel Howard’s “meanness.”

At least, that’s what the former offensive lineman said Detroit told him. “[The Lions representative] liked my attitude, I guess.”

Howard got a call at 5:15 Sunday afternoon from the Lions, asking him if he’d try out as a free agent.

He reports to camp on Thursday.

He’ll try to make it as a right guard or right tackle.

“I’m very excited,” he said.

Former offensive lineman Lorenzo White is too. Sunday night at 6:00, the Jacksonville Jaguars called, asking him to come on as a free agent.

He had hoped a team would call, but “I wasn’t expecting it.”

Nevertheless, he reports to camp on Thursday. The coaches are expecting him to be a hard worker, he said.

“Whatever they see, they’ll like. I think I’ve been overlooked” by other teams he said.

Defensive lineman Kevin DeRonde will join Haywood in Dallas – the Cowboys picked him up as a free-agent also.

And the New York Jets did the same with former offensive lineman Cory Hannen.

They could not be reached for comment.