For the most up-to-date totals on Troy Davis’ rushing yards look no further than Section O.

That is the home of the “TD Yard-O-Meter” which shows the season rushing yards for ISU’s star tailback. The meter is operated by Travis Jungling and Mike Grund, both are students here at ISU.

“We thought of the idea last year just before the Oklahoma game,” Jungling said. “Troy was about to become the first sophomore to rush for 1,000 yards in five games, so we wanted to do something special. So we made the sign the night before the game.”

The idea of the sign is credited to Jungling, but Andy Kampman is the one who “took the idea and ran with it,” Jungling said.

The original sign was completely made of cardboard, which served its purpose but not without difficulty. “The wind used to make the cardboard sign flop around,” Grund said.

The 1996 version of the sign is mainly composed of plywood, with two sheets of plexiglas and a wooden frame to hold it all together. The numbers are made of cardboard.

The figure on the sign is as close to accurate as a person can get, as multiple sources are used to get the proper yardage. “We listen to Pete Taylor on the radio, we look at the scoreboard and we use our judgment skills,” Jungling said. “The official score is sometimes different than what anybody else has.”

The meter has become a fan favorite, perking the curiosity of a lot of people that enter Cyclone Stadium. “We have a lot of people coming up to us, saying, ‘So how many does he got?'” Jungling said. “We have also become the ‘Yard-O-Meter’ guys.”

Section O, the meter’s home, is a student section that is general admission, which means the hallowed home of the sign is not guaranteed. “We get to the stadium two hours before kickoff so we can go in as soon as the gate opens,” Grund said.

No problems have been encountered here at home, but the guys did have some trouble when they brought the sign to Troy’s historic game at Missouri. “We were stopped three times on the way to our seats by security people asking us where we were going to hang the sign,” Jungling said. In the end, the sign was hanging from a wall when Troy hit 2,000.

Jungling said they skipped the Iowa game this year for safety reasons. “If we would’ve went to Iowa City, we wouldn’t have come back alive,” he said.

When asked about their predictions on where the meter would stop this season, Jungling said, “He’s going to blow up a couple of games, he’s going to have some big games. I see him finishing with over 1,800 yards, but who knows?

“The reason he might not get 2,000 yards this year is because we have more weapons this year,” he continued. “It’s not necessarily because anybody is stopping him.”

Jungling added that if Davis is within reach of 2,000, they would be making the trip to Manhattan, Kan. for the season finale against KSU.