This fall when fourth down hits and the ISU football team falls back to return a punt, Cyclone fans will be missing a familiar sight.

Jarvis West, last year’s kickoff and punt returner, leaves a pair of big shoes to fill. West averaged more than 14 yards per punt return and nearly 25 yards per kickoff return during his senior season.

Currently, the staff has yet to find a single player to step in and take the starting spot. Through the first few days of fall camp, coaches said the pool of players is about five or six deep and they are just putting guys in to see what they can do.

“It’s a collaborative effort always with our staff,” said ISU coach Shane Burnham. “Right now we have a bunch of guys trying out for it. Number one on punt return we’re looking for a guy to possess the football and catch it and a guy we can trust. From there, if we can get the guy to make plays, we’ll be pretty good. We’ve had some luck on that return team.”

ISU coach Paul Rhoads said by the middle of next week the team will have scrimmaged through every special team situation and he hopes to have a better idea then of who could step in and take the job.

One of the candidates, though, is sophomore wide receiver Allen Lazard.

Lazard, who returned punts for four years while playing at Urbandale High School just north of Des Moines, has also been returning a few punts in fall camp. And while he said it is a little different than what he’s used to, he said he is up to the challenge.

“It’s a little bit different obviously,” Lazard said. “If he puts me back there, I’ll do my best to catch it and make sure we get the ball back.”

Lazard, who started 11 games last season as a freshman, recorded 45 receptions and 593 receiving yards, the second best on the team.

But after a full off-season workout, instead of just a few weeks of summer camp like he had last year, Lazard feels he is much more prepared for the season this time around.

“I had a good six months of training,” Lazard said. “The guys here … those guys are all great. They know what they’re talking about. When you focus in on what they’re teaching you and do it correctly, it’ll improve.”

This season’s receiving group doesn’t have quite the same style that West had, though, and Rhoads knows it. So instead of trying to find an exact replacement to return the ball, the search will continue in a different direction.

“They don’t necessarily have that kind of explosiveness or quickness that Jarvis did,” Rhoads said. “We’re bigger than Jarvis was and I think we’re probably stronger and more capable to do more things with everybody on the field. We haven’t looked at it and said ‘this guy is going to replace Jarvis.’”