Football season is back — sort of.

Spring football officially kicked off Tuesday, with the team holding its first practice of the year at the Bergstrom Indoor Practice Facility.

For a team that has struggled during the past few seasons, and having failed to win a conference game in 2014, the upcoming year will prove to be an important one. And in order for the team to accomplish its goal of making a bowl game, now is the time to start.

Offense: Keep Pushing Forward

Offensively, the Cyclones are sitting in a pretty good place.

They have a strong receiving core, led by sophomore Allen Lazard and redshirt senior Quenton Bundrage, who is returning after suffering a season-ending knee injury last season.

But the biggest difference from last offseason to this one is the certainty at quarterback. Instead of having to focus on a position battle, the team has been moving forward with redshirt senior Sam Richardson at the reigns.

After earning the starting job last fall, Richardson finished the season with more than 3,000 yards of total offense and completed 56.3 percent of his passes. The certainty at the quarterback position is something that Rhoads said will help the team this spring, but also help Richardson improve, too.

“I’m pleased we’re not having to talk about a quarterback controversy or anything of that nature,” Rhoads said. “Sam is clearly established as our starting quarterback and I would argue that he has an opportunity to be top three in this league.”

But having a starting quarterback doesn’t mean the competition is over. Offensive coordinator Mark Mangino insisted that competition remains among the quarterbacks, just in a slightly different way.

“We do have competition at quarterback, the competition comes from within,” Mangino said. “We’ve told our quarterbacks, ‘you compete against yourself. You push yourself to be the best you can be from the mental aspect of the game to the physical aspect of the game.’ No, there’s no quarterback battle per say as far as depth chart, but the battle now lies within.”

So what’s the biggest goal for the offense this spring? Well, Mangino says his main focus now is helping his players to learn how to deal with adversity, something he knows will be important this upcoming season.

“What we’ve done during the winter and now into spring is we’re coaching our guys to handle adversity and overcome adversity,” Mangino said. “You always train your players to be successful, but part of that training is to help them deal with and overcome adversity. That’s been a big focus of ours as an offensive staff.

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Defense: Back To Basics

Defensively, the Cyclones are taking a slight step back to reevaluate.

After losing several players in the offseason either to injury, transfer or graduation, defensive coordinator Wally Burnham is working to find the right combination of guys to fill the holes that were left.

But in his search to find the winning combination, Burnham says he is just looking for guys who are willing to play hard and the right way.

“I need kids that can go out and make plays,” Burnham said. “A lot of guys can jump high and run fast but when you get them out in a game situation, they can’t make plays. That’s our first thing, were going to try to find 11 … we’re mixing people in with each group and we’re looking for playmakers.”

Burnham said that while they won’t install too many packages and coverages this spring, he will have a big focus on improving basic techniques. While more complicated material will come, just getting his players to focus and do the little things the right way is what’s important for the time being.

“You don’t do a whole lot [in the spring], but maybe this spring more so than in the past,” Burnham said. “I don’t know that, I certainly hope it’s not that way. But we’re going to spend a lot of time with basic techniques and basic coverages … we’re going to spend a lot of time because we’re not going to do a whole lot this spring.”