After a few days off, the ISU football team hit the practice field again on Wednesday.

It was one of the team’s first practices since their 24-14 loss at Kansas on Nov. 8.

“It was great,” said ISU coach Paul Rhoads. “It was fantastic, we had an extreme amount of energy. It was a fun day out on the practice field.”

The Cyclones still have yet to win a conference game, and are the only team in the Big 12 conference not to do so. Even though they’ve been practicing well, Rhoads says that transitioning those practices into games has been the biggest challenge.

“We’ve practiced well, I haven’t been lying to you when I’ve told you we practice well,” Rhoads said. “We haven’t transitioned well with this team into game day against our competition with a scoreboard over our shoulder. We’ve got three more opportunities to fix that.”

Quarterback Sam Richardson, who suffered an AC separation in his shoulder prior to the Kansas game, started taking repetitions at practice as well. Although he’s not at full strength yet, he feels confident he’ll be back to normal soon.

“I’m starting to throw passes with a little more velocity now,” Richardson said. “Hopefully, I’ll just rest up kind of the rest of this week and weekend and be back at it next Tuesday or Wednesday. We’ll see.”

It was not announced that Richardson would have to miss the Kansas game until the day of the game. Richardson, who tried to practice all week, said he just wasn’t able to do what he needed to do to play.

“It wasn’t easy; it was frustrating. I think it was even more frustrating than Saturday,” Richardson said. “You feel hopeless, honestly, out there on the sidelines. But I can honestly say I did everything I could to go out there and play and we just came to the conclusion that it was better to give Grant [Rohach]cq the opportunity.”

Following the Nov. 8 loss to the Jayhawks, the Cyclones are no longer eligible to make a bowl game. They have still yet to win a game in the Big 12 conference and only have three more games left on their schedule.

The team hasn’t quit completely, though. They’ve just had to refocus their priorities.

“I see a kind of a change in our team, honestly,” Richardson said. “We want to finish the season the way that we should. Obviously our season isn’t going the way that we want it to, and we obviously want to turn it around for our seniors and it’s kind of a start for next year. That’s the way we’re looking at it right now.”