Rhoads: Cyclones won’t platoon at quarterback

By Chris Williams, CycloneFanatic.com Publisher

Paul Rhoads has been in the middle of a fancy quarterback platoon before. Iowa State’s head football coach was in eighth grade at the time.

“In our last game, we rotated every play. We ran the plays in that way,” Rhoads explained. “It wasn’t a good idea. I’m not planning on doing that.”

In fact, Iowa State won’t use any sort of structure with its bulk of quarterbacks next season at all. On Sept. 3 when Northern Iowa comes to town, the Iowa State will have one quarterback named as its starter.

“I’m not going to do it by quarters. I’m not going to have any kind of a system,” Rhoads said. “We will have a starting quarterback and he will be the guy.”

While junior Jerome Tiller is currently No. 1 on the depth chart right now, that really means nothing. JUCO transfer Steele Jantz is hot on his heels.

“I think the fact that the competition is fairly even right now lets you feel good about having an injury like we have had the last two seasons,” Rhoads said. “Or if someone just isn’t performing well one day and you have to go to your bullpen, you can do that.”

Sophomore James Capello and redshirt freshman Jared Barnett are also in the mix. Still, it is hard to imagine any sort of scenario in which Tiller or Jantz isn’t Iowa State’s signal caller come week one.