Oct 1, 2022; Lawrence, Kansas, USA; Iowa State Cyclones place kicker Jace Gilbert (20) attempts a field goal during the fourth quarter against the Kansas Jayhawks at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: William Purnell-USA TODAY Sports
Iowa State has a special teams coordinator. Now what?
One of the fanbases’ biggest gripes against Matt Campbell’s program was resolved earlier this year when the program announced the hiring of Jordan Langs as the program’s special teams leader and running backs coach.
This will be the first time Iowa State’s had a designated full-time on-field assistant coaching special teams since Bryan Gasser left the program in 2017. Quality control assistant Joe Houston filled the role in 2018.
The Cyclones’ special teams have slid significantly in the years since, ranking near the bottom nationally in most special teams statistics.
Langs will start molding the Cyclones’ special teams units during spring practice, which starts this week. That’s when the real work will begin now that the fans have their wish with a designated special teams coach.
“I don’t know if there’s a global schematic change to schematically what we’ve done in special teams,” Campbell said. “Man, at Toledo, we always had a special teams coordinator. We’ve kind of done both and one of the things I do like about having a special teams coordinator or one voice is there’s a central location to the verbiage that’s coming out of his mouth. There’s a unity of all four phases, kind of getting the same language, the same lingo.”
Langs will also play a key role in identifying and putting players in the best positions to be successful on the special teams units, especially in the case of injury when depth charts have to be shuffled.
“You also have one person that is really evaluating in terms of position,” Campbell said. “Are we building the depth charts the right way? If we have an injury, we’ve got the right guys filling in. I think those are all real positives when you look at that.”
How will things change on the field now that Iowa State has a special teams coordinator? We won’t have an answer for that until the Cyclones take the field next fall.
Behind the scenes, things have changed from an organizational perspective, though. Fans can take solace in the fact something is changing even if we don’t know the impact of that change yet.
“I think Coach Langs will do a great job of that,” Campbell said. “I think in terms of organization, drill work, man, we do spend a lot of time on that. It’s really important. I’m a huge believer in obviously special teams play and I’m involved in it myself. That’s the great value of having a special teams coordinator. I am excited to have somebody that that’s building the foundation of that.”
