There are still 138 days left to tick off the calendar before Iowa State football hosts Northern Iowa to open its 2023 season.
There will be a spring game on Saturday for the first time since 2017. There will be summer workouts and fall camp. There’s still plenty of time for the program to work out kinks and target its strengths.
It has been difficult to get too much of a read on the happenings at spring practice, but I find myself cautiously optimistic about one position group anyway.
I’m cautiously optimistic about Iowa State’s offensive line.
Now, none of this feeling is due to what I’ve been able to see out on the field with my own two eyes, because I’m not allowed at practice. This is a take that could end up being totally wrong, but I don’t think it will.
I could not have come away more impressed with new Iowa State offensive line coach Ryan Clanton when he met with the media late last week.
Some people just have that “it-factor.” Clanton is one of those people.
He describes offensive line play, a really difficult topic to describe, in terms that make it easy to understand. You can tell he’s a teacher, and he knows how to connect with his students.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Clanton said in a video circulated this weekend by Iowa State football’s Twitter account. “But, it has to be violent.”
That’s obviously a significant simplification, but it is a window into the offensive line room’s new mentality with its new leader.
Couple the new leader with some returning talent and experience, including multiple-year starters Jake Remsberg, Darrell Simmons, Jarrod Hufford and Tyler Miller, and you could have a recipe for success.
That group is learning how to do things a different way with a different mentality. They’re learning new schemes and have to pick things up quickly in order for the offense to progress this spring.
That is a tall task, especially with a group of experienced guys who could be set in their ways, but Clanton seems to be more than up to the challenge.
“I think it’s all about how you teach it,” Clanton said on Thursday. “If you make it too complicated, then everyone’s gonna trip over each other, and it’s gonna be a complete failure. You really have to be mindful of how you teach it. That’s something that we’ve, I feel, done really well of really presenting it to the players in a new form and fashion and saying, ‘So, here’s the deal, a lot of offensive linemen, they think about their box, and this is what I do on this play versus this defense specifically.’ I’ve tried to give them the overview and teach defense and truly understand why are we running this play with this technique? What are they defending? What are they defending, and not just to our defense, but to the defenses that we’re going to be seeing? They’re starting to truly understand football as a whole. That creates confidence that lets you play faster. That allows you to come off the ball and be more violent. That’s the key. I believe in truly playing fast.”
I’m all the way here for Iowa State’s offensive line playing fast, and it was notable to me when Iowa State football analyst and former Cyclone Ben Bruns responded on Twitter to a story I wrote last week.
That’s a ringing endorsement, and we’re all going to have to wait another 138 days before we can truly see it for ourselves, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m looking forward to seeing it in action for the first time in Saturday’s spring game.
Iowa State offensive line play has a mentality.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be violent.”
More Musings
*** I’d be surprised if we didn’t see more Iowa State men’s basketball recruiting news sometime Monday evening. Perhaps involving another high-scoring guard from an East Coast school, who was just on a visit to Ames this weekend.
*** Iowa State women’s basketball landed a significant transfer addition on Friday when Truman State guard Hannah Belanger announced her commitment to the program. She averaged 21.7 points and shot an eye-popping 47.1 percent from 3-point range last season. Maintaining that shooting percentage will strike fear in defenses all across the Big 12.
*** Don’t look now, but West Virginia’s Bob Huggins might be building a wagon. The Mountaineers already made a splash when they added Arizona guard Kerr Krisa a couple of weeks ago, but they made another one this weekend when Syracuse forward transfer Jesse Edwards made his pledge. He averaged 14.5 points and led the ACC with 2.7 blocks per game this year while earning All-ACC and ACC All-Defense honors. The 6-foot-11 big man sounds like he’ll fit right in out in Morgantown.
*** One of the coolest things I saw this weekend was the team-up between Iowa State softball and West Virginia baseball. Now, that might sound random to some, but it makes sense when you remember Iowa State does not have a baseball team and West Virginia doesn’t have a softball team.
It all started when an Iowa State Twitter account stated there are no sports left to follow for the remainder of the school year. Cyclone softball player Lea Nelson saw it, and that led the WVU Barstool account to see it, too.
Before long, you’re seeing Cyclone softball posted up supporting Mountaineer baseball in Stillwater, and they’re hopping on the bus celebrating a win over No. 3 Oklahoma State by singing Take Me Home Country Roads at the top of their lungs.
By the way, that’s the highest-ranked win in Iowa State softball history. We might need to keep this collaboration alive for the long haul.
