Iowa State Cyclones’ defensive coordinator Jon Heacock talks to players during warm-up in the university’s Spring Football game at Jack Trice Stadium Saturday, April 22, 2023, in Ames, Iowa. © Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK
AMES, Iowa – Iowa State had already lost defensive linemen Will McDonald IV and M.J. Anderson to the NFL in April. Now Isaiah Lee has left the team after being charged as part of the state’s investigation into sports gambling.
Quickly, the defensive line room had three spots it needed to fill, and the plan on how to replace that trio was swift to how itself.
“Well, you do it the same way you did (in the past),” Iowa State defensive coordinator Jon Heacock said. “I don’t think you change. You have to understand that there’s some learning, some growth, you know, things that go on in there, but I don’t think we change how we coach or defenses that we call or any of those kinds of things.”
Heacock is famous for his consistent defensive philosophy – one that is able to plug and place a second-string player if a first teamer goes down.
The same system is adjusted from the first defensive snap of the game to the fourth quarter, where Heacock’s teams have excelled, but he knows there is a grace period with younger players.
“I think you have to be respectful,” Heacock said. “I mean, obviously, what we lost was a first round draft pick which when every university loses one of those guys it’s, it’s different. I think there may be some young folks floating around there that maybe got something. So you just continue to work and play and you just keep coaching them as hard as you can and coaching them when you find the things they can do and where they fit in.
For some players, that coaching will come with the caveat that they haven’t seen the field much in game action.
“Sometimes it’s a little bit more like group and freshness and all of those things,” Heacock said. “So I don’t think you approach it differently. I think you try to just keep coaching you have to have some understanding, got some new guys that are out in play for three straight years. That’s real. They haven’t experienced everything that those guys have. So (we’ll) just keep grinding.”
Aside from lack of experience for a select group at the position, Heacock raves about how the younger players have responded to roster spots that may not have been open days after the end of the 2022 season.
“It’s awesome,” Heacock said. “They’re incredible. They’re incredible human beings, and when you’re that you take coaching you listen, you work out really hard… And so I think that’s been a blessing. Those guys have been incredible. And we go fast. Things are happening fast out there. But really there’s been no problems at this point.”
Those young guys will expose themselves in due time, whether its Domonique Orange or Tyler Onyedim, whom fans have grown familiar with over the years, or other guys that rise to the opportunity.
“You know, I think we get through it,” Heacock said. To be honest, I think we’ve got some guys I think and some young folks floating around here that are young Jaquan’s and young Will’s and that’s exciting to me. And I think trying to sort out through camp and reps and numbers and all that. The guy that’s done a tremendous job with Joey Petersen, he’s got a great pass rush and a great job really taken kind of a leadership role and I think he’s done a great job for us. Trent Jones gives us a little bit of that boundary, a little bit like MJ did in there. Samuel Same has been there… So I think those young guys are coming along and I think there’s I don’t think they’re ready yet for sure, but I think they look like some of those young guys did.”
Iowa State’s defensive will take the field for the first time this season against Northern Iowa on Saturday, September 2 (1:00 p.m. ESPN+).
