From No. 128 to juco market to strong first week for Iowa State

AMES - Sometimes coaches bristle at certain characterizations about their teams, and that totally makes sense. But Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads wasn't about to sell his 2014 defense during his Monday morning news conference.

Last season, the Cyclones finished in the 120s nationally in every major defensive statistic, including total defense (528.9 yards a game). It was 118 in scoring defense (38.8 points), 122 in pass (282.7 yards) and 123 in rush (246.25).

In recruiting last winter, Rhoads dove into the junior college ranks. On the depth chart Iowa State released Monday ahead of the Cyclones (1-0) matchup with Iowa (1-0) Saturday at Jack Trice Stadium, there were eight junior college transfers listed among the 30 players. There are 11 players listed who began their careers as jucos. At least nine jucos played in the Cyclones' season-opening 31-7 victory over Northern Iowa.

When you're in the market for junior-college players, the prime targets are December graduates who'll be on campus in January and indoctrinated into your program through spring semester. Rhoads said Iowa State wasn't picky.

'With December graduates, you're going to be competing against more people for them,” Rhoads said. 'Everybody wants the kid who'll be there in January, who'll be there for your offseason, who'll be there for spring practice. You'll push some of the May kids (spring grads at junior colleges) to the backburner knowing that's the case.

'We're not overly selective when it comes to that. We want the best players we can possibly get.”

In that regard, you'd have to say the ISU staff hit on some jucos after week 1.

- Linebackers Jay Jones and Jordan Harris led ISU with nine tackles each in their first career starts.

- Noseguard Demond Tucker, the 2013 NJCAA player of the year, was a force in the middle and recorded a sack.

- Defensive end Dale Pierson, who landed in Ames last August after two seasons at Pasadena, Calif., Community College, had a career high three sacks and 3.5 tackles for loss while recording his first career interception.

- In total, 39 of ISU's 89 tackles came from players making their first starts, including 6.5 of the 13 tackles for loss.

Rhoads went into recruiting after last season's crash with the idea to improve the run defense. The Cyclones came out, at least in week 1, with a quicker, faster attacking front that showed it can shift capably from 4-3 to 3-4 (Rhoads said you probably won't see much 3-4 against power-heavy Iowa).

'To use your word, the ‘rebuild' of the defense always begins with that (stopping the run),” Rhoads said.

Pierson said the fact ISU's defense has so many jucos is a unifier. For whatever reason, the road isn't straight into a Power 5 conference stadium.

'A lot of the D-line, we talk about that and the struggle to get here and to have to graduate before we get here,” said Pierson, who played three plays in ISU's opener last season after arriving in August and then worked his way into the starting lineup for the final two games.

'Before I got here, I didn't think that was important (being on campus and in the program) to get here in the spring and all of that, I knew I could play football,” he said. 'Then I came up here and I needed that spring, I needed the workouts in this facility, I needed the D-1.”

Tucker is the juco transfer who's gained the most attention, obviously with a 'player of the year” award on his resume. The 6-0, 297-pounder is from Copiah-Lincoln Junior College in Wesson, Miss. By any recruiting standard, Tucker is a good get. He picked ISU over Kansas State, Arizona State, Louisville, TCU, Texas A&M, Mississippi, Mississippi State. He was rated among Rival's (No. 31) and ESPN's (No. 23) top-40 junior college players.

Basically, Tucker is exactly the kind of player you're looking for when you finished No. 128 in total defense the previous season.

'He's a little bit different player than we've been playing with,” Rhoads said.

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