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Iowa State football notes: How will the Cyclones handle quarterback moving forward?
By Ben Visser, correspondent
Oct. 9, 2017 6:09 pm
AMES — When Iowa State's depth chart was released Monday morning, it read Kyle Kempt or Jacob Park at the starting quarterback position.
Coach Matt Campbell reiterated at his Monday press conference that Park is still a member of the team but he's on a leave.
'Is he still a member of our team? Yes,' Campbell said. 'Is he still around us? Yes. Any more than that and I don't think it's fair to him or anybody else.'
Before the Oklahoma game on Saturday, the starting quarterback spot was up in the air — would it be senior Kyle Kempt or redshirt freshman Zeb Noland? Obviously Kempt got the nod, but now Noland gets all of the No. 2 snaps, instead of having to split time with Kempt.
'Zeb's still a young guy, we all have a lot of confidence in him,' Campbell said. 'Zeb's just missed some time with that injury and is still kind of coming back.'
Campbell said Noland is 100 percent healthy from his first-season ACL tear, but he's still catching up a bit since he missed almost his entire redshirt year.
Matt Campbell, baseball manager
Campbell and linebacker/quarterback Joel Lanning talked on the sidelines during the Oklahoma game. Campbell was asking his star football player if he was good to go back out on the field – much like a baseball manager with his starting pitcher.
'Terry Francona, that's exactly right, that's who I am with (Lanning),' Campbell said. 'We've got to just be smart. Joel and I have a really good relationship that I try to gauge him the best I can.'
Campbell's job is tricky because he doesn't want to deplete his defense but he also recognizes that Lanning brought life to the offense while he was in.
Outside of Jacob Park being out, Campbell said this was the week for Lanning to also play quarterback because any earlier and it could have hurt his development as a linebacker.
'What you see is a confident football player on defense and a guy that's really starting to hone in and play great football for us,' Campbell said. 'It's like I told him, he's the starting mike linebacker. We'll continue to play around with different roles for him in terms of the offensive game plan and we'll just kind of package that each week as we go.
'You can't ask him to do too much and ask him to do so much that he's ineffective and he becomes the jack of all trades and the master of nothing.'
Injury update
The Cyclones have, for the most part, stymied the injury bug this year. And when injuries have happened, they haven't been season-threatening ones, like Kamari Cotton-Moya's elbow.
It looked like offensive lineman Robby Garcia could have suffered a season-ending injury during the Oklahoma game when his leg got rolled up on while he was blocking.
Luckily for Garcia and Iowa State, it was only a sprained ankle and he was able to go back in the game.
'He came back in for that last drive, and kind of an unsung hero to be honest with you to go back out there and gut it out,' Campbell said. 'A lot of credit to him to gut it out.'
Linebacker Willie Harvey missed the Oklahoma game with a hamstring injury, but Campbell said it's not serious. Harvey was running during practice on Sunday.
'We didn't know if we would have him or not (for Oklahoma),' Campbell said. 'By the time we got to Thursday of last week, he wasn't ready to go, so we left him back here and let him work Friday and Saturday with our training staff back here. I think we'll know a lot more Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. It certainly looks a lot better than it did last week.'
Awards
Iowa State's win over Oklahoma brought a list of national and conference awards.
Iowa State football:
• Athlon Sports Team of the Week
• Football Writers Association of America Team of the Week
Joel Lanning:
• Walter Camp National Defensive Player of the Week
• Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week
Kyle Kempt:
• Honorable Mention 'College Football Performance Player of the Week'
• Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week
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Iowa State Cyclones quarterback Kyle Kempt started against Oklahoma on Saturday and is listed as the co-starter on this week's depth chart with Jacob Park, who is taking a leave from the team for personal health issues. (Mark D. Smith/USA TODAY Sports)