5 questions for Iowa State football going into 2021 season

AMES — The football team has reported to fall camp, the turf crew is getting the field ready and media day is upon us.

It’s officially football season. Here are five questions heading into Monday’s media day for Iowa State.

1. How will Matt Campbell and Iowa State handle the expectations?

Iowa State will likely start the season as a top-10 football team, it’s a favorite to play in the Big 12 championship game and it has an outside shot at the College Football Playoff.

Those are lofty expectations for a program that was thrilled to go 6-6 less than a decade ago.

As Campbell has become fond of reminding the media, Iowa State has been a consistently good football team for the past four seasons. And that’s true, the Cyclones have gone to a bowl each of the past four seasons, won eight games in three of the last four seasons and went to the Big 12 championship game last season.

But there’s a difference between being expected to be good and what’s expected of them now, which is to be great.

2. Will COVID-19 impact Iowa State?

Iowa State did a marvelous job last season handling COVID. The Cyclones didn’t miss a game and they never had swaths of players sitting out.

Still, even with the vaccine widely and readily available, COVID still is hanging around.

Campbell said on Friday that “well over 90 percent” of his players are vaccinated and that he hopes to have 100 percent vaccinated by the time the season kickoff.

3. How will the offensive line look?

In years past, this wasn’t a question with a positive connotation. Usually the Cyclones had one or two and maybe three good pieces but the other spots along the line weren’t nearly as strong.

This season, the question carries quite the positive connotation. Colin Newell will be the center and Sean Foster will be the left tackle. After that, every other position is a competition between players who have proved they’re Big 12-ready.

Trevor Downing will play somewhere, probably left guard, but Derek Schweiger filled in at that left guard spot when Downing was injured in Iowa State’s first game and did wonderfully. Did Schweiger do enough to win that left guard spot and can Downing move to right guard? Or will Downing play his left guard position and will Schweiger move to right guard?

Either way, whoever moves to right guard has to contend with Darrell Simmons, who filled in for Schweiger when he moved from right guard to left guard last season. Simmons played well during his freshman season, earning second-team All-America honors. It’d be hard for Campbell to take him off the field, too.

Then you move to right tackle where Jake Remsburg and Joey Ramos both played last season, and both played at a high level. Ramos started the season at right tackle but was injured in the Texas Tech game. Remsburg took over for him and the offensive line didn’t miss a beat until he was injured in the Big 12 championship game and Ramos took back over for him.

No matter what, Iowa State has proven depth along the offensive line and it proved last year that it can handle injuries.

4. Who will be WR No. 2 and TE No. 3?

Xavier Hutchinson was wonderful for Iowa State last season, earning Big 12 Newcomer of the Year. He caught 64 passes for 771 yards and four touchdowns.

Iowa State’s second-best receiver last year was Landen Akers, now in camp with the Los Angeles Rams, who caught 18 passes for 269 yards and one touchdown.

The Cyclones need a bona fide No. 2 receiver. If Tarique Milton stays healthy, he can be that guy, if Joe Scates is able to stay consistent, he has the ability, as does Sean Shaw.

As for the tight end, Dylan Soehner is off to the NFL. He was Iowa State’s blocking specialist at tight end while Charlie Kolar was the pass-catching specialist and Chase Allen was the jack of all trades. It’ll be interesting to see what the staff wants out of that third tight end spot. Do they want another blocker like Jared Rus, or are they willing to look at another pass-catching tight end like Easton Dean?

5. What does defensive tackle depth look like?

Part of what makes Iowa State’s defensive line so formidable with just three down linemen is the depth defensive coordinator Jon Heacock is willing to use.

The Cyclones had a steady rotation of three defensive tackles last year in Latrell Bankston, Isaiah Lee and Josh Bailey. Bankston and Bailey both transferred, leaving Lee as the lone known commodity.

Campbell has talked highly of J.R. Singleton but he’s unproven and who else will step up to be that third piece?