2009 Big 12 Football Season Previews: Iowa State

(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

After losing Gene Chizik to Auburn, Iowa State fell completely out of the news for the rest of the off-season but they made plenty of great moves after Chizik left.

Paul Rhoads was hired as the coach. In a state and college that is as tradition poor as football at Iowa State finding someone with ties to the state, fan base and/or school is extremely important and Rhoads, a native Iowan, knows exactly what to expect at Iowa State. He is both an Iowa native and was an assistant coach for the Cyclones for the first four years of the Dan McCarney era at Iowa State.

Rhoads was instrumental to the recarnation of Pitt Football after he left Iowa State in 1999 to become the defensive coordinator for the Panthers. Rhoads did a masterful job with the Pitt defense and it was definitely the defense under Rhoads that made Pitt a perennial championship contender in the Big East.

In 2002, Rhoads was actually offered the Defensive Coordinator job at Auburn by Tommy Tuberville but turned it down and it eventually went to Chizik. Rhoads was offered the job once more at the end of the 2007 season when Will Muschamp left Auburn for Texas.

This time he accepted and lead a strong defensive effort for the Auburn Tigers which ranked 27 nationally. This was despite getting almost zero help from the offense which seemingly was more likely to go three and out than get a first down.   

Rhoads has also brought in two really impressive coordinators and recruiters from two talent rich states, Texas and Florida. Wally Burnham will be the new defensive coordinator. Burnham, has plenty of coaching experience, he spent time at South Carolina as the defensive coordinator and under Bobby Bowden at Florida State where he helped the team win a national championship in 1993.

He has been at USF since 2000 were he has helped build a team that did not even exist in 1997 to a division one bowl subdivision contender. He has coached many linebackers that made to the NFL and is a great recruiter who will recruit Florida extremely well even at Iowa State who got six Florida commits this year.

What Burnham brings in experience, the new offensive coordinator, Tom Herman, brings in excitement. Herman installed a spread offense at Rice in 2007 and in 2008 he helped the Owls to a 10-win season and a first bowl win since 1954.

Under Herman, the offense broke more than 50 school records and was ranked a top ten offense in passing, scoring and total offense in 2008. Herman is still young and could be one of the hottest young names for a head coach position if he can repeat his success at Iowa State.

The Cyclones return an extremely talented quarterback in Austen Arnaud and good receiving and running back corps. They also return three starting offensive lineman. Offensively the biggest challenge will be learning Herman's spread, it will require the quarterbacks and receivers to be on the same page through the reads and progressions and may take two full years to be completely understood by the players.

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