Iowa State will go into fall practice with sophomore Jared Barnett and senior Steele Jantz still battling at the quarterback position after spring ball. Cyclone coach Paul Rhoads says that’s not unusual. “Even without having a couple of guys like we have, that have that experience that you know what each one brings, I don’t know if the springtime every gives you enough time — and situations more accurately — to put your guys in and say this is our guy,” Rhoads says. He says you have to split up the snaps and you don’t have the full playbook in spring and that makes it tougher to narrow things down. Rhoads says Barnett definitely has everyone’s attention when he is in the game.

“I think Steel Jantz has the ability to make more plays because of his capability and his ability to improvise on the run,” Rhoads says. He says the team recognizes the competition and understands it and they know it will make them stronger. Whoever ends up starting at quarterback, there’s still a question mark as to whether they’ll be handing off to Shontrell Johnson. Rhoads says Johnson can work out, but can’t take part in the seven-on-seven drills as he continues to recover from a neck injury.

“He is fully cleared running, lifting and to do everything else with the team, he’s not cleared yet to do anything football wise,” Rhoads explains. He says anything involving contact is out until the doctors look at things again in July and then decided if he will be cleared. Rhoads says he can’t say for sure if the junior tailback will be cleared. “You know speculation is probably that he will get cleared, but until that final round of x-rays is taken and viewed, we’ll just sit back and wait and see and let the young man train like he is gonna play,” Rhoads says. Johnson was hurt in the Texas game last year and had run for 247 yards before being knocked out of action.

Ticket sales for this week’s 103rd running of the Drake Relays are described as “brisk.” Drake Associate Athletic Director Dennis Francois says – barring bad weather – the stands should be packed both Friday and Saturday.”We’re definitely preparing for record crowds again,” Francois said. “We had a record year last year in terms of attendance and we had four beautiful days of weather. It looks like we might have a little chance of rain on Friday, but as always, we’ll run it right through and without any lightning, we’ll keep things on schedule.” Just over 14,000 people attended the Drake Relays on Saturday LAST year, which amounted to a sell out. “This year, how we’re going to fair against that will be determined by our walk-up crowd. We had a big uptick today with the high school (participants) announced over the weekend,” Francois said. One of the first big Drake Relays events, the pole vault, will be held Wednesday night inside Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines. The heptathlon and decathlon begin on Thursday, with the bulk of the Drake Relays events scheduled for Friday and Saturday at Drake Stadium in Des Moines.