AMES – Beni Ngoyi huddled with his fellow freshmen and took pop quizzes. Matt Bess came into the facility early and left late. Eli Green tried tackling a new language.
Whatever the approach, it was all designed to do the same thing.
Learn a new playbook.
“Playbook is probably this big,” Bess said, using his hands to illustrate that the Iowa State football playbook clocks in somewhere between "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" and "War and Peace."
“It really took me a month to learn.”
It’s so fundamental it’s almost overlooked, but a mastery – or at least advanced understanding – of the playbook is simultaneously no easy task while also being essential. It’s not only knowing what you’re supposed to do, but knowing it so well you don’t have to think about it.
If it’s not instinct by the time fans are filling Jack Trice Stadium, you’re probably going to be playing too slowly.
Sure, that may be obvious, but it doesn't make it any less impactful or vital.
To get that level of comfort with the playbook is a challenge whether the player is an incoming freshman, a transfer with experience within the same scheme or a newcomer starting from scratch with brand-new concepts.
How each player handles their own circ*mstances can be an interesting window both into their past and their personality.
“Some guys are faster learners, and some guys take it from the classroom right out to the field,” Iowa State wide receivers coach Noah Pauley said. “There are some guys that have to go out and do it first a couple times before they get it.”
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Bess’ transition to the Cyclones’ playbook was probably among the highest-level difficulty after coming from Blinn Junior College, where he dealt with much more straightforward assignments than he’s getting as a Cyclone cornerback.
“My old school, we didn’t really look at the formation,” Bess said. “I just lined up - ‘It’s man (coverage), OK, I’m in man.’ This one, I’ve got to get the formation, what’s on this side, (the offense) adjust, I’ve got to check for this call.
“There’s a whole lot of checks.”
While it may swell the playbook to daunting lengths, those checks are a feature, not a bug for an Iowa State defense that has been among the best in the country over the years.
“Our defense, it can be complicated with all the adjustments and rules and different things based off the different looks we get,” corners coach Hank Poteat, who played 10 years in the NFL, said. “This is a different type of defense. We’re asking our guys to get into fits which may be a little different than they have experienced with the other teams that they’ve played for.”
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Ngoyi came to Iowa State along with seven other true freshmen as mid-year enrollees ahead of the 2023 season. That gave that group the time – and comradery – to try to decode their first collegiate playbook.
“We were here late nights, early mornings,” Ngoyi said, “just trying to figure out how to get this ball rolling.”
Starting college in Ames during the dead of winter seems difficult enough, but Ngoyi along with classmates JJ Kohl and Kai Black added their own independent study course.
“We would quiz each other,” Ngoyi said. “JJ would write up a play, I’d have to get it down. We’d hold each other accountable like that.”
For Eli Green, who had experience running a similar offense at North Dakota State, learning the playbook meantemploying his own version of Rosetta Stone or Duolingo.
“There’s a lot of things that are the same,” the wideout said, “and I know the first couple days I kept getting hiccups on things we called at NDSU that are called differently here.”
The trick for Green was moving on from translating Iowa State lingo into North Dakota State vernacular and then into action on the field. He needed to make the Cyclones’ dialect his first language.
“Now, being more comfortable with it, (Iowa State’s verbiage) is what’s on the front of my mind,” Green said. “I still have (North Dakota State) in the back of my mind.”
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Once the Cyclones are speaking the same language and can get literally on the same (playbook) page, the work on the field can begin. It sounds simple – and maybe it is – but it isn’t always easy, and it should never be taken for granted.
It’s probably not a coincidence that the three players Poteat mentioned Wednesday as potential starters at cornerback – Myles Purchase, Darien Porter and Jontez Williams – all have had years todigest the playbook.
And when you look around the Cyclones’ roster, you start to see a lot of players who may have been still in Playbook 101 last fall. Their graduation to higher-level courses is a big reason why so many are expecting so much from Iowa State this year.
Simple, but not easy. Fundamental, but powerful.
Iowa State columnist Travis Hines has covered the Cyclones for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune since 2012.Contact him atthines@amestrib.comor(515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State football: How Cyclones newcomers tackled the 2024 playbook
