Iowa State football coach Jimmy Rogers on what to expect in 2026
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AMES — The first six weeks of the Jimmy Rogers era have been busy, but productive.
Between being greeted by dozens of snow-braving fans eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new Iowa State football coach and having his mic-drop moment at the Cy-Hawk basketball game, Rogers has been hard at work replenishing the Cyclones’ roster and assembling his coaching staff.
For the blue-collar, down-to-earth Rogers, anonymity is getting hard to come by.
“Went to the gas station the first day and I met a lot of people, actually,” Rogers said, recalling one of his first memories in Ames. “(They were) asking me to tell them what I wanted my name to be on their menu.”
Rogers was flattered, but left the question unanswered and didn’t choose an item or a combo deal. Perhaps one day he’ll revisit the opportunity, but on Wednesday, Jan. 21, he took the time to answer some questions in an exclusive interview with the Des Moines Register.
Here are some things we learned from the interview.
Iowa State football is done adding players for the 2026 season
Since Iowa State announced the 2026 spring football roster on Jan. 19, Rogers has landed three more transfer commitments.
Arizona defensive lineman Kaleb Bilal-Jones committed on Jan. 20 after spending a redshirt year as a true freshman with the Wildcats.
TCU wide receiver Jordyn Bailey and Jacksonville State safety Malcolm Jones were the final additions on Jan. 21.
Bailey has 18 career catches for 191 yards and three touchdowns, and comes to Ames with two years of eligibility. Jones started his career at Michigan State and returns to the power-conference level after a productive season at Jacksonville State, where he had 55 tackles, three sacks and two forced fumbles.
“We’re done. We just added the last one this morning,” Rogers said. “I feel good (about the roster). I think it’s staggered well with classes, too. A year ago (at Washington State), I couldn’t do that as much. It was a really quick turnaround getting the players into school there, and I had more time with this.”
Rogers noted he was hired on Dec. 5 by Iowa State. At Washington State, he was hired on Dec. 28, 2024, and had to get players enrolled by Jan. 6, 2025, to be available for spring football.
When he was at Washington State, there was also a spring transfer portal period. This year, that has been eliminated.
“I’m excited for that too, just this sense of knowing what your team is and looking and coaching the kids like they’re the answer, rather than trying to make me find the problem,” Rogers said. “I think when you look at kids that way, they end up exceeding your expectations. This is who we are building, one team from spring to fall and seeing how good we can be.”
Differences in rebuilding the roster at Iowa State compared to Washington State
Rogers is familiar with leading a roster rebuild and assembling a coaching staff. He did the same in his lone year at Washington State.
Despite the differences in timing, Rogers brought in 75 new players for the Cougars. Washington State was bowl-eligible in 2025 and finished 7-6.
“When I showed up at Washington State, there was 63 players in the portal already,” Rogers said. “When I took the job, there was 25. Two days later, showing up on campus, every time, I tried to talk to a kid about why he was going into the portal, another kid was jumping into the portal and I couldn’t connect with them all fast enough.
“Here, I was able to sit down one-on-one and get an idea of who was leaving, who was going to go with Coach (Matt) Campbell (to Penn State) and what their plans were. Some of them were open to hearing and the players have to make the best decision for themselves. This one was more progressive and understanding of roles that we need to fill and who’s leaving.”
Rogers approached the roster reconstruction by positional need and balanced young potential and experienced players.
“A total makeup of being able to bend, redirect, the physicality portion, but as far as the traits that most people don’t see, are they accountable?” Rogers said of his recruiting approach. “… It’s easy to find talent. It’s harder to find the actual person that is willing to follow through with this talent and that’s maybe where I put my biggest focus on listening to red flags that you know may come about a kid that doesn’t go to class or this kid does this poorly how they carry themselves.”
Rogers wouldn’t comment on specific players or newcomers that he’s excited about, wanting to see them in live competition this spring before coming to any judgments.
“The best players will play, that’s what I’ve told every player that’s ever played for me, regardless if they were a starter the year before,” Rogers said. “The goal is to try to push talent ahead of experience and that’s our job as coaches to try to bridge the knowledge game to give them that experience so that they can come and compete. I just don’t want to play the smartest kid, I want to play the best player and they’re all going to have an opportunity.”
Rogers’ coaching staff at Iowa State
The roster wasn’t the only thing that needed to be rebuilt.
A large chunk of Rogers’ coaching staff have connections, dating back to the start of his coaching career at South Dakota State. A few even followed him to Washington State and now Iowa State.
Mike Banks (cornerbacks), Jalon Bibbs (defensive line), Pete Menage (safeties), John Johnson (running backs) and Jesse Bobbit (defensive coordinator) all have ties to Rogers through South Dakota State.
“Staff success is put together over years,” Rogers said. “It takes time to get on the same page. In college football, you don’t have time. This defensive staff has been with me from the very beginning.”
Former Iowa State running backs coach Tyler Roehl has returned from the NFL coaching ranks to take over as the Cyclones’ offensive coordinator. He and Rogers used to coach against one another as rivals at North Dakota State and South Dakota State.
The Cyclones’ coaching staff also features safeties coach Sam Watson, who arrives from Toledo. He is the only defensive position coach with no South Dakota State ties.
Offensively, quarterbacks coach Keith Heckendorf (Arkansas State), tight ends coach Seth Hestness (Army), wide receivers coach Derrick Sherman (Houston), and offensive line coach Jake Thornton (Auburn) are newcomers to Ames and Rogers’ coaching tree.
“Combining the staff has been a joy, the hallway has been fun and alive and it’s good to get new people in here,” Rogers said. “Get new blood and new ideas going to mold something special.”
Rogers’ coaching philosophy on offense and defense
Rogers, a former linebacker at South Dakota State who rose up the coaching ranks on the defensive side of the ball, has a passion for defense.
The Cyclones will run a 4-2-5 defense, a switch from the 3-3-5 defense of Jon Heacock.
Rogers stressed a four-man defensive front in his introductory press conference.
The Cyclones struggled to generate consistent pressure on opposing quarterbacks in recent years and Rogers believes that they’ll be able to wreak havoc upfront in his system.
“The defensive line, to how we play, is a big portion of us having success, the chaos in which they can create, the multiplicity in which they can present to an offensive line,” Rogers said. “Overall, the defense in itself has a lot to it at the same time. Once you learn it and you narrow your focus, it’s not a ton and it’s simplistic to get the players to play as fast as possible and there’s a lot of communication that happens inside of it.
“Overall, disguising, playing fast, being very multiple in coverage, not just living in one thing — man, zone — different blitz packages. Stopping offense is hard these days, so you got to make sure that you’re multiple and I feel good about what we’ll do defensively.”
Physicality and toughness will be a constant on both sides of the ball. The same goes for the ability to be adaptable and multiple.
Roehl shared that running the football and controlling the line of scrimmage will be big parts of the Cyclone offense.
Iowa State is bringing in plenty of experienced, upperclassmen transfers to refill the offensive line.
Rogers believes his pedigree on defense will help the Cyclones on offense. He’ll be able to get into the mind of opposing defenses and offer potential solutions to how opponents may react or find soft spots to exploit.
“Some of it will be more based off of me coming in and trying to explain defensive roles to them, just how I think that they’re reading it,” Rogers said. “How the linebackers’ eyes are transitioning, back end of a defense and how they’re playing it, weaknesses that I think defenses naturally have just coverage-based or when they’re blitzing.”
What’s next for Iowa State football? Will there be a spring game?
There won’t be a spring football game, but Rogers is planning a “spring showcase” that would be open to the public, followed by a youth camp. That would be sometime in late April.
Until then, he’ll be busy on the recruiting trail and getting training regiments underway for his first batch of Cyclones.
By Jan. 26, he expects all players and new additions to be situated on campus and attending class full-time. They will also begin more rigorous offseason training.
“Our guys will train in the morning and in the evening,” Rogers said. “There’s two groups to it. When you hit mid-February, we’ll do some things to bridge the knowledge gap as far as what to prepare for spring ball.”
Iowa State will officially begin spring football practices on Thursday, March 26, and then conclude on Saturday, April 25.
He and the Cyclones also plan on holding some events in the community during the offseason. Although winning will likely be the quickest catalyst to endear him with the fanbase, he believes it’s important for the public to get an opportunity to meet him and some of the many new players that’ll be donning the cardinal and gold.
“I think it’s important for our players to be a part of the community, and I think it’s important for our community to get to know us as a staff and have those interactions,” Rogers said. “We’ll do some of that in February, personally, individually, but, if you want people to show up, people in small towns and the Midwest in general want to know who they’re giving to, right?”
Eugene Rapay covers Iowa State athletics for the Des Moines Register. Contact Eugene at erapay@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @erapay5.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State football coach Jimmy Rogers on what to expect in 2026
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