Make it a three-player battle now.

"We got some bad news in practice Monday night," Coach Dan McCarney told me this afternoon. "Waye Terry broke the thumb on his throwing hand and will miss the rest of spring ball."

McCarney said Terry, a 6-3, 207-pound junior college transfer from Valley City, N.D., hit another player’s helmet with his right hand during a team passing drill late in the practice.

"It’s a shame because it was the best practice Terry has had all spring," McCarney said. "He won’t be able to throw any more this spring, but he’ll be all right in the fall."

McCarney is looking for a successor to Seneca Wallace, the Cyclones’ starter the past two seasons. Terry, Cris Love, Austin Flynn and Kyle Van Winkle were candidates for the job.

McCarney hoped to have a No. 1 quarterback when spring practice ends April 19, but now he says the battle may go into two-a-days in August.

"Love has the edge, but it’s not a big edge," McCarney said. "So it’s too close to call on who will get the job."

Flynn, a redshirt freshman from Deer Park, Texas, was expected to make a big push for the position.

"He’s doing a good job, but things are happening awfully fast for him," McCarney said. "A real good defense is coming at him every day. We have a lot of hope for Austin, but it’s a matter of when he’ll be ready."

"Stevie Hicks has had an excellent spring, but it’s a learning experience for him," McCarney said. "He has a lot of talent."

Others in the hunt are veterans Michael Wagner and Brian Thompson.

Hicks is a redshirt freshmen of whom big things are expected. The 210-pounder from Omaha was a two-time first team all-stater in Nebraska.

McCarney said he’s "really pleased with the progress we’ve made this spring as a team. We’ve still got six or seven positions that are wide-open, but I like the way this team has been practicing."

McCarney said he’ll send his No. 1 and No. 4 units against his No. 2 and No. 3 units in the April 19 spring game.

"I’ll spot the 2’s and 3’s some points before we get going," he said.

Although Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said Monday that, because of injuries to two of his top three tailbacks, he’ll hold a practice instead of an intrasquad game as the windup to spring drills, McCarney feels differently.

He’s scheduling a game.

"Some people handle spring games differently," he explained. "We need to have our quarterbacks in a game-like situation. I want to see how they perform in a game-like atmosphere."

McCarney will turn the coaching over to his assistants, and he’ll watch the game from the press box.

"Seventy players are coming back," he said. "A bunch of the guys who played on the defense have called to see if I can be there, so I’ll fly there to see them."

McCarney was the defensive coordinator at Wisconsin from 1990-1994. The 1993 team coached by Barry Alvarez had a 10-1-1 record that included a victory over UCLA in the 1994 Rose Bowl.

"That was a special group," McCarney said.