Spencer Petras overcomes Ohio State debacle with strong performance against Northwestern
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Say what you about Iowa quarterback Spencer Petras because he has been an easy and deserving target for criticism, but the guy sure is resilient.
He won’t go down in history as one of Iowa’s greatest quarterbacks, but the fifth-year senior from San Rafael, California will go down as somebody who has persevered through difficult times, and has done so with class and dignity.
While some Iowa fans probably had hoped that junior quarterback Alex Padilla would get the start against Northwestern on Saturday, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz stuck with Petras, and it paid dividends as Petras completed 21-of-30 passes for 220 yards and one touchdown in the 33-13 victory at Kinnick Stadium.
Petras played the entire game and he completed passes to eight difference receivers while improving his record to 17-10 as a starter.
It was a drastic change from last Saturday when the Iowa offense committed six turnovers in a 54-10 loss at Ohio State.
Petras committed three turnovers in the first half against Ohio State, including a pick-six late in the second quarter, and then was benched for the entire second half as Padilla played in the third and fourth quarters.
“We’ve been talking all year really, but especially after last week, you can’t get down for too long,” Petras said. “You have to keep working and push through and that’s kind of what we were looking at there.
“We pushed it through, but that doesn’t mean anything for next week. But today we played well enough to win and put some points on the board. For the most part, I thought it was a pretty good performance all around.”
Kirk Ferentz declined to say who would start at quarterback when he met with the media at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
Following Saturday’s game, Kirk Ferentz explained how the decision was made to start Petras.
“Just what I said Tuesday, we’ll go through the week and make that evaluation and we went through Wednesday and just felt like he was the best option,” Kirk Ferentz said of Petras. “That’s not a knock on Alex. Because I did say it was probably more about the support that neither guy has had, and last week was no different.
“It’s hard to play quarterback if you don’t geet help from everybody. And I’m not trying to kick the can down the road a little bit, and not that they were perfect, but it really works better if you get a little more help.”
Petras has performed better than Padilla in practice throughout the season according to Kirk Ferentz, but it just hadn’t carried to the games for Petras until Saturday.
Petras led an Iowa offense that showed good balance for a change as the running game produced 173 yards on the ground, led by true freshman’s Kaleb Johnson’s 88 yards on 14 carries.
“It’s good to see what happened today, everyone getting involved” Petras said. “That’s how we want to play. That is a goal every week.
“For the most part, everyone brought it today and played their best. We just have to keep working and keep executing.”
And while Petras had plenty of help in Saturday’s game from his offensive line, from his running backs and from his receivers, he also credits Iowa’s sports psychologists for helping with his mental preparation, and for helping him cope during tough times.
“I think the big thing for me is just stay grounded, especially early in the year working on techniques, just physical releases to keep yourself in the moment because it’s not fun coming to the sideline and hear the boos and all that,” Petras said. “It’s easy if you don’t have mental health coaching, or mental skills coaching I should say, to really get affected by that.”
Iowa’s next game is against Purdue next Saturday in West Lafayette, Indiana.
The Boilermakers feature one of the Big Ten’s most explosive offenses in which former Iowa receivers Charlie Jones and Tyrone Tracy Jr., both play key roles after having transferred from Iowa.
Iowa has one of the best defenses in the conference, but it’s still reasonable to assume that Petras and his offensive cohorts will have to do their part to defeat Purdue.
“It makes our life in the pass game easier when we can run the ball like we did today,” Petras said. “It was a step forward, I think,”