By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Brian Ferentz has moved on from the Iowa football program, but the frustration with how his father handles the quarterback position still continues to fester.

Dating all the way back to when Kyle McCann started over Brad Banks throughout the 2001 season, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz has been accused of favoring certain quarterbacks over others, and of being too loyal to his starting quarterback, and too stubborn to admit that he was wrong in some cases about who should start behind center.

This narrative has resurfaced in the wake of Saturday’s 20-19 loss to Iowa State because some Iowa fans, and maybe a lot of them, are upset, or at least frustrated, with how poorly Iowa quarterback Cade McNamara played in the game.

McNamara only threw for 19 yards in the second half, and 16 of his final 20 passes were incompletions.

He also threw a costly interception early in the third quarter on a play in which he threw across his body into what turned into tight coverage.

Iowa State cornerback Darien Porter made a spectacular read on the play, but McNamara still shouldn’t have thrown the ball across the field in that situation. McNamara was trying to hit Iowa tight end Luke Lachey, but the route took too long to develop in traffic and Porter recognized what was happening.

“Their corner did a really good job of coming up to the line of scrimmage and then bailing out of it,” McNamara said. “I just made a dumb decision. I should have just thrown it away. I just can’t force the ball in that situation.”

It was the kind of decision that a Division I quarterback shouldn’t make, let alone a sixth-year player with McNamara’s experience.

There really is no defense for how poorly McNamara played in the second half against Iowa State.

But it also seems premature at this early stage of the season to accuse Kirk Ferentz of playing favorites.

Iowa has invested a lot time and resources in McNamara, while his backup, Northwestern transfer Brendan Sullivan, has only been a Hawkeye since June.

To bench McNamara this early would be admitting that Iowa made a huge mistake by pursuing McNamara so aggressively, and apparently too aggressively, in the transfer portal.

Perhaps Kirk Ferentz just isn’t ready to give up on McNamara because he truly believes that McNamara deserves more time to adjust after having suffered through two straight season-ending knee injuries.

That seemed to be Kirk Ferentz’s way of thinking after Saturday’s loss to Iowa State, a game in which Iowa led 13-0 at halftime.

“I’ve been saying for awhile now, he’s working his way back,” Kirk Ferentz said of McNamara, who led Michigan to the 2021 Big 10 title as its starting quarterback. “He’s still trying to get back in game shape, if you will, or game mode, and he’s working hard.

“He’ll do just fine.”

That probably wasn’t the answer that Iowa fans wanted to hear, because with Brendan Sullivan now on the roster, there is a growing belief that McNamara’s leash, and Kirk Ferentz’s patience, should be much shorter.

The problem is that we’ve only seen Sullivan play as a Hawkeye in the Kids Day practice for about two hours last month.

And while Sullivan performed better than McNamara in the Kids Day practice, Sullivan still was mediocre at best.

Sullivan started eight games for Northwestern, and overall his performance was average at best, while McNamara performed a pretty high level while leading Michigan to the 2021 Big Ten title.

McNamara also played well for Iowa in the 2024 season opener, throwing for 251 yards and three touchdown in the 40-0 victory over Illinois State.

So, he’s had one good game and one bad game so far this season.

McNamara was surrounded by great players at Michigan, but he also did his part.

However, the concern is that McNamara has had two knee injuries that required surgery in each of the past two seasons, and that can certainly wear on a body.

Kirk Ferentz watches and evaluates his quarterbacks on a daily basis, with help, of course, from new offensive coordinator Tim Lester, while fans and the media rely on what they hear second-hand about how the quarterbacks are performing in practice.

The backup quarterback is always the most popular player on the team when the starting quarterback is struggling, partly because the backup quarterback represents hope for the future, and because the backup quarterback in many cases hasn’t been exposed yet.

But if you look at Kirk Ferentz’s track record for choosing his starting quarterback, it’s not as bad as some might want you to think.

He benched Jake Christensen for Ricky Stanzi four games into the 2008 season when Stanzi was a sophomore, and he demoted Jake Rudock shortly after the 2014 season for C.J. Beathard.

Kirk Ferentz’s critics will say in both cases that he waited too long to make the switch.

Maybe so, but perhaps Stanzi wasn’t ready to start as a redshirt freshman in 2007, and in fairness to Rudock, he performed at a respectable level in 2013 when Beathard was a redshirt freshman.

As for the Banks-McCann debate, Banks has even said that he wasn’t comfortable enough in the offense to be the full-time starter in 2001.

It was his first year in the program, while McCann was a fifth-year senior at the time.

Kirk Ferentz’s critics would use hindsight to dismiss that theory, however, because of how well Banks played in 2002 as the Heisman Trophy runner up for a Big Ten co-champion.

Okay. Fair enough.

But even if you count that one against Kirk Ferentz, his track record with picking his starting quarterback still isn’t as bad as some might want you to think.

This isn’t to suggest that his track record is above criticism in this area, it just seems a little harsh to suggest that Kirk Ferentz is petty enough to play favorites with so much on the line.

Kirk Ferentz was accused of showing preferential treatment to Spencer Petras, who when healthy was Iowa’s starting quarterback for three seasons from 2020 to 2022.

Petras certainly had his limitations as a pro-style quarterback, but when backup Alex Padilla finally got his chance to start in 2022 when Petras was injured, Padilla failed to seize opportunity.

Padilla finished his Iowa career having played in 13 games with three starts, winning all three. He completed 77 of 157 passes for 821 yards and three touchdowns with four interceptions.

Those numbers were mediocre at best.

So as it turns out, Kirk Ferentz wasn’t showing favoritism for Petras or being too stubborn to make a change.

When Padilla announced late in the 2022 season that was transferring to Southern Methodist University, the focus shifted to another backup quarterback, Joe Labas, who made his only start for Iowa in the 2022 Music City Bowl when Petras was injured.

Iowa defeated Kentucky 21-0 in the Music City Bowl, and perhaps the best thing you could say about Labas is that he managed the game and avoided making any costly mistakes

Labas completed 14-of-29 passes for 139 yards and one touchdown in the Music City Bowl.

In other words, he was average at best.

Labas now starts for Central Michigan, and so far the results have been mixed.

He threw for 342 yards and completed 75 percent of his passes in a 66-10 romp over Central Connecticut, but he also threw five interceptions in a 52-16 loss at Florida International this past Saturday.

Labas decided to transfer after not seeing any game action for Iowa during the 2023 regular season.

He fell to third on the depth chart behind McNamara and Deacon Hill, and that seemed to be the the breaking point for Labas, who watched from the sideline as Hill struggled in nine games as the starter last season after McNamara was injured.

Given how poorly Hill played as the starter last season, a strong case could be made that Kirk Ferentz made a mistake in picking Hill over Labas, and that Kirk Ferentz stuck with Hill for too long.

Hill transferred to Iowa from Wisconsin, and he had only been in the program for a few months when he surpassed Labas on the depth chart.

Hill has since transferred to Utah Tech and now plays at a level that seems more suited for his ability.

Iowa won six of the nine games that Hill started last season and finished 10-4 overall, marking the third time since 2019 that Iowa has won 10 games in a season.

Against elite competition, however, Iowa wasn’t able to overcome its offensive deficiencies and lost to Penn State, Michigan and Tennessee by scores of 31-0, 26-0 and 35-0, respectively, last season.

Kirk Ferentz is not without blame in his handling of his quarterbacks.

His decision to stick with Hill for so long last season was weird and counter-productive.

Kirk Ferentz never has been Iowa’s play caller, nor does he work closely with his quarterbacks.

But the decision on who starts at quarterback is ultimately Kirk Ferentz’s to make.

It’s uncertain how much influence he gave Brian Ferentz as the offensive coordinator in picking the starting quarterback, as it is now with Tim Lester.

Kirk Ferentz has supposedly given Tim Lester more freedom to run the offense, but it’s highly unlikely that Lester has the final say on who plays quarterback.

Probably the biggest mistake Kirk Ferentz has made with his handling of the quarterbacks was making Brian Ferentz the quarterback coach when Brian clearly wasn’t ready to handle that responsibility.

Brian Ferentz is now a senior offensive assistant with Maryland.

So, rather than obsess over who Kirk Ferentz starts at quarterback for the Hawkeyes, fans might want to pay more attention to Iowa’s track record with recruiting and developing quarterbacks.

Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht has improved considerably since becoming the starter last season as a redshirt freshman, whereas it’s hard to think of an Iowa quarterback that has improved much over time.

C.J. Beathard played better in 2015 than 2016, while Jake Rudock played better in 2013 than 2014.

James Vandenberg played way better in 2011 than 2012, while Drew Tate had his best season as a Hawkeye quarterback as a sophomore in 2004.

Nate Stanley started for three seasons from 2017 to 2019, but he was as good as a sophomore as he was as a senior.

Or so it seemed.

Petras also failed to improve significantly during his time as the starter, and now McNamara seems stuck in neutral, or some might say stuck in reverse because of how he played against Iowa State.

It seems hard to believe that McNamara would keep the starting job if he were to continue to struggle in games with Troy up next on Saturday at Kinnick Stadium, and if Sullivan is performing better than McNamara in practice because Kirk Ferentz would risk losing the team.

Kirk Ferentz has shown that he has a breaking point with his starting quarterback.

It’s just not where some fans want it to be.

But again, the lack of development at quarterback should maybe have fans more concerned than who Kirk Ferentz starts at quarterback.

Lester certainly deserves more time to make his mark.

As a former college quarterback and former college head coach at Western Michigan, Lester seems more than qualified to fix Iowa’s offense.

The fix should start with developing better quarterbacks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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