By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Iowa quarterback Cade McNamara said Tuesday that he tries to block out the so-called outside noise, which in his case right now, is probably a wise decision.

Because what’s out there isn’t pretty.

Hawkeye fans are losing their patience with McNamara, who transferred from Michigan to Iowa late in 2022.

McNamara hasn’t come close to matching his level of performance at Michigan, where as its starting quarterback, he led the Wolverines to the Big Ten title in 2021, and to the college playoff that season.

The Reno, Nevada native is coming of a game against Ohio State last Saturday in which he committed three turnovers on three straight possessions in the second half of a 35-7 loss.

Iowa is 3-2 overall and now on Saturday faces a 4-2 Washington squad that defeated Michigan 27-17 last Saturday in Seattle, and that is averaging 299.3 passing yards per game.

“I stay away from the majority of that noise, McNamara said. “Everyone is going to say something about the quarterback play. The quarterback probably has it the worst. That just comes with the position, and that’s anticipated by any Power Five, or any quarterback.

“Criticism is going to come with the job. We know what’s going on inside the building. We know the reads. We know the progressions. We know the routes. We know what the true evaluation is, and what it is. And that’s the only thing I’m worried about.”

McNamara seems to be saying that those who criticize from outside the building don’t really understand the reality of the situation or are incapable of understanding it.

And while that might be true, it still doesn’t change what fans see on game day.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a football lifer to know when a quarterback is struggling.

McNamara has started 10 games for Iowa – five this season and five last season – and the results have left much to be desired, at least from an individual performance standpoint.

He has thrown seven touchdown passes and five interceptions as a Hawkeye. His longest completion has covered 36 yards.

Iowa is 7-3 in the games that McNamara has started, but two of the losses were blowouts against Penn State 31-0 last season and last Saturday’s 28-point beat-down in Columbus.

McNamara either put on a good act with the media on Tuesday or he truly believes that better days are ahead for the Iowa offense as it grows under new offensive coordinator Tim Lester.

McNamara also didn’t speak like a quarterback who is constantly looking over his shoulder to see if the backup might replace him.

“I feel like a lot of the guys are really starting to understand what we’re doing, not just how to do it, but why we’re doing it is a really big part of it, because in a complex system, a lot of things are conceptual,” said McNamara, who has had to overcome two straight season-ending knee injuries. “Whether it’s the run game and how that feeds into it, a pass play, or play action, how everything is kind of built around itself.

“We have a ton of different formations and motions and the more reps that we’re getting and really the more defenses we’re facing, sometimes it’s the defense’s first time seeing some of that stuff, so we’re able to recognize some stuff, and I think that’s kind of the process that we’re going through right now.

“We’ve shown some signs of efficiency in different areas of our offense. And now it’s time for us to take the next step and create some explosive plays and really try to take advantage of defenses that way since now we have a pretty confident understanding of what we’re doing.”

Some fans might argue that it’s way past the time to take the next step by becoming more explosive in the passing game.

Fans, and some in the media, have practically been begging or pleading for a more explosive offense.

The hope was that replacing Brian Ferentz with Tim Lester would help to solve that problem, but so far, the vertical passing attack is no better under Lester than it was under Brian Ferentz, or previous offensive coordinators Greg Davis and Ken O’Keefe.

The running game, which is led by rising star Kaleb Johnson at running back, has certainly improved under Lester, but when it stalled against Ohio State, there was no Plan B.

Kirk Ferentz was asked at his weekly press conference on Tuesday why he seems more reluctant to experiment at the quarterback position compared to other positions.

It was sort of a roundabout way of asking why backup quarterback Brendan Sullivan hasn’t played more, given McNamara’s struggles in the passing game.

“Really, it’s pretty much the same every position that we have out there on the football field,” Kirk Ferentz said. “We assess it daily and then weekly, and then you learn more as the season goes on and the game goes on.

“But ultimately, it’s about putting players on the field in situations where you think it gives you your best chance to win at that given point.”

So, in other words, it’s business as usual.

Cade McNamara is Iowa’s starting quarterback because Kirk Ferentz, who watches and evaluates practice every day, still believes he gives Iowa the best chance to win.

Brendan Sullivan, meanwhile, will continue to be the most popular guy on campus as the backup.

He already is being used in goal-line packages, which have worked for the most part, but some fans and some in the media want to see more of him.

“We were competing a lot in camp, but now it’s more about scoring points,” McNamara said of his competition with Sullivan. “So, whatever happens, who the coaches think is best for him to be in the red zone like that, for example. At the end of the day, I’m still out there for the entire drive.

“So, when I’m out there it’s my job to move the offense all the way down the field, and then once we get down in the red zone, if they want to go with the run game, or put Sully in for different situations, that’s the coaches’ decision.

“But at the end of the day, all I care about is winning.”

No disrespect to McNamara, but he has to care about more than just winning, and there isn’t anything wrong with that.

He came to Iowa to be the starting quarterback, and he expects to be the starter.

McNamara seems to be saying if they want to have a role for Sullivan, fine, but I’m the guy that starts and leads each drive.

As that guy, however, comes a level of expectation that McNamara has struggled to reach.