IOWA CITY — After Week 1's 24-14 victory over Utah State, Iowa fans could breathe a bit of a sigh of relief for new quarterback Cade McNamara and his strained quadriceps, as he passed for 191 yards and a pair of scores on 17-for-30 passing.
Still, if the compression sleeve on McNamara's leg wasn't enough of an indication, questions about the health of his leg will linger as long as the effects of August's injury.
"It's feeling better," McNamara said at a press conference Tuesday. "I'm just trying to see how close I can get to being as healthy as I can for Saturday."
"He's looking okay," Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said Tuesday. "He's sore, I can tell you that. Predictably, he's sore."
McNamara demurred on comparing how his leg feels compared to this time prior to the Utah State game, when he was back to practicing but had yet to be cleared for game action. Nonetheless, he and Ferentz both operated as if he'll be under center for the Hawkeyes' trip to Ames to play Iowa State on Saturday.
"We're managing it all season long," Ferentz said Tuesday. "That's my guess, or at least until it heals. We'll manage it and try to be smart about it."
The situation is, at least, somewhat familiar territory for the Iowa staff. After the Utah State game, Ferentz compared McNamara's situation to C.J. Beathard, who played on one leg (metaphorically) for much of the season. Beathard still led Iowa to a 12-0 regular season, but was noticeably limited during games.
"Back in '15, C.J. progressively got worse, and he really couldn't practice that last week before our bye week when we were at Northwestern," Ferentz said Saturday. "Somehow, some way, he played a good game there. Then the next week we gave him a chance to recover; he came back and played."
While it was hard to pin down specifics from McNamara or his coach on Saturday, one thing Ferentz did mention was the 4th-down playbook shrinking — with some options for the quarterback coming off the board.
"[The quarterback sneak] is really not on the menu right now," Ferentz said Tuesday. "We're not going to have him bootleg — the Chuck Long play from '85, probably won't pull that one."
Of course, that's just what a coach would say when he's secretly planning to bootleg his hobbled quarterback on a crucial 4th down that weekend.
But even in rivalry games, risk and gamesmanship has limits — and the preparation of the backup quarterbacks takes on added importance.
"[Deacon Hill] benefited from Cade being out, and Cade was out like all of two weeks," Ferentz said. "That gave Deacon a chance to get a lot of quality work, like [Joe Labas] did in December. Unfortunately, Joe was out [during summer and fall camp], and now Joe is back. Both of them are moving forward. If one of them is in the game, we'll be ready to roll."
