IOWA CITY — Iowa's annual Kids' Day open practice, held Saturday at Kinnick Stadium, is an opportunity for families to bring their young ones to see a tune-up from the Hawkeyes and snag a few autographs along the way.
Some of the throws by Iowa's quarterbacks Saturday may have sent the parents scrambling to cover their kids' eyes.
Jokes aside, Saturday's game wasn't a cause for panic for the Hawkeyes, who are still adjusting to new offensive coordinator Tim Lester and his playbook, but it was a forceful reminder that the work is still very, very much in progress.
"We're just going to let all three guys keep playing," said head coach Kirk Ferentz after the open practice. "With quarterbacks, you've just got to let them keep playing, see what they can do. We're going to keep giving all three guys good reps."
According to Des Moines Register reporter Chad Leistikow, presumptive starter Cade McNamara went 8-for-24 for just 20 yards and an interception (effectively a pick-six) by Quinn Schulte. Northwestern transfer Brendan Sullivan, who has been putting increasing pressure on McNamara for the starting gig, finished 10-for-21 for 75 yards.
When asked if the quarterbacks' day was in line with their performance through fall camp, Ferentz said, "That's probably a fair assessment. Like everything, not consistent enough at this point. We're just going to keep working; every snap's important to us right now."
Some rather large caveats are necessary for context, of course.
1) Several playmakers were out. Tight end Luke Lachey and wide receivers Dayton Howard and Seth Anderson were all out, and Kaleb Brown saw limited action as he works himself back into the good graces of the Hawkeye coaching staff. Between them and injured tailback Leshon Williams, who also missed Saturday's practice but figures to be back by the start of the season, Iowa essentially had the eligible receivers from a (rather potent) 11-personnel lineup shelved for the day.
Even without those five, the Hawkeyes were still able to showcase significantly more depth on the outside than 2022, when Iowa had to start the season with one (1) healthy scholarship wideout available, but this was a far cry from full strength.
2) The open practice was just that: a practice. It's okay to struggle in practice — as long as the player can learn and grow from it, of course.
"Meetings are important," said Ferentz. "They'll have an opportunity to learn from today when we sit down tomorrow and look at the tape; that's obviously an important part of this whole thing. But the trick is to see things on tape, and then how well you can process it individually and then get on the field and go to work."
To that end, there's still three weeks to improve: three very important weeks. For a QB room where the top two contenders have just a handful of full-go practices with their offenses under their belt, that confidence, timing and rapport with their receivers has got to develop between now and the end of August or it's going to be another long year at Kinnick when the offense has the ball.
3) The stats don't really matter. Fans, coaches and (offensive) players would have all much preferred seeing McNamara and Sullivan throwing darts all over the field for 15 yards a pop. That would have spelled serious trouble for Phil Parker's defense instead of Lester's offense, but it also would have required Iowa to further open up its playbook in public, effectively giving opponents a three-week head start on game scouting, as well as prioritizing production instead of instruction.
Even with those caveats, the positives were few and far between Saturday. and the green shoots of progress were much more evident in the run game and in pre-snap process. Those things matter, and the quarterback is a big part of both.
No matter how well a quarterback can navigate the structure of the offense for his teammates, though, it's almost impossible to be effective if he can't throw the ball downfield reliably.
SO, IS IT A CONTROVERSY?
Like Friday, Ferentz stopped short of endorsing McNamara as QB1 after Kids' Day,
"We'll see," said Ferentz when asked if Sullivan had time to catch McNamara for the starting role. "That's the good thing, we've got a couple weeks to really evaluate the team. But yeah, considering [Sullivan] got here in June, he's making up some last ground.
About the only thing about Saturday's performance that theoretically bolstered McNamara's case was the fact that his legs seemed to respond positively to live game action. By comparison, even ignoring the (dismal) stats, his actual passing performance did him few favors.
McNamara's short accuracy looked workable at times, when he wasn't getting passes batted down; The 6'5", 316-pound Yahya Black was a major disruptor at DT all session long.
Anything McNamara attempted further downfield was as much of an adventure as any of Deacon Hill's performances last year, with few if any passes approaching catchability — even to open receivers.
Sullivan took the vast majority of his snaps with the second-string offense Saturday, though he did take over with the 1s later in practice as Marco Lainez (a distant third in this race, if Saturday's performance is any indication) picked up with the backup unit.
Sullivan did run a two-minute drill with the 1s on Saturday, and Ferentz all but propped the door open for Sullivan and time with the top unit.
"We'll figure the numbers out, but we want to keep working [Sullivan], obviously," said Ferentz. "The other part of the equation: don't read too much into it, but to get a fair assessment of a guy, you've got to let them work. He's in the 1 offense, but he's going against the 1 defense. We work a lot more 1-vs.-1, typically. So you've got to factor all that stuff into it, see where a guy's really at."
Insofar as the completion percentages matter, Sullivan's 10-for-21 performance was bolstered by a 5-for-6 finish in live action after he started 5-for-15. Sullivan was also prone to batted balls, and his ability to scramble out of trouble and extend plays is an element that Iowa's QB room hasn't been able to take advantage of since at least the days of C.J. Beathard (when he had two healthy legs).
On one play, Sullivan was able to scramble away from freshman defensive lineman Kenneth Merrieweather, who had a clear lane to the gold-jerseyed Sullivan but couldn't run him down, resulting in a gain of 7 yards and a manageable 3rd-and-3, which the team then converted. What would have been an easy sack (and/or potential turnover) for numerous previous Hawkeye QBs is now, at least, a more solvable problem.
Sullivan didn't make many downfield connections himself in the scrimmage, but the capability is certainly there:
What this QB competition will come down to, then, is consistency. Ferentz has said that there are "no incumbents" on the depth chart this season, and based on what fans saw Saturday it's easy to see why that policy was in place at QB — and why the competition can best be described as "ongoing."
"You compare the two guys, and Cade hasn't played in two years, basically, whereas Sully has been out there, playing a little bit," said Ferentz. "So again where the repetitions are really important for us right now, especially in team situations."
And yet, until Sullivan establishes himself as consistently outperforming McNamara, the Michigan transfer does carry more of a benefit of the doubt fsimply due to his performance in 2021.
"The good thing with [McNamara] is, we've seen him do it on film, against good competition," said Ferentz. "So it's just a matter of working back there, getting there."
In college football, though, three years is a near-eternity, especially after spending most of the last two recovering from knee injuries, plural, instead of playing.
To me, playing quarterback, there comes a point when you've got to have 11 guys on the field, both sides, working," said Ferentz. "He's got reads that are hard, plus you've got to feel the pocket and the rush and all those kinds of things. I'm not an expert on quarterbacks, but to me that's what he's missed, being in these game and scrimmage situations."
It's a valid excuse, of course. But it's still an excuse, and there's not a football coach alive that would rather have an excuse than an answer at his most important position.
The regular season kicks off August 31 against Illinois State at Kinnick Stadium.
