Cade McNamara at Iowa football media day on improving health, offense
After eight practices in Iowa’s fall camp, Cade McNamara shares how he started rusty and how is learning the offense.
IOWA CITY − Cade McNamara’s pause after the question spoke volumes.
The question: Eight practices into fall camp for the 2024 Iowa football team, are you happy with where you’re at?
The pause was understandable, given McNamara’s long road to recovery from multiple knee surgeries.
McNamara is widely known by those around him as the ultimate competitor. After being way less than 100% healthy for most of the last two years, McNamara understandably would love to be playing better than he is. But he also knows that to actually be on the field, in 11-on-11 football, leading a Hawkeyes’ team with legitimate hopes for the expanded College Football Playoff is a positive thing, even if he’s simultaneously coming back from a second serious knee injury and learning the new Tim Lester offense in real-time.
So … happy with where you’re at, Cade?
Pause.
“I mean, I’m definitely happy, I guess you could say,” McNamara said at Friday’s team media day. “I definitely just want to continue to get better, honestly. The faster that I can get comfortable with the terminology and just making everything second nature, that’s what I’m chasing. But overall, how my body feels, how I’m throwing the football, I’m very happy with that.”
The answer felt real and honest.
And, realistically, it’s close to the best-case scenario for Hawkeye fans at this point.
More: Iowa football: What coach Kirk Ferentz said in his press conference during media day
The thought that McNamara would already be throwing darts and dissecting one of the nation’s best defenses in practice with ease is not realistic. Patience will be required. The Aug. 31 opener against Illinois State probably isn’t enough time to get where he wants to be. The first five games of the season − including the Sept. 7 showdown with Iowa State and back-to-back Big Ten Conference road trips to Minnesota (Sept. 21) and Ohio State (Oct. 5) − are probably not going to see the Hawkeyes’ offense in a refined state.
Because no, Cade McNamara isn’t there yet. Yes, those surrounding him are confident he’ll get there.
They’ve seen the way he has studied the offense, the way he led Michigan to the College Football Playoff in 2021, how he’s been more involved with the offensive line room this offseason, and how he’s become a valued leader of this team.
“He’s there mentally,” head coach Kirk Ferentz said Friday. “It’s just a matter of time, getting back used to playing again so he can be quick and decisive with his throws.”
Lester, the first-year Iowa offensive coordinator installing the NFL-style Shanahan offense, was excited to get a chance to coach McNamara in a practice for the first time two Wednesdays ago.
More: Iowa football defensive coordinator Phil Parker has surgery after practice collision
Practice 1 for McNamara on a surgically repaired knee was … rusty.
“I had a little bit of happy feet. I’m not going to lie,” McNamara said with a laugh. “I dropped back and … it went a little fast.”
What Lester observed in the early days of McNamara running Iowa’s first-team offense was a player who would be really hard on himself after a mistake.
13 minutes with Iowa offensive coordinator Tim Lester on media day
The first-year OC for the Hawkeyes was a popular coach at the team’s media day, 22 days from the Hawkeyes’ season opener vs. Illinois State.
“I was the same way,” said Lester, who threw for more than 11,000 yards as a college quarterback at Western Michigan in the 1990s.
But?
“The next day, it’s fixed,” Lester said. “It’s really just time. Early on, he was a little skittish in the pocket and rightfully so. Now in the pocket, he’s sliding, stepping up. He’s doing some great things.”
Every day is important to shake off the rust and shake thoughts of that injury.
McNamara, wearing a brace around that left knee in practice, has had to fight through some of that skittishness each day. Lester can relate; he came off a serious knee injury ahead of his freshman year of college. Once McNamara gets his injury fully out of his head, Lester believes he’ll thrive.
“He’s gotten better every single time,” Lester said.
McNamara has the buy-in of his teammates. That is clear.
And so far, even though Northwestern transfer Brendan Sullivan is doing nice things in practice, he is further behind McNamara in learning the Lester offense after arriving in June.
Iowa’s best hope to success this season is that McNamara keeps getting comfortable at a rapid rate. He undoubtedly brings a presence to the quarterback position that Iowa has lacked over the past three years and maybe longer.
“I remember this back in last camp,” left tackle Mason Richman said. “You had great feelings when he comes into the huddle.”
Those feelings have returned this August.
But, of course, it was one year ago Saturday that McNamara’s injury woes at Iowa cropped up. He tore a quad muscle during the Hawkeyes’ “Kids’ Day at Kinnick” open practice and wasn’t 100% in any of the 17 quarters he played for Iowa before tearing an ACL in his left knee, Week 5 against Michigan State.
More: Iowa football’s Kirk Ferentz on new College Football Playoff: ‘I’m excited about them’
That was less than a year after major surgery to repair his right knee while at Michigan.
That’s why there was that McNamara pause.
He would love to be playing at his best. He isn’t yet. But he’s happy to be back.
“I’ve been off the field for so long, but this is where I’m supposed to be,” he said. “I’m really excited and really thankful for the opportunity.”
Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has served for 29 years with The Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Sports Network. Chad is the 2023 INA Iowa Sports Columnist of the Year and NSMA Co-Sportswriter of the Year in Iowa. Join Chad’s text-message group (free for subscribers) at HawkCentral.com/HawkeyesTexts. Follow @ChadLeistikow on Twitter.
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Publish date : 2024-08-09 13:26:00
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