New Iowa starting quarterback Cade McNamara has a big fan in Greg McElroy. The 2010 national championship winner with Alabama extolled a boatload of praise onto the Michigan transfer. McElroy ranked McNamara fourth in his Big Ten quarterback rankings on his YouTube show “Always College Football” for ESPN College Football.
“This is a bird in the hand type of pick for me. Some people don’t necessarily love the upside. I personally love that he’s going to be pushed into an offense that is about ball control, but he has at times put the team on his back but he needs a good solid run game. He needs a good supporting cast,” McElroy said.
The Hawkeyes have been hard at work this offseason to provide McNamara just that good supporting cast, bringing in Ohio State transfer wide receiver Kaleb Brown and fellow Michigan tight end transfer Erick All. Iowa also hopes that a passing game of any sort of substance can pave the way for running back Kaleb Johnson to have a breakout sophomore campaign out of the backfield.
While time will only tell whether or not those two areas have improved, McElroy is sure that Iowa is much improved at the quarterback position.
“Both those things are a little bit up in the air with Iowa based on what they did last year. However, I do think he’s probably the best Iowa quarterback that’s suited up in quite a while, it’s been a minute since they’ve had a guy that has played this much football and high level football,” McElroy said.
CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli would agree with that statement. In his recent look at the Big Ten’s key transfers, Fornelli commented that McNamara is “the most proven and talented QB Iowa has had since C.J. Beathard.”
While McNamara doesn’t provide the most upside with his flashy play, his experience and steady game do provide the Iowa offense a tremendous opportunity to be the best version of itself.
“He’s not going to be a guy that can take over the game. He’s going to be a guy that gets you from point A to point B without any speed bumps along the way. He’s a steady, solid game manager with underrated mobility. And I think in that offense, he can be the, probably, best version of Iowa’s offense, if that’s saying something. He can kind of accelerate that offense in a certain way. So I’m a big believer in Cade McNamara,” McElroy said.
We’ll see if McNamara can indeed be the key to unlocking the Iowa offense starting on Sept. 2 with the Hawkeyes’ opening contest against Utah State.
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