After sustaining a concussion a few weeks ago, the road back to recovery has not been friendly for Iowa Hawkeyes graduate quarterback Cade McNamara. The senior has missed the Hawkeyes’ last two games and is still recovering.
Iowa did have a bye week which allowed McNamara to continue to recover and begin practicing again, but his status for Saturday’s game against Maryland still remains murky and fluid with each passing day.
Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz commented on McNamara’s progress over the bye week and what things look like.
“Yeah, I wrote that on Sunday,” Ferentz said of Iowa’s depth chart release where McNamara is listed as Iowa’s starter. “He practiced Sunday. Everything is cloudy right now. That’s kind of our forecast.
“It clearly is cloudy right now. Everything is. We’ll just take it day by day and see who can go.”
Ferentz confirmed that McNamara has been medically cleared to play and that there haven’t been any setbacks.
“Still processing back. He has been cleared to play, and whether or not he can play effectively or not, we’ll see. We’ll just see how the week goes. But we’re prepared for anything, quite frankly,” Ferentz said.
McNamara has not seen action since Iowa’s 40-14 home victory over the Northwestern Wildcats on Oct. 26. He sustained the concussion in the first half and has been sidelined ever since.
On the season, McNamara has completed 60.5% of his passes for 1,017 yards and six touchdowns against five interceptions.
In addition to his concussion versus Northwestern, McNamara’s collegiate career has been injury-riddled. The 6-foot-1, 210 pound signal-caller also suffered season-ending knee injuries at both Michigan and at Iowa last year.
“You’ve heard me say multiple times that the worst thing in coaching from my experience is guys dealing with injuries, and usually it’s not to this extreme. Usually you’re talking about maybe a couple weeks and that’s disappointing, or sometimes season-ending, which is disappointing. To have a stack of them, there’s nothing you can say. All you can do is to try to support the people involved.
“It’s really hard. Especially with the collegiate athlete at this level, which I’d never played at. The investment they make, the amount of time, energy, all the things that they dedicate to having a chance to get out there and compete, and to not have that come, it’s nobody’s fault, it’s just what it is. It’s part of the game, unfortunately,” Ferentz said of McNamara’s injury history.
With McNamara’s status uncertain, Iowa will look to walk-on Jackson Stratton among others to lead the offense this week during practice and possibly on game day.
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