Bohnenkamp: Cade McNamara Motivated

New Iowa Starting QB Hard at Work to Be at Best

Iowa's Cade McNamara (12) throws a pass during the team's spring practice on April 22, 2023 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Cade McNamara wants that up-front parking spot at Iowa’s football complex.

It’s a race, then, to beat left tackle Mason Richman there every day, and right now, McNamara’s finishing in second place.

“He gets here early,” McNamara said last week. “It’s like a competition for the front parking spot. Mason gets here very early, and I’m trying to catch up.”

Early is, well…

“That’s before 5 (a.m.),” McNamara said. “Mason has a shorter drive than I do.”

McNamara talks and carries himself as if he’s been Iowa’s quarterback for a long time even though he still hasn’t thrown a pass in a game for the Hawkeyes.

If this is going to work this season, if McNamara is going to be the QB who revives Iowa’s struggling offense, he has to be that way.

It’s all about first impressions, McNamara said, and every impression he’s made, and received, so far since transferring from Michigan has been positive.

That feeling is important, McNamara said.

“I still have a lot of great friends at Michigan,” McNamara said. “But here, I can already say I have lifelong friends that I’ve met here. Not just from the way I’ve come in, it was just how the guys were welcoming to me. I really appreciated that, because I can be confident in myself. I definitely have a lot of friends on this team already. I’m just so happy to meet these guys.”

McNamara has taken the position he’s been given and embraced it, a confident leader for an offensive unit that needs that. The transition from the last three seasons of Spencer Petras running the offense to now McNamara in command had to be seamless. The doubts that can linger from last season — and we remember the numbers of the Hawkeyes ranking 129th nationally in total offense, 122nd in passing offense and scoring offense, and 123rd in rushing offense — have to be replaced by confidence and chemistry, and McNamara brings the former and is building the latter.

It’s why, when McNamara went to California last night to work with long-time coach Jordan Palmer, he took most of his receiving group with him.

It was about building timing and knowledge with his receivers, something McNamara didn’t get a lot of after being limited in spring practice while he recovered from a knee injury that required surgery and ended his 2022 season with the Wolverines.

“I kind of assembled it, because I thought it was a good idea,” McNamara said. “Everyone who went, they enjoyed themselves.

“My entire life, my brothers have been coming with me to these camps. So I was like, why not have my teammates come with me as well? I asked Jordan about it, to see if this was something we could do, and he was like, ‘Absolutely.’ So we got the whole group together, and ended up being an awesome week, not just for me playing quarterback, but for those guys to get better at their positions as well.”

The on-field work was just building that pitch-and-catch that can make for a cohesive passing game.

“You get to work on timing, things like that,” said Iowa wide receiver Seth Anderson, another newcomer to the Hawkeyes’ offense who didn’t get any spring work because of a hamstring injury. “It’s building trust between receiver and quarterback. Maybe he throws a bad ball and you still catch it, and it’s like, ‘OK.’

“You figure things out.”

But there was the building of off-field cohesiveness as well, and that included morning ventures into the cold Pacific Ocean, and yes, even some surfing.

“We were all out there catching waves and stuff. It was a great experience for me,” Anderson said. “And they had a great time, too.

He smiled.

“I got up on a couple of waves,” Anderson said. “Then fell.”

“It’s just awesome, because we were able to learn about each other that much more,” McNamara said. “I feel like us being together on the football field, that’s where respect is earned. That’s the initial thing that gets us to embrace one another. Spending time away from the field? That’s when we get to know each other.”

Anderson agreed on the importance of the camaraderie.

“I can definitely see the pieces forming,” he said. “We’re starting to jell together. So it’s looking good.

“When you know you can go to somebody and need help, when you’ve got something going on outside of football, that’s big. We’re not just football players. We have personal lives too. When you make that connection with someone like your quarterback, it’s a big thing.”

“To be honest,” McNamara said, “I had the time of my life. And I’m pretty sure they did too.”

McNamara said he is healthy again, and that, too, is important.

“It’s such a relief,” he said. “It’s been such a long time. The struggles where I was last season, and then getting here and still not being able to participate in everything, for me to finally be able to let it loose, really test my body now, I feel great.”

This is McNamara’s offense, McNamara’s team.

The race to get there early has been won.

“Your first impression means a lot,” he said. “ For me, I was able to control my first impression. I’ve been in college football already, so I knew what I was getting myself into. Really, the faster the better. If there’s any hesitation in me waiting, it’s like anything.

“It’s wasting time.”