Iowa Provides Major Update on Cade McNamara's Status

The Iowa Hawkeyes have provided a major update about quarterback Cade McNamara.

Oct 26, 2024; Iowa City, Iowa, USA; Iowa Hawkeyes quarterback Cade McNamara throws a pass against the Northwestern Wildcats during the first quarter at Kinnick Stadium. / Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

The Iowa Hawkeyes made a move to replace Cade McNamara at quarterback last week in their win over Northwestern. Brendan Sullivan came into the game and helped lead Iowa to a massive 40-14 win.

Heading into this week's game against the Wisconsin Badgers, Sullivan will remain the starter. McNamara isn't even the backup and will miss this week's game.

There has been some question about McNamara's status after not being the backup. Head coach Kirk Ferentz has offered a major update, stating that he's out of this week's game due to a concussion.

Chad Leistikow of the Des Moines Register was the first to share Ferentz's explanation of McNamara's status.

McNamara has a concussion and hasn't been able to phase back in. "He's sore in other places, too," Ferentz said. "Each and every (concussion" is different, going to try to go back to class today.

"Hopefully next week" they'll get McNamara back, per KF.

— Chad Leistikow🆑 (@ChadLeistikow) October 29, 2024

Basically, that also leaves the door open for McNamara to return as the team's starting quarterback when he clears his concussion.

McNamara has been quite simply bad this season. He has completed 60.5 percent of his pass attempts for 1,017 yards, six touchdowns, and five interceptions. He has been unable to make the easy throws consistently and has done nothing to cause defenses to fear the Hawkeyes' passing game.

Sullivan may not be an elite quarterback, but he has the ability to make plays with his legs. That helped Kaleb Johnson find some running room against Northwestern.

Fans would like to see this move end up being permanent, but Ferentz is not about to say that he thinks the same way.

"Yeah, we’ll see on that. Permanent’s a strong word," Ferentz said. "It’s like super glue or whatever. We had already made the decision during the week that we were going to rotate Brendan in a little bit. Thought third or fourth series depending on how it played out, so it just worked out that way. And then he did a really nice job. Cade was shook up also after the hit he took."

It will be interesting to see how the quarterback situation looks the rest of the way this season. For now, McNamara is out and Sullivan is the starter. However, that is subject to change.

Expect to hear more about McNamara ahead of next week's game. There is still a very real chance that Iowa could consider turning back to him.