Alex Padilla’s success in Iowa’s win over Northwestern forces Kirk Ferentz to ‘look at the film’

EVANSTON, ILL. — Alex Padilla’s job as backup quarterback, as he sees it, is to “prepare like the starter every week.”

“You never know when you’re going to get the opportunity,” Padilla said.

For the first three drives on Saturday night, the Northwestern game wasn’t any different from the dozens of other games since he enrolled in 2019. He was wearing the same red hat and headset that he always adorns as the backup quarterback.

Then he heard on the headset — “I kind of hear everything that’s going on” — something “out of the blue.” It was his turn at quarterback.

Unlike all the other games, Saturday quickly became more than just preparing like the starter.

He played like a starter, too.

Although Spencer Petras technically earned the start, Padilla came in after three drives and gave the Hawkeyes a much-needed jolt on offense and was responsible for almost 90 percent of the team’s passing attempts.

“Alex stepped in and did a really good job,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said.

He completed 18 of 28 throws for 172 yards. He didn’t have any touchdowns, but he didn’t have any interceptions either. Padilla also showed some skills that transcend box scores, including extending plays with his feet.

Ferentz said the Hawkeyes “really didn’t change the game plan an awful lot” for Padilla.

“He’s, I think, pretty comfortable with everything we’re doing,” Ferentz said.

Padilla “definitely had some nerves,” he said, although he knew he had a “great group of guys around me that made my job easy.”

While the move caught Padilla by surprise, the team knew Petras was not 100 percent healthy after Wisconsin.

“Coming into the week, we knew Spencer was a little dinged up,” freshman wide receiver Keagan Johnson said.

Petras suffered an injury as he took a hit against the Badgers — running back Tyler Goodson said it had to do with his shoulder — and was “nursing” it throughout the week, Ferentz said.

“He couldn’t throw it, not with zip on it,” Ferentz said.

The energy Petras couldn’t expend on the field instead went into helping Padilla.

“He really rallied around me,” Padilla said. “He was giving me a whole bunch of tips because this is kind of my first real action at Iowa.”

Padilla frequently connected with the two true freshman wide receivers, Johnson and Arland Bruce IV.

Johnson had a team-high five receptions for 68 yards and 11 targets. Bruce had three receptions for 30 yards.

“They didn’t get a whole ton of reps at the beginning of the season, so they were running with the second team, and I did a lot of work with them,” Padilla said. “I have great chemistry with them.”

That chemistry from working on the second team together was “one of the main things that played into our success,” Johnson said.

Padilla’s first two 15-plus yard completions went to Johnson.

“Any time I have a one-on-one with Keagan, who’s obviously a great player, I’m very confident that he can make a play for our team,” Padilla said.

One of the other stars from Saturday’s game, linebacker Dane Belton, came to Iowa in the same recruiting class as Padilla.

“He's one of the guys that you can trust to get the job done,” Belton said.

Job done, indeed.

He did the job so well that Ferentz did not commit to a starting quarterback going forward, once Petras is healthy.

“We’ll look at the film, see what we think,” Ferentz said. “Spencer’s led us to a lot of victories, and tonight Alex did.”

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