Kirk Ferentz continues to expect Cade McNamara ‘to be our quarterback’ despite subpar Cy-Hawk performance

IOWA CITY — Cade McNamara certainly did not have his best performance in Iowa football’s 20-19 loss to Iowa State on Saturday.

The sixth-year senior was 13-of-29 passing for 99 yards with two interceptions in the Week 2 loss. His longest completion of the day was for 21 yards.

“I feel like I could have done more to put our team in a better position today,” McNamara said.

The subpar showing did not seem to sway head coach Kirk Ferentz’s position, however, on McNamara being the Hawkeyes’ starting quarterback over Northwestern transfer Brendan Sullivan.

Ferentz said he feels “probably the way I did coming into the stadium today” about the quarterback position.

“We expect him to be our quarterback,” Ferentz said of McNamara. “I expect some ups and downs. I’ve been saying it pretty consistently. He’s still working his way back into shape, as is our whole team with the offense and whatever. But we’ll get better. We’ll improve. Our guys have a great attitude, he’s got a great attitude and we’ll work through this.”

McNamara’s 13-for-29 performance was a significant drop-off from last week, when he was 21-of-31 for 251 yards and three touchdowns versus no interceptions against Illinois State. Iowa State — Iowa’s first power-conference foe of the season — obviously brought much more of a challenge than the FCS Redbirds.

“(Iowa State) made it tough on us,” Ferentz said. “They made it tough, and we probably missed some plays maybe and misreads or missed some plays where we maybe could have averted that. But that’s going to be part of football. We’ll have to ride that ride a little bit.”

Iowa’s alternative at quarterback is Sullivan, who completed 63 of 99 passes (63.6 percent) while throwing six touchdowns and two interceptions last year for Northwestern.

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