Drew Tate is still in Canada, waiting for his chance

Drew Tate is in his fourth year of getting paid to play football, which puts him ahead of the curve in his sport.

But the former Iowa Hawkeye is still a clipboard guy. He's inching closer to one day being

a Canadian Football League starter, but patience is a virtue.

Tate is a backup to a 12-year-veteran named Henry Burris on the Calgary Stampeders. Burris, who played college ball at Temple, has thrown 3,820 CFL passes for 32,926 yards and 199 touchdowns, and has rushed for 3,156 yards.

Tate has thrown 11 CFL passes, nine of them complete, for 78 yards and no touchdowns.

Burris is 35. Tate is 27. Quarterbacks seem to have long shelf-lives in Canada, so the ex-Hawkeye may have a couple thousand passes still to throw up there.

For those in Iowa with short memories, Tate passed for 8,240 yards and 60 touchdowns in three seasons as the Hawkeyes' starting QB. He was the first-team All-Big Ten quarterback as a sophomore in 2004, with a running game that was virtually non-existent that year because of multiple injuries.

The CFL opened its regular-season Thursday night. Burris started for Calgary in its home game against those crazy Argonauts of Toronto, and passed for 324 yards as the Stampeders won, 30-16. Good times in Calgary.

The only other ex-Hawkeye in the CFL (that I could find) is defensive back Jovon Johnson, a fourth-year CFLer with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Iowa State is represented in the league by linebacker

Jon Banks, a second-year CFLer with the Montreal Alouettes.