Hlas: Hawkeye football now Beathard or bust

IOWA CITY - The end of Iowa's 2014 football season remains an open wound.

The Hawkeyes' 45-28 TaxSlayer Bowl loss to Tennessee was a 3-unit fiasco, a dismal performance by a team that looked like it would have rather been anywhere else than that Jacksonville stadium.

In a bowl season packed with great glories and stories for the Big Ten, Iowa was irrelevant.

'Obviously,” Hawkeyes defensive coordinator Phil Parker said Wednesday, 'we didn't show up.”

A few days later, Hawkeyes Coach Kirk Ferentz informed 2-year starting quarterback Jake Rudock the job was no longer his, but C.J. Beathard's. Rudock eventually opted to transfer, and chose Michigan. How much he really wanted to leave is something only he can answer. But it doesn't sound like Iowa's coaches put together a sales pitch to encourage him to stay.

It's probably for the best, for everyone. Rudock gets to spend a season with Jim Harbaugh. He may learn as much about quarterbacking in a few months as he has in his entire career to this point.

Meanwhile, though he wasn't Ferentz's choice last year, Beathard was the people's choice. He is a charismatic quarterback. He is a chore to tackle when he tucks the ball in and runs (5.6 yards a carry last season), and he has a big arm. Rare is the football fan who doesn't favor a quarterback who will let occasional bombs fly.

Rudock averaged 7.06 yards per pass attempt last season and Beathard 7.01, and Rudock's quarterback efficiency rating was slightly higher than Beathard's. But the decision to replace Rudock with Beathard boiled down to different numbers.

Namely, Beathard had two years left to Rudock's one. Despite what he has said after the fact, we don't know if Beathard would really have spent those two years in Iowa City had he not been assured he'd be the man this August.

'He's really hoping he doesn't have to transfer,” his father, Casey Beathard, told The Tennessean last December. 'I said (to him), ‘Hopefully it'll be obvious in this game, one way or the other.' '

It was. Beathard got more snaps, and threw 23 passes against Tennessee to Rudock's eight. From that day forward, Ferentz was all-in with Beathard.

It wasn't a typical Ferentzian move, but these aren't typical times here. The heat is on.

'We just felt like (Beathard) gave us the best chance to win,” offensive coordinator Greg Davis said Wednesday. 'It was not like an epiphany. It was just that we felt like - they had been close for a long time.

'We felt like physically that there was a bigger upside. And we're talking about a guy that's a really good player in Jake.”

If junior-to-be Beathard elevates his game and Iowa's offense is something more than it has been too often in Davis' three years as OC, the healing will swift.

It would also help if Iowa's defense and special teams are something more than ordinary, which they certainly weren't as the team went a woefully disappointing 7-6 last season. Rudock seemed to play some of his best ball when the Hawkeyes were trailing in the second half and the offense was unchained out of desperation.

But Beathard was always the quarterback the public wanted last year, and understandably so. His upside, as Davis called it, was easy for the outside world to see.

With Beathard being held back in the regular-season except for the game-and-a-half after Rudock was injured at Pittsburgh, it just fueled the desire to see more of him.

Chopping up playing time at quarterback in the bowl game was bizarre, and surely not conducive to success that day. We'll see if was short-term pain for longer-term gain.

If Beathard is terrific and the Hawkeyes become a serious title-contender in the Big Ten West, time will have healed this wound. Ferentz's legacy, seriously chipped over the last five years, can again be as sturdy as his program's new complex.

But if this continues to be an offense that is more frustrating than fun and games that should be won keep getting away? It won't be the No. 1 quarterback who is the fall guy next time.

Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@thegazette.com

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