Assessing Iowa's offense with Deacon Hill at quarterback

Iowa will head into its game against Purdue with Deacon Hill under center for the Hawkeyes. Starting quarterback Cade McNamara is out for the year with an ACL injury.

HawkeyeReport’s Tom Kakert joined Andy Staples on his podcast Tuesday, and talked about Iowa entering October. With Hill, one thing sticks out.

“He’s bigger than your average quarterback,” Kakert said. “He’s 6’3, 260. He’s built more like a linebacker.”

Hill is officially listed on the Iowa roster as 6-foot-3 and 258 pounds. That is the heaviest weight of any non-lineman on the team.

This is his first year in the program. He originally committed to Wisconsin and spent two years with the Badgers before transferring to Iowa.

He is 15 of 35 for 164 yards, one touchdown and one interception on the season.

“Some of the Iowa fans want to call him Bacon,” Kakert said. “Very much an Iowa thing, they want to call him Bacon Hill. He said when he was in third grade, he got kicked out of playing football because he was too big, and he had to play against like sixth or seventh graders. He wasn’t playing so he just had to go play flag football because he was so big. But he’s always had a big arm. We found out today his sister played on the 2016 US Olympic water polo team that won a gold medal.”

Hill was a three-star recruit coming out of Santa Barbara (Calif.) High in the 2021 cycle. However, On3 was higher on him than any of the other major recruiting media companies.

He was rated as an On3 four-star prospect, the No. 236 overall recruit and No. 22 quarterback in the 2021 On300 ranking.

“He’s a big dude, but he’s got a big arm too,” Kakert said. “I think one of the things they’ll probably try and do starting this week is maybe stretch the field a little bit with his arm. He’s definitely got a more powerful arm than than Cade McNamara. He had like three or four drops last week and it’s just because he was throwing some bullets at people from short range and he’s got to work on the touch a little bit. Maybe just a little amped up probably getting out there for the first time.”