Cade McNamara leaves Iowa practice after apparent knee injury

Scary reports out of Iowa City on Saturday as Iowa beat reporter Scott Dochterman reported that Hawkeye quarterback and Michigan transfer Cade McNamara went down at practice with an injury to his right knee. Here was that report, which Dochterman tweeted out on Saturday afternoon:

“Well, that’s no good. After Cade McNamara scrambled he fell kind of weird with his right knee. He took himself out, then walked off the field and into the tunnel with Iowa’s training staff.”

If you can handle it, there’s now been a video of the injury released of the play where McNamara was injured. He appears to go down on his own without any other player hitting him:

Here is the play Iowa fans are concerned about, after which Cade McNamara took himself out.

Apologies, this is the best look we have right now. pic.twitter.com/mTAzQEmb6y

— Jack Lido (@JackLido) August 12, 2023

The good news is McNamara apparently walked off the field and removed himself from practice on his own accord, so the injury couldn’t have been too devastating. But you never know with knee injuries and even minor ones can cause players to miss weeks.

Here’s to hoping for a swift recovery for the new Iowa QB.

Kirk Ferentz praises McNamara’s leadership

McNamara’s head coach, Kirk Ferentz, gave plenty of praise to the Michigan transfer back during spring practice and erased all questions about who his starting quarterback will be in game one.

“He clearly is our starter right now,” said Ferentz. “It is not a debate. Real happy about him being there.”

Ferentz has been impressed not only with what McNamara can do on the field, but also how quickly he has asserted himself as a leader for the 2023 Hawkeyes.

“I think we got really good guys on our team,” Ferentz said. “I think they recognize if you’re good, you don’t have to advertise it typically. Cade has a résumé. He’s an assertive guy just by nature I think. My encouragement was just to be who you are, let the process take over.”

“He was elected as the captain in the Hawkeye Championship competition. We usually don’t do that until early February, give the guys a chance to be working, be in the building, everybody get a feel for each other. He did that in pretty short time. I think it’s all been pretty organic.”

“It’s just the way he is. I think the guys all respect him. He’s totally committed. Works really hard. He’s not full speed health-wise, but he’s really made a lot of progress. Again, I think the way he does things, the way he is as a football player, really embraced that.”

Again, hopefully McNamara’s knee issue is nothing too serious and he can get back on the field, because he’s received nothing but rave reviews since he stepped on campus.