Iowa football: Nate Stanley earns National Player of the Week honors

Iowa football quarterback Nate Stanley had a career day in the victory of the Indiana Hoosiers Saturday. Today he was named National Player of the Week.

No matter how you look at Saturday’s performance, Nate Stanley was on fire. We’ve been critical of the junior quarterback for the Iowa football team, but for good reason. The kid is incredibly talented, and he simply wasn’t playing up to the ridiculously high standard we set for him.

Yesterday he shut me up, that’s for sure. Indiana’s defense had no answer for Stanley. If they didn’t get pressure, he would pick them apart. If they did get pressure, he managed to escape it with some impressive maneuvering reminiscent of Ben Roethlisberger.

We talked last week about how Nate Stanley and the Iowa football passing attack would be one of the keys to victory Saturday. It certainly was, and in a big way. In large part because of Stanley’s passing performance, the Iowa Hawkeyes cruised to an easy 42-16 win.

For the game, Stanley completed 21 of 33 passes for 320 yards and six touchdowns to just one interception. To put that into context, in Stanley’s 19 games as the starting quarterback for the Iowa football team, that is the second-most yards he has thrown for in a game and the most touchdowns he has ever tossed. Moreover, his quarterback rating of 199 is the highest of his career.

Needless to say, it was a career day for the Hawkeyes quarterback. Today, he was honored for the impressive performance by being named the Walter Camp FBS Offensive Player of the Week. According to the release, Stanley is the fifth Hawkeye since 2004 to receive the honor and the first since current Green Bay Packer’s corner Josh Jackson received the award last season after his performance against the Ohio State Buckeyes.

With the way Stanley has been performing the last few weeks, this is just one award in a line of many to come in the future for the signal caller.