Iowa football: Nate Stanley’s accuracy needs to improve

The big knock on Iowa football player Nate Stanley is his decision making and accuracy. Advanced analytics show that’s entirely accurate.

Wisconsin native and current Iowa football quarterback Nate Stanley has all the natural ability in the world to be a top quarterback in college football and possibly the NFL, but as an Iowa football fan knows, the kid has to improve his decision making and accuracy.

It’s one or two boneheaded mistakes each game that drives fans crazy and it’s things like missing TJ Hockenson on a wide open touchdown pass against Penn State that can literally haunt you the rest of the season.

These are things that Iowa football fans noticed just by watching the games, and according to analytics, it’s an accurate assessment (so easy to throw a pun in there).

According to Pro Football Focus, Nate Stanley is the fifth most accurate returning Big Ten quarterback with a 69% adjusted completion percentage.

Before I jump into why this statistic is misleading, let me first explain the adjusted completion percentage. Its a much more appropriate way to measure the true accuracy of a quarterback because it factors in drops, balls batted down at the line, when quarterbacks are hit while they throw, etc. It essentially levels the playing field to get a better understanding of accuracy.

Now, let’s look at why this stat is misleading. When I say fifth-best, you likely think, “Nice, Stanley is in the top-five”, but this statistic is looking at returning quarterbacks which means you must eliminate Northwestern’s Clayton Thorson, Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins, Purdue’s David Blough, Penn State’s Trace McSorley (who probably wouldn’t be higher than Stanley on this list anyway), and Wisconsin’s Alex Hornibrook.

Instead of top-five we’re looking at Stanley as a possible bottom-five accurate passer in the Big Ten and to be fair, he better beat out anyone that starts at Rutgers, Illinois, or Maryland. Those are either passing-atrocious teams or run-happy teams that shouldn’t really factor into this.

This is the kind of stuff, NFL scouts will be looking at to see if Nate Stanley can improve this year in his third season with the Iowa football team. If he can show big gains in accuracy, he could find himself sitting pretty in the first round.