Iowa football: Nate Stanley better in redzone than we give credit

Contrary to popular belief, Iowa football quarterback Nate Stanley is actually pretty good in the red zone according to Pro Football Focus.

When most people think back to the 2018 Iowa football season, there are a few plays that stick out in people’s minds of turning points that changed the direction of the season. Unfortunately, these aren’t good plays.

Heading into 2018, there was cautious optimism that the Iowa football team could have one of their great runs that they put together ever 3-4 years. A couple of bounces and bad players here and there though could quite possibly have made a 12-0 or 11-1 team an 8-4 team.

I’m talking about the punt team fumble against Wisconsin, the drive-killing interception against Northwestern, and the red zone interception against Penn State in Happy Valley.

That last one really stings because the Hawks had the ability to put together a season-defining drive in a hostile environment against a ranked team and crapped the bed.

Down 24-30 with 3 minutes remaining, a miscommunication resulted in an interception on Penn States 3-yard line. Iowa would get the ball back one more time, but they could not finish the game.

When you think of Nate Stanley’s red zone performances, that is likely the one you revert to because it was such an important throw, but keep in mind, there were a lot of things going on there and we will never quite know what was actually supposed to happen.

Pro Football Focus put out a report though that actually paints a nice picture of Stanley’s red zone performances, helping to kill the narrative created by one unfortunate play.

According to Pro Football Focus, Nate Stanley actually had the third highest passing grade in the red zone out of all returning Big Ten quarterbacks.

Although I would love to see him be the top returning quarterback, that’s not bad especially given the general consensus about his ability to perform in the clutch.