Iowa Football: Nathan Stanley and the Myth of His Regression

The Iowa football team’s success in the Big Ten this season is largely on the shoulders of their quarterback, but should fans expect regression in year 3?

The Iowa Hawkeyes have something that virtually every other Big Ten team does not in 2019 – a Senior Quarterback with two years of starting experience under his belt. While some think Stanley should be in consideration for the Heisman, there’s a vocal contingent of Iowa football fans that feel as if Stanley has fallen victim to noticeable regression in his second year, and may be poised to continue to regress in his third season.

So, has Stanley gotten worse over the course of the year? The short answer is no.

Per sports-reference.com, Nate’s 2017 stat line (55.8% for 2432 yards, 26 TDs, 6 INTs) are not much different than his 2018 stat line (59.3% for 2852 yards, 26 TDs, 10 INTs). He was more accurate for more yards but threw four more interceptions. This is a trade-off that certainly doesn’t support regression.

You might ask me, Matt, what about 2019? Should Iowa football fans expect regression in Stanley’s third year, considering the loss of two NFL first rounds, TJ Hockenson and Noah Fant?

Again, the answer is no. In one of my fifteen watches of the 2019 Outback Bowl on BTN, I noticed that neither Hockenson nor Fant were featured in the offensive gameplan. Fant didn’t play in the game because he had already declared for the NFL Draft and Hockenson wasn’t targeted until the middle of the fourth quarter.

Still, we won this game, against a top 5 defense, because of a passing game that carried the Iowa offense, courtesy of Nate Stanley. To put this into perspective, Iowa is widely considered to be a running team, which is normally true. In this game, we rushed for negative 15 yards.

We think about Nate’s performances in games like Penn State, where he overthrew a wide-open Hockenson by a mile and threw a game-clinching interception at the 3-yard line. We forget that he stifled a Nebraska comeback and won us our bowl game though.

Nate may not win us all over when he approaches the career touchdown records at Iowa. In fact, short of a Big Ten title or an unlikely Heisman run, Stanley probably will not win everyone over until years from now.

But remember that after the 2005 and 2006 seasons, Drew Tate was questioned in a similar manner. Time heals all wounds, however, as Drew is now revered as one of the better quarterbacks of the Ferentz Era. Stanley’s legacy is likely to follow that same path.