Iowa football: Hawks recent history filled with QB battles

The Iowa football team has three big quarterback battles in the last decade. Here’s a breakdown of what transpired afterward.

This season heading into his third year as the starting quarterback of the Iowa football team, Nate Stanley wasn’t going anywhere on the depth chart, but behind him, there was a fantastic battle between three talented guys.

Yesterday we learned who has won the battle for now, and we speculated what could potentially happen going forward, but to know what could happen going forward, we need to look back in the past at two recent quarterback battles in the Iowa football program.

The most recent quarterback battle was the one to see who replaced CJ Beathard as the starting quarterback.

After beating out Tyler Wiegers for the number two spot in 2016, Nate Stanley again beat Wiegers out in 2017. Wiegers rode the bench for most of the season and then transferred to Eastern Michigan after the season. Two other quarterbacks saw their fates sealed as well though. Ryan Boyle and Drew Cook, both recruits in the class of 2015, realized they weren’t going to get on the field barring an injury at the quarterback position.

Boyle attempted to play wide receiver but ultimately moved back to quarterback, graduated in three years, and transferred to Indiana State where he has been a stud. Cook decided to make the transition, that we honestly all expected would happen anyways, to the same spot his dad starred out for Hayden Fry, tight end.

One battle changed the fortunes of three quarterbacks.

Before that, it was the back and forth of Jake Rudock and CJ Beathard. Rudock joined the Iowa football program in 2011 while Beathard joined the Hawks in 2012 along with another quarterback Cody Sokol. After sitting behind James Vandenberg for two seasons, Rudock, Beathard, Sokol, and a true freshman named Nic Shimonek battled it out.

Rudock emerged victorious despite intense competition from Beathard and Sokol and Beathard was named the number two.

After not seeing any action during the 2013 season, Sokol transferred to Louisiana Tech and Shimonek transferred to Texas Tech. Beathard remained and prevailed towards the end of the 2014 season. Seeing the writing on the wall heading into 2015, Rudock transferred to Michigan while Beathard took the reigns as the starting quarterback of the Iowa football team.

Again, one battle that changed the fortunes of three quarterbacks,

We could go on and on with this like the battle for the starting quarterback spot after Ricky Stanzi’s departure that saw Vandenberg win, John Wienke transitioned to a punter, and AJ Derby transfer and eventually transition to tight end. Or we could even look at Ricky Stanzi’s battle.

Stanzi beat out former starter Jake Christensen and another 2006 recruit, Arvell Nelson, to win the job in 2008. Christensen transferred to Eastern Illinois and Arvell Nelson moved to wide receiver before being dismissed from the team and ending up at Texas Southern.