College Football

How Cade McNamara, a 'Michigan legend,' found renewed purpose at Iowa

Published Aug. 30, 2023 10:04 a.m. ET

College Football and College Basketball Writer

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Last December, on Christmas morning, Cade McNamara awoke atop the Costco mattress he'd placed on the floor of an empty office building. Beside him was Grizz, the 155-pound English Mastiff whom McNamara drove from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to his makeshift home in Southern California. Down the hall were his brothers, Kyle and Jake, both football players at UTEP, who brought their own dogs and crashed on air mattresses in enclosed-glass rooms.

In a few days, Michigan would face Texas Christian in the College Football Playoff semifinals, a second trip in as many seasons for head coach Jim Harbaugh. But McNamara — the quarterback who anchored Harbaugh's team the year prior — was seven weeks removed from surgery to address tears in his MCL and patellar tendon, separate injuries that occurred nearly 11 months apart. The procedure was performed in early November by renowned Los Angeles-based surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the lead physician for the Rams and Dodgers, and McNamara moved into the vacant building in San Clemente because of its proximity to a rehab facility. The addition of a Christmas tree helped brighten the place, which had been recently purchased by a friend and loaned to McNamara. He and his brothers had more than 30,000 square feet to themselves, including a kitchen with a mostly functional refrigerator.

The McNamara parents, Gary and Nicole, had traveled to California a few days earlier to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They joined their sons later that morning to exchange gifts.

"It was one of those things where it's like, ‘What Christmas do you remember the most?'" Gary McNamara said. "It's going to be hard not to remember that Christmas just because of the location we had it."

Cherished though that memory may be, it was a staggering juxtaposition from where Cade McNamara stood exactly one year prior. On Dec. 25, 2021, he stepped off a plane and onto the tarmac at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport for the Wolverines' inaugural trip to the College Football Playoff. Michigan would get mauled, 34-11, by Georgia, the eventual national champion, but McNamara's name was already etched in program lore as the quarterback who upset Ohio State and claimed the school's first Big Ten Championship in 17 years. His was a leading voice among the upperclassmen credited by head coach Jim Harbaugh for repairing Michigan's culture. "Love Cade," Harbaugh said at Big Ten Media Days in 2023.

So how did McNamara wind up sleeping on the floor of an office building while the Wolverines returned to the national semifinals last year? How did a player described by one coach as "a Michigan legend" all but vanish after absorbing the hit that damaged his knee in Week 3? How did McNamara hop into and out of the transfer portal before the Wolverines even arrived at Lucas Oil Stadium to win a second consecutive Big Ten title? And how did he claw his way back from a self-professed "lowest low" to find supreme joy as the starting quarterback at Iowa?

Answers to those questions are simultaneously murky and multi-dimensional, intricate and impassioned, variable from speaker to speaker. The central figure — McNamara — had harnessed the resiliency and competitive fire he's known for to emerge from an icy quarterback room and propel the Wolverines to new heights in 2021. An uneasy relationship with understudy J.J. McCarthy further complicated their high-profile, hotly contested competition the following year, and the incumbent was fraught with angst as the battle spilled into the regular season. Multiple sources said disagreements over the objectivity of Harbaugh's process gave way to disputes about the school's proposed treatment of McNamara's injured knee, with the decision to undergo surgery cutting against what the medical staff advised. Once McNamara trekked to California in early November, he never rejoined the team.

Yet from the darkness and dissolution rose the ideal winds of change for an erstwhile championship quarterback. Roughly a dozen Power 5 schools came calling when McNamara entered the transfer portal on Nov. 28, though some had begun sniffing around in early August. Having competed against Michigan in the Big Ten title game, Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz described the pursuit of McNamara, then 22, as "a no-brainer," and made it clear the Hawkeyes planned to build around him as a redshirt senior with two years of eligibility remaining.

For the first time in a long time, McNamara felt wanted. He committed to Iowa on Dec. 1 and hasn't looked back since.

"I've been nothing but so happy that I made this decision," McNamara said.

*** *** ***

Rewind to January 2019.

A teenage McNamara early enrolled at Michigan for a recruiting class that would finish eighth in the national rankings. A four-star prospect from Reno, Nevada, McNamara had turned down scholarship offers from Notre Dame, Alabama, USC, Georgia and Tennessee, among others, to sign with the Wolverines. The coaching staff assigned him to live with fellow newcomer Gabe Newberg, an edge rusher from Ohio, who remains one of McNamara's closest friends. The new roommates spent time chatting after moving into their dorm.

"Most guys kind of start out trying to get to know each other, asking the usual questions," Newberg said. "But one of the first things he said was when he gets the reins and becomes the starter, he wants to make a difference at Michigan," by changing the culture and winning.

Such foresight and faith would still be impressive had Newberg been the only person to experience McNamara's prophetic self-belief, but similar stories have radiated through the quarterback's inner circle for years. The memory Gary McNamara shares is from a conversation shortly after his son arrived in Ann Arbor, at which point McNamara listed approximately 20 changes he believed would strengthen the program — all things he vowed to implement before leaving the school. The anecdote that defensive back Mike Sainristil describes took place even earlier, in 2018, during a recruiting call in which McNamara assured him they'd win a Big Ten Championship if Sainristil flipped his commitment from Virginia Tech to Michigan. He did, and they did.

Examples like these are critical to understanding McNamara's internal wiring. At 6-foot-1 and 205 pounds, McNamara has never been the biggest quarterback, nor the strongest, nor the fastest. His arm is considered good enough without being great, and certain coaches have reservations about his release on short and intermediate throws. Even with a good season or two at Iowa, he's unlikely to become an early-round draft pick.

What McNamara does have is an appealing blend of toughness, intelligence and leadership skills that are fortified by his maniacal work ethic — all traits that endeared him to Harbaugh, the former Michigan quarterback revered for his willpower and grit. He plays selflessly and passionately within an offense's framework, and teammates have no qualms about following him into the fire. "He would be one of those great Michigan men," Harbaugh said at Big Ten Media Days this July.

It was McNamara's dedication that earned his teammates' respect at Michigan despite never seeing the field as a freshman. He was known for waking up at 5 a.m. to pore over the playbook and study opponents even with several players ahead of him on the depth chart. He always tagged along with Newberg and running back Zach Charbonnet for extra lifting sessions at Schembechler Hall and caught their attention with how hard he strained in the weight room. When his friends spent time in the recovery areas, McNamara threw passes alone in a dimly lit Oosterbaan Field House. He even reamed out a teammate who loafed through a workout for non-traveling players in 2019.

"They kind of went back and forth for a little bit," Newberg said of the altercation. "But Cade stood his ground. And me and a few other guys that were in that lift had his back because when you see someone that takes everything that seriously, and if they have an issue, you're going to get behind somebody like that."

They got behind him again on Nov. 21, 2020, after Harbaugh pulled starting quarterback Joe Milton during the second quarter of a game at Rutgers. McNamara came off the bench to complete 27 of 36 passes for 260 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions in a triple-overtime victory. It was a performance, Harbaugh said recently, that proved McNamara had enough "gravel in his gut" to lead the Wolverines.

The comeback against Rutgers marked the unofficial beginning of McNamara's run atop the depth chart. An offseason metamorphosis for Michigan saw Milton transfer to Tennessee and new quarterbacks coach Matt Weiss arrive from the Baltimore Ravens. A group of upperclassmen led by Aidan Hutchinson, Josh Ross, Brad Hawkins and McNamara, among others, seized control of the locker room to re-chart the Wolverines' course. Together, they sparked the unexpected surge that snapped an eight-game losing streak to Ohio State and secured the program's first Big Ten title since 2004, knocking off Iowa at Lucas Oil Stadium.

McNamara, who finished the season with 2,576 yards, 15 touchdowns and only six interceptions, was named third-team All-Big Ten by the coaches and media.

"It just seemed like he was the guy that kind of was the trigger man," Ferentz said this summer. "The guy that made it all go."

*** *** ***

Lurking beneath the surface of Michigan's storybook run to the College Football Playoff was an undercurrent of tension between McNamara and McCarthy, the five-star prospect with a significantly higher ceiling. Swarmlike media coverage of McCarthy's recruitment anointed him the program's savior long before he enrolled, and all of that attention became an impediment to his nascent relationship with McNamara.

By the time McCarthy arrived on campus in January 2021, the Wolverines' quarterback room had already devolved into a snake pit, according to a team source with direct knowledge of the situation. Fallout from the prior year's competition involving Milton, McNamara and Dylan McCaffrey, who also wound up transferring, fostered an environment in which players turned against each other.

"And Cade, honestly, was a huge part of how cutthroat that room was," the source said. "It kind of fits with his personality of when J.J. first got there, he reached out to [McNamara], ‘Hey, can't wait to learn from you,' typical stuff that would be smart stuff to say to somebody when you're coming into that situation. And Cade ghosted him, wouldn't respond to him."

A source close to McNamara pushed back on this but acknowledged he and McCarthy never watched film together. It was third-string quarterback Davis Warren, the source said, who routinely joined McNamara to study opponents.

J.J. McCarthy (9) watches Cade McNamara (12) throw before Michigan's game at Penn State on Nov. 13, 2021. (Photo by Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Having allowed the contract for then-quarterbacks coach Ben McDaniels to expire, Harbaugh replaced him with Weiss in late February. The retooled coaching staff tried to sanitize the quarterback room by creating a series of new initiatives that encouraged players to be more supportive of each other. They designed activities and environments that prioritized fun in hopes of strengthening interpersonal relationships. The goal of naming McNamara the starter in mid-April was to offer him the kind of validation they believed would elevate his play. And at the same time, it could relieve the pressure on McCarthy, who had just turned 18.

Slowly but surely, McNamara embraced the messaging from his coaches and became a better mentor for McCarthy, who averaged 15 snaps per game in 2021. There were long stretches of that season, a source said, in which the two quarterbacks genuinely liked each other and appreciated what the other could bring to the offense — even if both would have preferred more playing time. Where McNamara offered the steadiness and poise of a player who prepared like "an NFL-level quarterback, starter-level," according to one collegiate coach who worked with him, McCarthy injected more dynamism as a dual-threat runner and passer.

"I think [McCarthy] learned a ton from Cade," the team source said. "And I think he would tell you that, too, and genuinely mean it."

The source said there was never much consideration for starting McCarthy that season, even when the passing game encountered its share of hiccups. Harbaugh and his staff recognized McCarthy had more upside than McNamara, but the coaches knew relying on a true freshman "was not going to be the best thing for Michigan football," especially at a time when they believed the College Football Playoff was within reach. What the Wolverines needed was a quarterback who could avoid mistakes and run the offense efficiently — not the "higher-variance strategy," as the source described it, of handing the keys to McCarthy. Yet everyone understood the caliber of player he was likely to become.

"It's tough, you know, being a very good quarterback with another very good quarterback right behind you," Sainristil said. "It's like at all points ... everything [McNamara] does is even more under a microscope with a guy like J.J. right behind him. So at any point, that job could be taken."

And soon enough, it would be.

*** *** ***

Gary McNamara wanted his son to leave Michigan after the semifinal loss to Georgia in 2021. The family never discussed the idea of McNamara declaring for the NFL Draft, where he might have been a late-round pick, but conversations about entering the transfer portal were had.

"I thought it was better if he just left," Gary McNamara said. "I tried on my own, but he made the decision that he was sticking with it because he was basically the only leader left behind."

Though McNamara chose to remain in Ann Arbor, his father thought the writing was on the wall. It was clear that Harbaugh intended to hold an open competition between McNamara and McCarthy ahead of the 2022 season despite what Gary McNamara described as positive feedback from the head coach to his son in private. The staff thought it could handle having both players on the roster for another season — Harbaugh even told reporters he didn't think either quarterback was the type of player who would transfer — but a team source said the coaches knew it would be challenging to "keep everything copacetic."

In an effort to shock-paddle some chemistry into the quarterback room, the staff convinced the group to take a trip together to Toronto in April 2022. "Just to make them like each other," the source said, and everyone wound up having a great time. McNamara was in good spirits having asserted himself as the No. 1 quarterback in spring practice, which finished a few days prior. He entered fall camp with the lead after McCarthy missed most of spring with a labrum injury.

It's at this point where stories about what happened over the ensuing weeks and months diverge, with the McNamara camp outlining one version of events as sources from Michigan lay out another. The differences can be distilled into two central themes: the veracity of the team's quarterback competition; and the severity of McNamara's eventual injury.

Having benefited from extra reps throughout the spring, McNamara recalled progressing through fall camp "playing the best football I've ever played," he said when asked about it earlier this summer, flashing significant improvements to his footwork, accuracy and mobility. On this much, at least, the two sides agree. "He was at a level in 2022 where he would have started at Michigan probably any other year that Jim was the head coach," a team source said.

The medical staff slowly reintegrated McCarthy through the first half of camp to protect his shoulder, the source said, and the gradual ramp-up caused McNamara's lead to appear more commanding than it might have otherwise been. Had Harbaugh called the competition after a week, McNamara would have won. Had he called it at the midway point of camp, McNamara would have been on top then, too.

But practice by practice, week by week, McCarthy kept improving as he shook off rust and began to harness his potential. The team source credited Harbaugh for exuding enough patience to afford McCarthy the chance to settle in following such a lengthy absence. There was no denying he and McNamara were "very, very close," the source said, but the coaching staff believed the players were on different trajectories by the end of camp: McNamara was as steady as he'd ever been; McCarthy was ascending.

"And I'm sure, well, I know that's something that bothers Cade, you know what I mean?" the source said. "I'm sure he feels like Jim was the referee and let the clock run until the other team came back. ... But any idea that Jim wasn't totally fair or did anything, ever, that he didn't think was purely in the interest of us winning football games, it's just total fiction."

Said Gary McNamara: "That whole process of the reality of what was going on in practice and the reality of what was being said in the public, it was so bizarre. And it made me uncomfortable."

So uncomfortable, in fact, that he relocated to Michigan from the family's home in Tennessee because he feared a negative outcome in the quarterback battle — one that might nudge his son toward the transfer portal. Sure enough, after McCarthy turned in a strong showing against Hawaii, Harbaugh named him the starter for Week 3 and beyond. McNamara tore his MCL during mop-up duty the following week with the Wolverines leading UConn by 38 late in the second quarter.

Here, the stories diverge once more. A source privy to the discussions surrounding McNamara's knee said Michigan's medical staff believed the injury should have been rehabbed without surgery, and the coaching staff wanted him to return later that season as McCarthy's backup. Both sides knew there was a procedure that could address the MCL tear, the source said, but Michigan viewed that route as an elective — not a requirement.

In a move that the team source said surprised Michigan's coaches, McNamara and his father flew to Los Angeles for additional opinions, ultimately meeting with two more doctors. Their first question, according to Gary McNamara, was about the possibility of a quick fix that would get McNamara back on the field as soon as possible. When told there was more damage than could be addressed with a minor procedure, the decision was made to undergo season-ending surgery. ElAttrache fixed the torn MCL and also mended a pre-existing tear in McNamara's patellar tendon that the quarterback didn't know he had. The second tear had been discovered during the imaging process that revealed his torn MCL, and it was eventually traced to a game against Michigan State in 2021.

"In a way," McNamara said, "that was my only option. My knee had not healed properly, and [ElAttrache] was the one who thought that he could fix it."

McNamara watched the rest of Michigan's season from his two-month stay in the empty office building.

*** *** ***

On Dec. 8, 2022, McNamara limped into Carver-Hawkeye Arena. He'd committed to Iowa a few days prior and traveled to Iowa City for an official visit, even though he wasn't cleared to fly. The itinerary included a men's basketball game between the Hawkeyes and archrival Iowa State.

McNamara and his father entered the arena shortly after tipoff. The crowd erupted as McNamara walked out of the tunnel and toward his seats, which were directly in front of an appreciative student section.

"And from that time," Gary McNamara said, "I just think it's been a really fun ride for him so far. So if you're gonna write something about how happy he is, it's just been kind of the golden spot since the first day he walked on that campus."

Finding Iowa has been the silver lining that made the most difficult year of McNamara's life worthwhile. Emotions flooded through him in the days and weeks spent sleeping on the floor of his empty office building, a Big Ten championship-winning quarterback stuck in limbo between one phase of his career and the next. He compared the surgery to hitting a reset button and vowed to use the recovery time as a chance to "figure out what my motivations are and what I want the next version of myself to be."

Thus far, the Hawkeyes have given McNamara everything he envisioned during those periods of introspection, with a clear path to the starting job atop the list. Neither he nor McCarthy spoke publicly in real time about how the pressure of last year's competition affected them, but the comments and body language they've displayed since are telling. McCarthy told reporters in August that he's having "the most fun in my entire life playing football right now when everything is just clear, everyone knows what's going on." And McNamara shared more smiles and laughs with reporters during a single media session in June than over his final 10 months at Michigan combined.

"Mentally," Newberg said, "he's definitely in a great place right now. But I know he wouldn't go back and change anything that happened. Obviously bringing a Big Ten Championship to Michigan, he wouldn't take anything back."

The hope for Iowa is that McNamara can deliver the program's first Big Ten Championship in 19 years and its first outright title since 1985, at which point Ferentz was the team's offensive line coach. Only four Hawkeyes signal-callers in the last 15 seasons eclipsed McNamara's passing output for Michigan in 2021, and last year Iowa ranked among the bottom 10 nationally in total offense, scoring offense, passing offense and third-down conversion rate. At his best, McNamara plays with the kind of level-headed efficiency that last year's starter, Spencer Petras, sorely lacked while throwing for an equal number of touchdowns and interceptions. The Hawkeyes needed McNamara as much as he needed them.

Just as McNamara did in Ann Arbor, he quickly established himself among Iowa's leadership group. He dueled with left tackle Mason Richman to see who could arrive at the facility first each morning, generally in the neighborhood of 5 a.m. He mentored Iowa's younger quarterbacks from the sideline as the medical staff held him out of 11-on-11 drills during spring practice. He routinely knocked on coaches' doors to schedule extra meetings.

In offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz, whose contract was altered following last year's dreadful outcome, McNamara said he found a kindred spirit because they both have something to prove in 2023. And in Kirk Ferentz, 68, he found a head coach who places significant value on the exact skillset McNamara possesses.

"Coach Ferentz has always left his door open for me," McNamara said.

He kickstarted the process of building chemistry with his new receivers and tight ends by inviting them on his annual trip to visit private quarterbacks coach Jordan Palmer, the California-based guru whose clientele includes Josh Allen, Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence. Eleven Hawkeyes — both scholarship and non-scholarship players alike — flew to the West Coast for cold plunges every morning, shared meals along the beach and a chance to go surfing in conjunction with the high-level training from Palmer and former Cincinnati Bengals wideout T.J. Houshmandzadeh.

The group included Iowa's two marquee transfers at the skill positions in former Michigan tight end Erick All, who roomed with McNamara in Ann Arbor, and former Ohio State wideout Kaleb Brown.

"I got a test of [McNamara's] character," receiver Seth Anderson said when asked about the trip to California, "and he's a really good dude. I feel like he really wants us to make it far. And we all feel the same way."

*** *** ***

After watching their son push through months of mental and physical pain, Gary and Nicole McNamara identified two moments that convinced them he'd emerged from the darkness unscathed.

The first took place a few months after surgery when McNamara passed the strength tests that earned him an initial medical clearance. His parents heard him crying on the other end of the phone as he shared the news. All of McNamara's concerns about returning to football swiftly melted.

The second moment came a few months later, in late April, when his parents visited Iowa City for the Hawkeyes' spring game. At dinner one evening, McNamara told them he was the happiest he'd ever been in his college career. Transferring to Iowa had been the perfect choice.

"I told Cade, ‘If you didn't go through all those hard times at Michigan, you would never have found Iowa,'" Gary McNamara said. "And Iowa is the blessing of a lifetime for Cade. It's the first time I've been involved with a program with my kids where I could care less if they win a game because the situation is so good for him."

For that reason, neither McNamara nor his parents harbor ill will toward Michigan, choosing instead to view his time in Ann Arbor as a single chapter of an ongoing football journey. McNamara takes great pride in what he achieved with the Wolverines — especially winning the Big Ten title — and keeps in touch with plenty of his former teammates. He simply prefers not to dwell on those memories while continuing his career at Iowa.

Nonetheless, a handful of Wolverines past and present crossed paths earlier this year as groomsmen in Newberg's wedding. McNamara, Trevor Keegan, Karsen Barnhart and Braiden McGregor enjoyed the chance to catch up and talk some trash after so many months apart.

With Michigan and Iowa not scheduled to play this season, the former teammates knew the next time they'd see each other might be at the Big Ten Championship game in December. And that, McNamara said, is an outcome he'd welcome:

"Let's just say, I hope it happens."

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter at @Michael_Cohen13.

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