C.J. Beathard’s performance against Indiana showed exactly how and why the coaches trust him in any situation.
By Charlie Green
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BLOOMINGTON, Indiana — With time ticking down in the first half of Iowa’s Nov. 7 meeting with Indiana, all that stood in between C.J. Beathard and the end zone was a mess of Hoosiers and Hawkeyes at the pylon.
He couldn’t go around. He definitely couldn’t go through.
So he went over.
Beathard went airborne, and Hawkeye fans across the state held their collective breath for an eternity. The referees ruled it a touchdown — a controversial call. Upon review, the play stood.
“It was a quarterback draw, and I was just doing anything I could to get it into the end zone,” Beathard said following the Hawkeye 35-27 win. “I felt like the only way I could get it in was by jumping over the top.”
That’s a quarterback who has played the past month in clear pain, putting his body on the line in the biggest way. It’s not uncommon to see No. 16 make plays with his feet and willingly choose contact over a safer slide or bolt for the boundary. But to see him go up — suspended above the Earth with no fun way to come back down — that showed something to the country that, quite honestly, his teammates already knew.
“We know that C.J., he’s big-time for us,” running back LeShun Daniels Jr. said. “He always goes out and makes the tough plays, and today was no different.”
What it shows is that he’ll go the distance for the Hawkeyes. Leadership is pivotal to the game’s most important position; Beathard has plenty of that quality and then some.
He doesn’t always have everything. His accuracy was far from perfect with his feet set and on the run on more than one occasion against the Hoosiers.
Some would say sliding feet rather than headfirst to finish his runs would be the ideal method. Whatever the case may be, the coaching staff trusts him with just about anything.
It was clear midway through the fourth quarter in Bloomington, when the Hawkeyes held an 8-point lead. Rather than take the conservative approach and run to eat clock, Beathard came out slinging.
Two incomplete passes set up a crucial third and 10 that saw him roll out left, stop to square up as well as he could, and hit Henry Krieger Coble running in the opposite direction over the middle.
“Some of those throws he made today, some of those third-down conversions that we got, those were clutch plays,” head coach Kirk Ferentz said. “The receivers did a great job, and certainly, he did a great job getting the ball there.”
The 10-yard completion gained just enough to move the chains, and the drive ended with a throw to another tight end, this time George Kittle. Kittle’s high-flying score put the Hawkeyes up 35-20 with roughly six minutes remaining.
It was clear again on Iowa’s last drive after the Hoosiers had brought the game back within one possession. On second and 9 with time closing in on a minute remaining, offensive coordinator Greg Davis called Beathard’s name again — this time for a run.
Davis and running-game coordinator/offensive-line coach Brian Ferentz weren’t sure if Beathard’s health would allow him to execute the play, until he set them straight.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I can get the first down,’ ” Beathard said. “And they made the call.”
The redshirt junior faked a handoff and scampered for a first down on a bootleg to bury the Hoosiers for good — cashing the check his coaches had just signed in his name.
The most obvious reason for the trust is the bottom line. Beathard is 10-0 as Iowa’s starter. His passing numbers aren’t mind-blowing, but they are indicative of a player who takes care of the ball and keep his team in a position to win games.
“We have the confidence when he’s in there he’s going to make something good happen and find a way,” Ferentz said. “The No. 1 criterion I think you evaluate a quarterback on is ‘What’s his record?’ you know, ‘How’s he doing when he’s in charge?”
The intangibles truly make him effective — composure, leadership, awareness, and toughness among them — more than physical skills.
And when the Hawkeyes need a play late in the game, there’s no doubt about how they feel with their leader taking the snap.
“We’re always behind him 100 percent,” Daniels said. “So we know when they call his number to go make plays, we’re going to do whatever we can to help him do that.”
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