Spencer Petras’ postgame remarks after Iowa logs season-highs in yards, points versus Northwestern
Spencer Petras passed for 220 yards—his second-highest mark of the season—and one score. In the process, Iowa (4-4, 2-3 Big Ten) racked up its season highs in rushing yards, total offense and points.
Afterwards, Petras caught up with the media to discuss his day, the offense’s overall performance and what’s ahead for his group at Purdue next week and beyond.
If he's ever had a better first-half feeling throwing it at Iowa
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“Yeah, I felt good. I think those guys did a really nice job of creating separation and, you know, the offensive line kept me clean practically the whole day so definitely a team effort. But, yeah, I was feeling good. Good to get in a rhythm and, you know, score some points. It’s good.”
What it felt like to have everything clicking
Joseph Cress / USA TODAY NETWORK
“Yeah, it’s great. We’ve been talking all year really, but, especially after last week, you can’t get down for too long. You’ve got to keep working and pushing through and I think that’s kind of what we were looking at there. We pushed it through and that doesn’t mean anything for next week, but today we played well enough to win and put some points on the board. There’s going to be stuff to clean up still. I’m sure we’d love to have more touchdowns in the red zone, but, you know, for the most part, I thought it was a pretty good performance all around.”
On the offensive line giving him time in the pocket
Joseph Cress / USA TODAY NETWORK
“Yeah, I thought they played really well all day. There were a couple that I’m sure they’ll want back, but that’s true for us all. Really nice job by them.”
When he knew he would start
Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK
“We didn’t really talk about it as a room. You know, Alex and I split reps Monday and Tuesday and then by Wednesday I had I guess a pretty good idea, but we didn’t like talk about it until just Friday I guess I knew. We didn’t have like an in-depth discussion.”
If he feels like his performance validated the coaches' decision to start him
Joseph Cress / USA TODAY NETWORK
“Yeah, I mean, I think the coaches are going to do what they have to and it would be stupid for me to expect anything different, especially, you know, with how the first half against Ohio State went. It’s just like life. I tried my damnedest and couldn’t get it done last week. You don’t reset everything and abandon everything that got you to the point you’re at. You just go back to work. So, yeah, it felt good, it felt good to go back out there.”
Iowa's offensive balance
Joseph Cress / USA TODAY NETWORK
“Yeah and I think we ran the ball really effectively today, which is great to see just because that’s really how we’re built is to be pretty balanced like that. It makes our life easier in the pass game for sure when we can run the ball like we did today, so that was a step forward I think.”
Having close to the full complement of offensive players, sharing the production wealth
Joseph Cress / USA TODAY NETWORK
“Yeah, you know, I think at least from the injury standpoint, we’ve had our guys back. Diante’s first game back was last week. For the most part, we had our guys back. It’s good to see what happened today of just everyone kind of getting involved and that’s how we want to play. That’s kind of the goal every week. I think for the most part, everyone brought it today and was playing their best. I think that’s the level we can play to if we’re playing our best. We’ve just got to keep working and keep executing.”
If he talked with anybody or if anybody helped reset him following Ohio State
Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports
“I meet with our sports psychologist at least twice a week in season. Carmen (Priebe), she does a great job and, after weeks like last week, I meet with her more than twice. She’s really helpful, but also just the coaches, too. It was a bad day, bad game. Doesn’t mean anything for the next game, right. It doesn’t carry over. Just like good games I might have had earlier in the year, they don’t carry over to the next week. Just got to treat each game, it’s a new day, it’s a new game. So, yeah, had a lot of help.”
The main things he discusses with Iowa's sports psychologist
Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports
“I mean, you know, it kind of depends. It’s really what I need I think. It varies week to week. You know, I think a big thing for me is just staying grounded, especially earlier in the year. Working on techniques. Just physical releases to keep yourself in the moment, because it’s not fun coming to the sideline—early in the year primarily—but coming to the sideline and hearing the boos and all that. It’s easy if you don’t have mental health coaching or mental skills coaching I should say to really get affected by that. She does an outstanding job and meets with a lot of guys on the team and helps. Yeah, primarily staying grounded and staying in the moment, because that’s the best way to attack.”
How valuable it was being able to score on each first-half possession now and moving forward
Joseph Cress / USA TODAY NETWORK
“Obviously, with our defense, if we can put, you know, I don’t want to put a number out there, but if we can score ‘X’ amount of points, we’ve got a pretty good chance of winning the game. So, any time we can play like we did in the first half of scoring every drive, that’s great. I know we’d love to come away with more touchdowns than we did, but, yeah, I think the main thing is just like every position now we’ve shown what we can do. We’ve set the standard now to how we’re capable of playing, so there’s no excuse for anything less than that moving forward. We set a new bar and now we have got to go achieve that every time and continue to raise that.”
What he liked about his overall play, what he saw on the big play to Monte Pottebaum
Joseph Cress / USA TODAY NETWORK
“Happy with how I threw the ball. I felt like my decisions were clean mostly all day and just taking what the defense gave. That’s my job, you know, keep us on the field, get the ball to the guys that are capable of making plays with the ball in their hand. And the Pott throw, they covered it pretty well downfield, I was going to run and then the guy on Pott tried to tackle me, so I threw it to him. Talk about a guy that can make something happen with the ball in his hands, that’s Monte Pottebaum, so it’s good.”
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