Iowa City, Iowa — The spotlight was on quarterbacks Nathan Stanley and Tyler Wiegers at the University of Iowa’s annual spring football game Friday night at Kinnick Stadium. But Jake Gervase stole the show.
The junior free safety from Davenport, Iowa, was in the starting lineup because returning starter and West Lyon graduate Brandon Snyder suffered a significant knee injury earlier this spring.
Gervase had three interceptions before an announced crowd of 16,500. Gervase returned one of those interceptions for a 59-yard touchdown as the Gold team beat the Black team, 63-47.
Kirk Ferentz, entering his 19th season as the Hawkeyes’ head coach, said he has seen individual growth from several players over the course of 15 practices. On Friday, he singled out several performances.
“It was good to see Jake Gervase have a good night like that,” Ferentz said. “I thought Toren Young did some good things as well, and some of the safeties really showed up, which was good to see. We’re going to need help from everybody here as we move on.”
Young, a redshirt freshman running back, is competing for playing time alongside Akrum Wadley, who didn’t play in Friday’s game.
Iowa hasn’t entered a fall camp with a quarterback competition since 2013, when Jake Rudock emerged in a battle with C.J. Beathard and Cody Sokol. Neither Wiegers, the backup to Beathard in 2015, or Stanley, the backup to Beathard in 2016, has emerged as the leader for the job this spring.
Asked who would start if the season opener against Wyoming was tomorrow, Ferentz said, “Oh, man. We’d be in trouble, period. We’d probably do a coin toss, literally do a coin toss, but luckily we’re going to have at least 15, 18 practices before we make that decision.”
Gervase picked off Wiegers twice and Stanley once.
