Tate, the former Hawkeyes quarterback, is in his rookie season with the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. He signed a two-year deal with the Roughriders after going to training camp with the St. Louis Rams but has yet to play in a CFL game. In fact, he’s spent the entire season on injured reserve, even though he’s perfectly healthy.
“It’s kind of like a redshirt year. That’s what the general manager called it,” Tate said last week during a candid, hour-long phone interview. “I’ve been on the injured reserve all year. We’ve got five games left, and I’m going to continue to be on the IR. Nothing’s wrong with me. It’s just a way for them to keep me, I guess. If I’m on the IR, nobody else can pick me up.”
So, Tate’s settling in and learning the game — the CFL plays 12-on-12 on a wider field, which is a style of play in which mobile passers like Tate have traditionally flourished.
“It’s definitely different — the size of the field and the extra player,” Tate said. “When they have an extra defensive back in, it completely changes the game.
“And at Iowa, we got, maybe, into a three-receiver set. Here, we have six receivers. There are guys all over the place. It’s really fun.”
Speaking of the Hawkeyes, Tate is keeping a close eye on his former team — or as close as he can with the limited TV coverage north of the border. He follows on ESPN.com and other Web sites that provide gamecasts on Saturdays, and he does something he rarely was able to do when he was a player — he browses the fan message boards, where starting quarterbacks are shredded like confetti.
It happened to Tate last season when he struggled as things went south for Iowa.
It’s happening now to his successor, Jake Christensen, as the Hawkeyes have struggled to a 2-4 start.
“It’s funny, because people said, ‘Oh, Drew’s emotion is killing the team,’ ” Tate said. “They weren’t saying that in 2004 when I was playing the exact same, probably even worse. Then, they were like, ‘Oh, that’s great. We need that.’ When you’re losing, they’ll pick everything out.
“Now people are like, ‘Oh, there’s no emotion. Jake doesn’t care.’ Jake cares. He’s not just out there throwing balls to throw balls and taking sacks to take sacks. He cares.
“He’s struggling right now. He’ll catch on. The offense is in slump. They’re going to get their rhythm. It’s just a matter of time.”
Through six games, Iowa’s offense ranks as the worst in the Big Ten.
A lot of the message board talk after Tate left went as far as saying the program would be better off without him, that he hurt the team by dressing down teammates on the field after they made mistakes, that the lows of his emotional rollercoaster were too low to produce a consistent winner.
Tate doesn’t deny letting teammates have it. He just thinks people complaining about it missed the point.
“I’m a fiery guy. I’m in everyone’s ear all the time,” Tate said. “People on the message boards would get mad at me for ripping guys on the field. And yeah, if you screwed up, I was the first one in your face, but if you did something good, I was the first one over there, too. A lot of people didn’t recognize that. Even if a guy did something good away from the play, I’d be over there. I was the first one there.”
Tate had a lot more to say in the hour-long interview. Here are a few highlights:
On fans criticizing the quarterback …
“I’m the quarterback, so I’m going to get it. It’s like in 2004, everybody was like, ‘Drew Tate’s God.’ Back in ’04, I didn’t do that much. People think I did all this because our running backs went out, but I had a lot of help. I had a whole lot of help. We had great players, and our chemistry was good.”
On talk that last year’s team had poor senior leadership …
“It’s easy for people to say there’s no leadership, there’s none of this, there’s none that, chemistry’s bad when you’re losing. It’s easy as hell to be a leader when you’re winning. Anyone can be a leader when you’re winning. It’s when you’re losing, (stuff) hits the floor, you don’t know what the hell is going on, you lose three in a row. People talk about us having bad senior leadership last year, but I thought we had great senior leadership. I just think there was a difference in the way the younger guys looked at the older guys.”
On what happened that led to Iowa’s 6-7 finish in 2006 …
“It was tough. We had a lot of turnovers offensively, we gave up a lot of big plays on defense and our special teams weren’t very good. The players were frustrated, the coaches were frustrated. I don’t think we handled it as well as we could, because, as a program, we hadn’t been there in a really long time.”
On Iowa’s struggles this season …
“With the young guys, it’s hard. When you don’t have experience — you can’t teach experience, and experience goes a long ways — it’s tough. Right now, Iowa’s got a lot of injuries and inexperience, and it’s just tough.
“They have a lot of new guys on the offensive line, which is a problem. When you factor in that, a new quarterback, young receivers and then injuries, it’s not going to go well at all.”
On comparisons between this year’s team and the 2004 Big Ten championship team …
“You can’t compare this year to 2004. We had like nine NFL players on defense, and our special teams were great. I made a ton of mistakes as a sophomore, but it didn’t matter because our defense and special teams were so good.”
On the fickleness of Iowa fans …
“We have great fans. The only reason we went to the Outback Bowl two years ago was because of our fans. And they were probably the only reason we went to the Alamo Bowl, too. But it’s tough. It’s like the Green Bay Packers. There are no professional teams in Green Bay except the Packers. Last year, they were probably killing Favre and killing the coaches. And in Iowa, Iowa football is huge, and that’s it.
“When you lose in Iowa, everyone’s going to say, ‘We need this. We need that. Put this guy in. Put that guy in.’ If they end up winning the next (six) and finish with a good record, they’re going to be the best team ever.”
CaliHawkI wrote on Oct 10, 2007 7:03 PM: