Iowa Hawkeyes looking for Beau Pribula, a QB who felt he had to leave CFP

Pribula was a valuable backup for his hometown Penn State team this season, but decided to leave his team before Saturday’s playoff game against SMU to pursue his new path.

A good starting point for the Iowa football team, it seems, would be a quarterback who spent the last three seasons at Penn State.

Beau Pribula is a dual threat guy. As a third-year senior, Pribula played 187 snaps with the Nittany Lions this season, completing 26 of 35 passes for 275 yards and five touchdowns and running 38 times for 242 yards and four scores.

When starter Drew Allar suffered a lower-body injury at Wisconsin on Oct. 26, Pribula played the entire second half in Penn State’s 28-13 win. The Nittany Lions trailed 10-7 at halftime. Pribula led two consecutive touchdown drives of 81 and 76 yards in the fourth quarter.

Even though Pribula doesn’t have a large body of work, what he does have looks pretty good.

Pribula was reportedly scheduled to visit Iowa on Wednesday after doing the same in Missouri on Tuesday. He will also reportedly attend UCF and Indiana.

The most interesting thing about Pribula’s entry into the NCAA transfer portal isn’t so much his legs or his throwing arm, but his timing. He is, so to speak, a symbol of the portal madness of the moment.

Pribula said on Sunday that he would enter the portal. That was the day before Penn State junior quarterback Drew Allar announced he would return for his senior season rather than enter the NFL draft.

Penn State has a College Football Playoff home game against SMU on Saturday. No playoff team wants their No. 2 quarterback to leave until the season is over.

Players who know they will be moving also know that many attractive roster spots will be up for grabs this month. This is what Pribula said on social media on Monday:

“The current NCAA postseason model presents a challenge for student-athletes. The overlapping CFP playoffs and transfer portal schedule forced me to make an impossible decision. After speaking at length with my family and coaches, it is with a heavy heart that I announce my intention to enter the transfer portal and leave the team to pursue opportunities elsewhere. …

“I will be proud as a Penn State graduate and letterman for the rest of my life.”

Of course, Pribula could have stayed with the Lions until the playoffs. Playoff participants will receive an extension beyond the end of the current portal opening on December 28th, and the spring portal window for football will then be April 16th-25th.

However, the reality is that players want to be part of their next team as quickly as possible and be there. After the playoffs, there won’t be nearly as many attractive options as there are today.

Penn State coach James Franklin expressed understanding for Pribula’s decision to leave now. Like most trainers, he thinks the portal’s dates are the problem.

“I can give you my word, Beau Pribula did not want to leave our program until the end of the season,” Franklin said Monday. “But the way the portal is, the timing, the way our team plays, and when you play the quarterback position and there’s only one spot and those spots are getting filled more and more, he felt , as if he had reached a dead end. Win situation and I agree with him.

“Knowing everything I know now, I would recruit Beau with all my might. Beau grew up wanting to come to Penn State his whole life. This is his dream school. And he had a phenomenal career here. And most of all, I want everyone to understand that.”

Pribula is from York in southeastern Pennsylvania. He was Central York High’s quarterback in its first football state championship game. He committed to Penn State in August 2020, 16 months before he was able to sign a national letter of intent.

By all accounts, he’s a popular player and Penn State fans hate to see him go. But the players want to play.

That’s why Music City Bowl opponents Iowa and Missouri are courting a quarterback who feels he has to forgo the chance to play in the CFP with the team he loved as a kid. This is college football 2024.

If Iowa signs Pribula, the former Penn State backup will compete with former Auburn backup Hank Brown, former Northwestern backup Brendan Sullivan and former Colorado State backup Jackson Stratton for the Hawkeyes’ quarterback job .

There’s no way you can have too many quarterbacks. They come and go quickly.

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