DeKALB | Who the starting quarterback should be for Iowa hasn’t been a question in the last three years.

With 7,437 passing yards, 54 passing touchdowns and a career passer rating of 134.4, Drew Tate proved himself to be the man for the job in Iowa City.

But who should be, and who will be are two different questions.

The senior quarterback will have to watch his team from the bench as he recovers from surgery on his left thumb. Tate underwent the operation to repair ligament damage that occurred to his non-throwing hand against Michigan.

The question that now plagues Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz is who should get the nod to start against NIU this weekend.

In one corner there is senior quarterback Jason Manson.

Manson has some game experience, but mostly as a backup. The senior has only started one game in his career, which occurred in week two against Syracuse. In that game, Manson completed 16 of his 31 passes for 202 yards. The senior also threw his first-career touchdown in the Hawkeye’s 20-13 double-overtime victory.

The choice seems clear, then – Manson is the go-to guy. Except there’s one problem; in the victory, Manson threw four picks and fumbled the ball once. The senior got help by his defense, though, and Syracuse didn’t score any points off the four interceptions.

So bring in the competition for the job: redshirt freshman Jake Christensen.

The Lockport, Ill. native has put up some numbers this season as he’s completed all of his passes with a passer rating of 153.2. Just one small thing though. Christensen has only thrown three passes for a total of 19 yards.

As of Tuesday, Coach Ferentz couldn’t decide which quarterback he would choose to start.

“That part we don’t know. We’ll mull it over,” Ferentz said. “The competition has been good in practice and practice is important. That’s a pretty important chunk of what you use to evaluate a player.”