Ryan Murken
Your preparatory sport
IOWA CITY – Since his first day of high school football, Bobby Bacon had always envisioned his final season.
The City High quarterback is certainly not alone in this attitude.
The final preparatory season is something special for every athlete in all sports.
For Bacon, focusing on that final fall on the football field was apparently a necessity.
“All through high school, I thought my senior year was going to be my only year,” Bacon said. “Honestly, that was just the state I was in.”
It’s easy to understand why Bacon felt this way.
After all, Bacon was not even slated to be the starting quarterback at City High last season after finishing third in the rankings during his sophomore season.
He wasn’t supposed to be the player who led the Little Hawks to six wins in seven weeks to close the regular season and a third consecutive appearance in the Class 5A state playoffs.
And Bacon certainly wasn’t supposed to become one of the most productive passers and up-and-coming top quarterbacks in the entire state.
At least not last season.
Yet that’s exactly what Bacon did last fall after replacing injured senior starter Drew Larson three games into the season, and somehow the first-year signal caller’s seemingly unfathomable success came as no surprise to anyone in the City High program.
“Bobby wasn’t supposed to start last year, but we knew Bobby would do a great job if Drew got hurt,” said City High senior receiver Connor Cross. “It was no surprise to us at all last year that he was so good because he was always so well prepared.”
Bacon has always been possible to prepare.
As a freshman, Bacon watched sophomores Quinton Tran and Larson share the quarterback role and lead the Little Hawks to a 10-2 record and a berth in the 5A semifinals.
Because both of these quarterbacks had excelled as sophomores the year before him, Bacon quickly concluded that his only chance to lead City High’s offense would likely come in his senior year.
Instead of waiting for the opportunity to become a regular player that seemed years away, Bacon got to work.
“It was definitely hard to stay motivated. That’s a challenge when you don’t expect to play. But I just looked at it as I wanted to get as good as I could. I didn’t want to beat Drew, I just wanted to be the best teammate I could be,” Bacon said. “I wanted to get as good as I could this senior year.”
When Bacon was a freshman, City High coach Mitch Moore was initially unconvinced that the young quarterback had the desire, or “want,” as Moore called it, to lead the Little Hawks.
That question was quickly answered in the summer after Bacon’s first season.
“When he was a freshman, we weren’t sure if he would ever have the will to do it, but by the end of his freshman year, we could see that the will was there,” Moore said. “In the offseason of his freshman year, he really pushed the guys at 7-on-7 and got them involved. That was a growth process that this program needed.”
After his freshman season, although it seemed like several more seasons before his next varsity appearance, Bacon took his work ethic to a new level.
“Bobby is probably one of the hardest working guys on this team,” Cross said. “He was the quarterback on our freshman team and he wasn’t the best quarterback, he had some injuries and in the offseason he heard all these doubts and he just took it to another level.”
Bacon was the third quarterback behind Tran and Larson as a sophomore in 2022.
During the following offseason, Tran moved to Clear Creek Amana and Larson missed much of the summer due to injury, allowing Bacon to play in the first team.
“I took a lot of reps over the summer as if I was the starter, and that was really beneficial,” Bacon said. “We practice so fast that I felt like I was playing.”
Bacon was Larson’s backup last season.
He made his first extended appearance for the varsity team after just two games of the season, when Larson injured his thumb in a 41-14 loss to Liberty High.
After City High finished 0-2, Bacon made his first career start a week later in Ames.
Bacon completed 17 of 24 passes for 223 yards and two touchdowns without an interception and ran for two more touchdowns in the 49-28 win over the Little Cyclones.
“He came in calm and composed and led the offense, and that’s not easy,” City High senior tight end Parker Sutherland said. “Drew has done that for three years, and Bobby took the time to watch him and learn from him. He was able to come in, throw the ball and command the offense, and that was great.”
The rest, as they say, is history.
Bacon led City High to wins in six of its first seven games, helping the Little Hawks reach the 5A playoffs, where they lost to Bettendorf in the first round.
The 6’2″ and 180lb Bacon averaged 257 yards passing in his eight games as a starter and threw for over 300 yards three times.
City High averaged 38.4 points per game in Bacon’s eight starts and scored 42 or more points four times during that span.
“He’s a great leader,” said City High senior Dominic Salibi. “He wasn’t even supposed to play last year, but he came in and did what we needed to do. He worked like no other in the offseason, so we’re expecting a great season from him this year.”
Bacon ranked in the top 10 in Class 5A in nearly every major passing statistic after throwing for 2,193 yards and 18 touchdowns in just over eight games last season.
He was seventh in touchdown passes, sixth in yards and seventh in completions (141).
Bacon led 5A with a passer rating of 155.6, was second in completion percentage with 67.5 and fourth in yards per completion with 15.6.
“I was always confident,” Bacon said. “I always thought I could step in and be the best, but at the same time, I didn’t know what to expect once I did. I had never played in a varsity team game before, and the last thing I needed was to see that success.”
After securing and holding a starting place last season, Bacon continued to work.
Moore says Bacon has worked harder than ever, even after his success last season.
“You have to develop that will and work in the dark and you have to love it and then when you add that knowledge and start to get others involved and the people around him get better, it’s really a good program,” Moore said. “I think Bobby has been the mastermind behind it for the last four years because he has this infectious personality and now he’s added the physical attributes and the skills and he’s been fun to watch.”
Bacon has finally reached his highly anticipated final season.
The path to his final season was different than expected for Bacon, but his goals remain the same.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for,” said Bacon. “Everyone is confident and we want to finish what we started.”
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