The playing career of East Tennessee State quarterback Jake McNamara looks to be over.
Bucs coach Will Healy as much as confirmed that on Monday, as ETSU continues preparation for the Blue Ridge Border Battle this Saturday against Western Carolina (3:30, ESPN+) at William B. Greene Stadium in Johnson City.
McNamara, who got shut down during fall camp, has been used to help signal in plays from the sideline through the first four games. He appeared in five games in 2025 for the Bucs, completing 25 of 37 passes for 305 yards.
“He’s going to be in that role for the rest of the year,” Healy confirmed on Monday at his weekly press conference, adding that McNamara “will be a great coach if that’s something he wants to do. But yeah, he’s going to hang it up.”
Before coming to ETSU, McNamara spent a year apiece at UTEP and New Mexico State and did not appear in a game for either program. His older brother, Cade, also was on the 2025 Bucs roster but suffered a back injury in October that proved to be season-ending.
McNamara went into spring practice as one of the competitors for the quarterback job along with incoming transfers Mason Mims (Louisville) and Jadyn Davis (Michigan), with Mims ultimately winning the job midway through fall camp. Through four games, Mims has 991 passing yards, a 71.8% completion percentage, and he has thrown for seven touchdown passes.
Explosive plays
During his opening remarks, Healy commented on how ETSU kept West Georgia from scoring a touchdown on any of its explosive plays in Saturday’s 35-27 Bucs victory. This reporter, though, brought up the data and analysis about how, on the 19 drives where the opposition had a play that collected 20 or more yards, 15 of those possessions ended in touchdowns.
“I think when you look at percentages of touchdowns after explosive plays across the country, I bet you say the same thing about our offense,” Healy said, then referring to the Bucs’ first touchdown drive against the Wolves, an 18-play, 80-yard grind. “It’s hard to drive 18 plays like we did on Saturday. That’s hard. Nobody wants to do that. Right. I mean, one of the things coach [Bill] Belichick told me after the [North Carolina] game was over with is, like, we’re going to try to make you drive 15 plays and we feel like at some point in time you’re going to mess it up. It’s a lot of people’s thought process on the defensive side of the ball. And, so yes, explosives do lead to touchdowns the majority of the time across college football. We understand it’s been something that we’ve struggled with and we’ve got to get better, we’ve got to win, that we didn’t create enough explosives on the offense.”
Healy also noted that, in their own internal metrics, they consider any play that gains at least 20 yards to be explosive, whether it is a run or pass. In each game, his staff adds up explosive plays for ETSU and the opposition, and then determines how many touchdowns each team scored on explosive plays.
“That’s one of the five metrics we believe that truly equates to win. And you know, it’s the only battle that we did not win on this past Saturday, we won four or five,” he said, adding, “So, yeah, I mean, I see the same thing, right? Our defense, the same thing. And so something, you’ve got to make sure fourth and one, when they’re faking the quarterback sneak and they toss it over the top, they created [an] explosive.
“If you’re a team that’s creating explosive plays, if you can get them down and still make them kick field goals, then I believe that is winning football on the defensive side of the field,” he added. “Explosive with the touchdown, that’s a double win. That’s what we’ve got to truly eliminate. But plenty of work to do for sure. I think there’s a lot of metrics that, like I said, we’re not playing clean enough to play championship level football. I’m with you. I totally agree with you. I watch it. We hold these guys accountable for it. They know it. But I think the beauty of it is we’re sitting in a place saying that they’re correctable mistakes. We’ve got to stop beating ourselves. The message to the team yesterday was winning is hard enough by itself. We can’t do anything to make it harder than it already is. And some of these missed assignments or turning the ball over or whatever it may be, we’re making life harder than it needs to be.”
SoCon honors
ETSU hauled in its first Southern Conference weekly honor of the 2026 season. Safety Mike Jenkins was named SoCon Defensive Player of the Week after returning an interception 25 yards for a touchdown, which also put the Bucs ahead for good, against West Georgia. Jenkins, whose 22 tackles ranks second on the team, had eight stops including one for loss against the Wolves.
Air brushed abs?
Healy went full “tarps off” in the ETSU locker room after Saturday’s win over the Wolves.
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“The problem is with all this AI stuff and, and the ability to like, airbrush … nobody airbrushed like abs on me,” Healy quipped. “The fact that like, if we’re gonna put the video out, at least make me look jacked up.”
A similar video from the ETSU locker room emerged from the 48-14 win over Division II Tusculum. Healy said he has no problem celebrating wins — any win — with gusto.
“I think the most important piece is consistency and making sure that when we celebrate one of them, that we celebrate all of them and we get to celebrate for 24 hours,” Healy said. “And then Sunday we’re back in here, man in the mirror, ripping their rear end about everything that we need to do a better job. I think the most important piece is the guys in the locker room feel like you appreciate how hard they’ve worked to have success.”
Healy hearkened back to his time as head coach at Austin Peay, where the Govs went winless in his first season as part of a 29-game losing streak only to rally and finish 8-4 in 2017.
“We were 0-13 at Austin Peay and we had a fifth-year senior that talked about, ‘Coach, Monday through Friday we get to hide. Saturdays have not been a whole lot of fun.’ And so I said, ‘Hey, we win this one, we’ll have more fun celebrating than anybody in the history of the United States.’ And I haven’t forgotten that as a coach. Regardless of how we’re supposed to win, I mean, who cares? Like, celebrate them all like it’s the Super Bowl and then 24 hours later turn the page and move on. And I don’t really care about what the perception is from the outside perspective. I know that the guys in there that work their rear end off should have an opportunity to enjoy that success and the taste of victory and hopefully they crave it.”