Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – There are several areas of improvement that can be pinpointed when watching Ryan Navara on the football field this season.

The Clear Creek Amana senior quarterback is throwing the ball more efficiently this fall and has become a viable weapon as a run threat.

During his breakthrough statistical season the greatest areas of growth for Navara have come in everything he does that doesn’t show up in a stat column or make it into the postgame press clippings.

“There is no doubt where he has grown the most is in his leadership,” Clear Creek Amana coach Gabe Bakker said. “He was getting guys together the whole time during quarantine, he was studying, he was improving himself. We really need him to be a senior leader and he’s done that this season.”

Navara was solid last season, throwing for 1,249 yards and 12 touchdowns while splitting time at quarterback as a junior.

It was during an offseason that featured months of quarantine due to the coronavirus that Navara grabbed ahold of the quarterback role full-time entering his final season.

Navara has flourished in his role as the leader of the Clipper offense this fall.

“I wanted to become someone that everyone could trust because at some points last year I wasn’t always that guy,” Navara said. “I think I made myself more vocal and really tried to make myself stand out as more of a leader for us and I think that really helped me.”

After completing 56 percent of his passes last season Navara has completed nearly 62 percent of his throws this season while passing for 680 yards and five scores in five games.

The key for the Navara-led Clear Creek Amana offense this season is balance.

Five different Clippers have six or more receptions this season and four players have at least 98 yards receiving.

That offensive balance was born out of a trust that was built between Navara and his receivers during the offseason.

“We worked all offseason on developing those relationships, that trust and so I knew every single one of them could make plays the way they are now,” Navara said. “I 100 percent believed that.”

The 6-foot-2, 195-pound Navara threw for 306 yards and a pair of touchdowns during a 1-2 start for the Clippers.

Navara completed just three passes before leaving a week-three loss to top-ranked Cedar Rapids Xavier with a hand injury.

Since that road loss to the Saints Navara has been brilliant.

“We started the season a little bit rough and didn’t have a great game against Xavier and that next week I came back with a different mindset and mentality about just getting things done,” Navara said. “I wanted to reprove myself for what I could do for our team and I wanted to go out and show that and that’s what I’ve been doing that the past two weeks.”

Since the 1-2 start Clear Creek Amana has won back-to-back games, averaging 45 points per game in victories over Benton Community in Newton.

Navara is 22-of-28 passing for 374 yards in the past two games and has also rushed for 106 yards and five touchdowns.

“I think confidence is one of the big things that really started to kick in even in these past few weeks,” Navara said. “I just really got more confident and just started to really go with it.”

Navara has showed off his full skill set in the back-to-back wins.

He threw for 215 yards and three scores in a 49-3 win over Benton Community and rushed for 93 yards and three touchdowns in a 41-14 rout of Newton last week.

After rushing for 64 yards all of last season Navara has already rushed for 199 yards and five touchdowns this season.

“He is comfortable I what we are doing and he has really, really improved in his ability to run the football when things break down,” Bakker said. “There were a couple of plays on Friday instead of making a tough throw he tucks it away and makes people miss. That’s kind of been his change physically is being able to make those athletic plays but that’s been a big change for him.”

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