A big topic of discussion for Iowa Football ahead of the 2025-2026 season is the offense. The normal discussion surrounding the Iowa offense is whether they can be competent enough, but ahead of the 2025-2026 season, the discussion has shifted.
Last season, the Hawkeyes exhausted all of their healthy quarterback options, turning to three different starters as the injuries continued to pile up.
At the beginning of the season, Michigan transfer quarterback Cade McNamara was the starter following his return from an injury the season before in his first year with the Hawkeyes.
McNamara was unable to move the needle forward for the Iowa offense and suffered another series of injuries, forcing Iowa to use backup Brendan Sullivan.
Sullivan was a dual-threat at quarterback, but proved to be a better runner than passer, and suffered an injury as well.
With third-string quarterback Marco Lainez already on the shelf with an injury, fourth-string quarterback Jackson Stratton was forced into duty and performed admirably.
The offense under Tim Lester performed better during his first season as offensive coordinator, and it aims to take a jump in year two with transfer quarterback Mark Gronowski under center.
Gronowski, the projected starter, transferred to Iowa following four seasons of dominating football at South Dakota State, where he racked up over 10,300 passing yards, 49 career wins and earned the FCS Heisman award (2023).
After all his accolades, another preseason rankings list falls horrendously short when ranking Gronowski among the starting Big Ten quarterbacks.
CBS Sports' David Cobb released his rankings for the projected Big Ten starting quarterbacks next season, and ranked Gronowski No. 12.
Cobb's list would make sense if the other 11 quarterbacks on his list were putting up massive numbers or had numerous years of experience under their belts, but that is not the case.
On his list, Cobb has two freshmen who have not thrown a pass at the collegiate level (Julian Saiyan, Ohio State, and Bryce Underwood, Michigan), five who are entering their second year in college football, and four who are upperclassmen and have multiple years of starting experience.
Drew Allar deserves to be at the head of this list with the success he has had with Penn State, and outside of Luke Altmeyer (Illinois), Fernando Mendoza (Indiana), and Nico Iamaleava (UCLA), you cannot tell me that a bunch of unproven quarterbacks are better than Mark Gronowski.
Under his reasoning for why Gronowski is No. 12, he mentioned that a bad supporting cast will hurt his production.
Isn't this a quarterbacks list, not an overall team or offensive rankings list? Plus, if that is the case, how is Altmeyer so high on the list?
Let us fix the title of the article for you, and change it to "Why I value hype over substance in my Big Ten starting quarterback rankings."
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but sorry, Cobb, this rankings list completely misses the mark and painfully under-ranks Mark Gronowski.