Todd Brommelkamp /1600 ESPN
Tim Lester once again has a quarterbacks room filled to capacity. This time, however, they’re his quarterbacks, and only one can win the starting job.
Iowa’s offensive coordinator has remade the team’s depth chart at the crucial position, this week bringing in South Dakota State transfer Mark Gronowski as the final piece to a puzzle Lester hopes to complete in 2025.
Gronowski joins fellow transfer Hank Brown (Auburn), newcomers Jimmy Sullivan and Ryan Fitzgerald, and holdovers Brendan Sullivan and Jackson Stratton in vying for the starting position next fall. Jimmy Sullivan (no relation to Brendan) and Brown got a jump on some of the competition by working out with the team in the lead-up to last month’s Music City Bowl.
“If you go to the (transfer) portal, you’re trying to improve your depth, trying to improve the level of competition at any given position,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said Dec. 20, 2024. “Obviously, we’re a little thin at that spot right now body-wise. (We) need some guys that we think have a chance to really develop and grow.”
Unlike Iowa’s other additions, the 23-year-old Gronowski doesn’t really fit the ‘develop and grow’ mold. ESPN’s Pete Thamel called the former Jackrabbits starter “the most experienced and accomplished quarterback available in this cycle.”
Over the course of his career in Brookings, the Illinois native threw for 10,330 yards and 93 touchdowns. He rushed for 37 more scores to go with 1,767 yards.
Iowa improved offensively in Lester’s first year as OC, but there’s still room for improvement moving forward. The Hawkeyes averaged just a shade over 131 yards-per-game passing in 2024, the fifth-worst total in college football. That, however, was affected by all-American running back Kaleb Johnson’s tremendous season. Penn State transfer Beau Pribula reportedly chose Missouri over the Hawkeyes in large part due to his preference for the Tigers’ offense.
Gronowski’s vast experience and unique skill set should give him the upper hand at winning the starting job this spring. That leaves Brendan Sullivan likely beginning 2025 as the backup, exactly where he started the previous year. Brown, with a handful of snaps already at the college level, stands third in line at the moment.
The Hawks ended the 2024 season with an 8-5 record and face a much tougher Big Ten slate in 2025 than the one that saw them land in Nashville. If Iowa is going to improve offensively this fall, someone is going to have to definitively emerge from Lester’s menagerie of signal callers. The early money is on the last man to join the fray.
“My gold throughout the process of transferring was getting in a situation to become the best player and be the best potential prospect for the NFL,” Gronowski told ESPN.
The 6-foot-3 Gronowski is said to have received a Day 3 grade when seeking early NFL Draft feedback this winter. That, coupled with likely NIL incentives offered by Iowa’s Swarm Collective, was enough to lead him to giving college football one more year.
Hopefully that decision proves mutually beneficial to both Gronowski and his new teammates.
Todd Brommelkamp is the host of “The Todd Brommelkamp Show” and can be heard weekday mornings on 1600ESPN from 6:30 to 9 a.m.
