2025 Iowa Off-Season Thread

[Hawkinole]

Hawkeyes land South Dakota State University Jackrabbits' QB Mark Gronowski from transfer portal. He led the Jackrabbits to two national championships, a third national championship game, and to the semifinals losing to eventual champion NDSU in 2024.
Gronowski has thrown for 10,309 yards, and 93 touchdowns vs. 20 INTs. He is mobile, having run for 1,787 yards.
Gronowski grew up in suburban Chicago. His dad has an Iowa connection. His dad played QB for Drake. This is the best transfer portal acquisition since 5-star left tackle Kaidyn Proctor transferred to Iowa for the Spring 2024 semester, then transferred back to Alabama at the start of the Summer 2024. Iowa has to have tightened up its NIL contracts by now, one can hope.
We will see if Gronowski stays on for the Fall 2025.

[OrangeAfroMan]

He must love the rural midwest.

[Hawkinole]

He must love the rural midwest.

Apparently the choice came down to one more year of college eligibility at the FBS level with NIL funding, or taking his chances in the NFL draft.

[OrangeAfroMan]

A QB going to Iowa seems unwise.

[LittlePig]

Gronoski is another one of those 23 year Olds that seem to have been playing for forever.

His freshman season was supposed to be in fall of 2020 but got postponed to spring of 2021 due to covid.  Gronoski got hurt with an ACL in the spring 2021 FCS NCG and he ended up sitting out the entire fall of 2021 season.

Then he came back and led SDSU to national championships in 2022 and 2023.   SDSU ended up losing in the FCS semis in 2024.

So 2025 will be his 6th year.  He got both a covid year and medical redshirt year. 

[Brutus Buckeye]

[Hawkinole]

I just read and article on a Chicago channel 5 sports website stating that Iowa's QB recruit Gronowski was being paid a 7 figure NIL deal. Gronowski believed this was better than going pro because if he were drafted and didn't make the team that wouldn't pay so well. According to him this was more of a gaurantee. Who knew college kids get paid this much from NIL?

[LittlePig]

I just read and article on a Chicago channel 5 sports website stating that Iowa's QB recruit Gronowski was being paid a 7 figure NIL deal. Gronowski believed this was better than going pro because if he were drafted and didn't make the team that wouldn't pay so well. According to him this was more of a gaurantee. Who knew college kids get paid this much from NIL?

Also it turns out Gronowski is hurt,  needs surgery,  will miss spring practice,  and is out until at least June. 

Knowing this,  it makes a little more sense why he is taking the NIL money from Iowa.

[Hawkinole]

His injury isn't mentioned in the Channel 5 article. I am aware and it definitely would subtract from his value in the NFL draft as he couldn't go through The Combine

[847badgerfan]

I just read and article on a Chicago channel 5 sports website stating that Iowa's QB recruit Gronowski was being paid a 7 figure NIL deal. Gronowski believed this was better than going pro because if he were drafted and didn't make the team that wouldn't pay so well. According to him this was more of a gaurantee. Who knew college kids get paid this much from NIL?

Carson Beck got $4 Million to transfer from Georgia to Miami.

[Hawkinole]

Carson Beck got $4 Million to transfer from Georgia to Miami.

Get your wallet out if you want to see the Badgers win, or should I say, get your briefcase out, because most of us would get sore sitting on Badger fans' fat wallets.
Who is paying for these NIL deals at Iowa and Wisconsin? At some point college athletic departments will incorporate. Their donors will become stockholders, and if the team does well they receive some kind of return on investment, even if only it is a little bit.
I am happy for the athletes. I had always thought they should be paid $100-$200 for laundry, alcohol, and pizza outings each month, and then years advanced, and so maybe $400 or $500 per month. But, no, the  NCAA would not agree, and now we see the result.

[847badgerfan]

The Badgers don't have a megadonor and Wisconsin is a Packers state. They shop for the bargain bin players in Madison. Not a lot of fat wallets in Wisconsin.

In the current landscape, it's doubtful that Wisconsin will ever win the B1G again.

[Hawkinole]

The Badgers don't have a megadonor and Wisconsin is a Packers state. They shop for the bargain bin players in Madison. Not a lot of fat wallets in Wisconsin.

In the current landscape, it's doubtful that Wisconsin will ever win the B1G again.

I lean toward this position for all teams like Iowa and Wisconsin, but then we have outliers in the first year of the FBS playoffs. ASU presented well. Indiana made the playoff. I don't think Indiana's situation is sustainable longer term. It was a unique situation. However they could become the 1980s-2020s Iowa Hawkeyes, or the 1990s-2010s Wisconsin Badgers, with a Big Ten championship here or there.
Iowa seems distant from getting a Big Ten championship, too. That said, we had a logjam like this in the late 1960s through about 1980 with Ohio State and Michigan controlling things, and then it broke for about 25-years, until it started coming back and then tOSU and Michigan resumed domination almost full force, but with MSU breaking through once or twice. I think the NCAA will allow payments from athletic departments and limit the amounts of those payments. But the advertisers will brake the back of this parity, although as with the Caitlin Clark effect, if there is one really great athlete, he (or she) could be anywhere. It is very likely that in football that athlete will be in Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, or Michigan, and occasionally in California. We run a bit short on billionaire football fans here in Iowa.
I saw an article today that claimed Iowa's new QB NIL recruit - Mark Gronowski's surgery involved a shoulder injury on his throwing side.

[ELA]

I just read and article on a Chicago channel 5 sports website stating that Iowa's QB recruit Gronowski was being paid a 7 figure NIL deal. Gronowski believed this was better than going pro because if he were drafted and didn't make the team that wouldn't pay so well. According to him this was more of a gaurantee. Who knew college kids get paid this much from NIL?

I think every P4 starting QB, or at least most of them, are getting 7 figures