After another offseason filled with the hope that Iowa had found the ingredients to make meaningful strides with its passing offense, the initial returns threw a wet blanket upon that idea.
The Hawkeyes downed FCS foe Albany in their 2025 season opener, 34-7, to improve to 1-0. But, Iowa passed for just 48 yards. Given who and what the Hawkeyes have been in recent seasons, that understandably qualifies as an alarming figure to many exiting Week 1.
It does for Iowa starting quarterback Mark Gronowski, too.
“I’m disappointed in how I played today. But, this season, it’s a whole journey, it’s a whole long journey. Kind of keep improving every single week. Me and the receivers, we’re going to continue to get better every single week.
“But, I’ve got to give a good shoutout to our linemen this week. They played a great game, through and through. Over 300 yards rushing, you can’t ask for much better than that. And, X had an awesome game, too. All our running backs did, so I’m happy on that side of things. But, we’ve got to pick it up on the passing game side,” Gronowski said afterwards.
The South Dakota State transfer made his first start with the Hawkeyes on Saturday, completing 8-of-15 passes for 44 yards with a 2-yard touchdown pass to senior receiver Kaden Wetjen.
Gronowski did rush for an additional 39 yards and a 1-yard rushing touchdown midway through the third quarter. The graduate quarterback wound up hampered by some cramping issues late, as he fell to the Duke Slater Field turf following his rushing score.
Gronowski would briefly return before being replaced mid-series by backup quarterback Hank Brown to close the remainder of the game.
Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz was asked to evaluate Gronowski’s debut performance in the black and gold afterwards.
“The obvious takeaway, our passing game wasn’t what it needed to be tonight. A lot of factors involved.
I think part of it is him probably pressing too hard. I’m certainly no quarterback expert, but I’ve sat in a lot of offensive rooms over the years, and one thing I’ve noticed is it’s hard to get a quarterback just to relax a little bit and take what’s there sometimes, mainly because they want to do well and they want to push it and they want to maybe do more than they need to sometimes,” Ferentz said.
Iowa will need Gronowski and the passing offense to make serious strides in just one week’s time as they travel to No. 21 Iowa State next weekend for the annual Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series game. Kickoff between the Hawkeyes and Cyclones is set for 11 a.m. CT on Fox.
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