Mark Gronowski's transfer to Iowa makes absolutely no sense for star FCS quarterback

The Iowa Hawkeyes scored a big transfer win on Tuesday, as 2023 FCS player of the year Mark Gronowski announced he was heading to Iowa City, according to Scott Dochterman of The Athletic.

Gronowski was arguably the best quarterback in all of FCS over the last two seasons, and threw for 2,719 yards and 23 touchdowns while rushing for 380 yards and 10 touchdowns this past season.

But while the move is certainly an upgrade in prominence from South Dakota State, where Gronowski spent the rest of his career, it makes very little sense otherwise.

Anyone who has watched college football in the last, oh, let's call it five to 10 years knows that Iowa is where quarterback careers go to die slow, painful, boring deaths.

Between Spencer Petras, Cade McNamara, Deacon Hill, and whichever conbination of abject misery you want to throw out there from this season, the Hawkeyes just have no interest in throwing the ball unless absolutely necessary. Even before that, the Nathan Stanley era was less "thrilling offensive football" and more "someone might think about throwing a pass downfield every once in a while." You have to go all the way back to C.J. Beathard in 2016 and James Vandeberg and Ricky Stanzi before him to find a time when Iowa's offensive strategy could actually be classified as "exciting."

McNamara was supposed to fix things, remember? The Michigan transfer was going to be the answer to Iowa's offensive prayers, was going to save Brian Ferentz's job when he arrived in 2023. Except, McNamara couldn't stay healthy, and when he was, the Hawkeyes often seemed like they were moving in sludge.

But then, Ferentz was out, and Tim Lester was going to fix the problem. He was going to bring passing back to Iowa, make the offense fun and exciting (or at the very least, not an active detriment to the team). Except Lester only seemed to fix the run game; the passing game averaged 127.2 yards per game, ahead of only the triple-option-heavy service academies per game.

It's feeling more and more like the problem isn't the coordinator (although Brian Ferentz might have been the worst OC in the sport during his run with the Hawkeyes), and might not be the quarterback. Iowa has no good receivers, and seems uninterested in finding them; only one receiver, Jacob Gill, had more than 250 receiving yards last season, and no player caught more than 3 touchdowns through the air.

Maybe the problem is the quarterbacks. Maybe Gronowski will come in and the offense will start clicking, and everything will be right as rain at Kinnick Stadium. He's certainly the most talented and accomplished quarterback who's gone under center since Beathard, and if we're being completely honest, probably since Stanzi.

But if I'm a former FCS player of the year who has designs on potentially getting to the NFL next year, do I really want to put my faith in the Hawkeyes to get me there? Given their track record over the last decade or so, I certainly wouldn't.

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