CBS Sports picks Iowa football to 'soar' past season win total in 2025
The Iowa Hawkeyes enter the 2025-26 college football season with excitement surrounding their new transfer portal additions and the second year under offensive coordinator Tim Lester. The jump in production in 2024 saw the Hawkeyes have more than a pulse on offense and be more than competent most of the year.
Can that production increase continue this season? Iowa has brought in FCS star quarterback Mark Gronowski and a two-time FCS national champion to command the offense. He is a proven winner, a talented passer, and not afraid to use his legs. That is a trifecta with the potential to take the Hawkeyes to another level.
The potential he brings is noted by CBS Sports as they have Iowa as a team that can soar past their 2025 season win total, which is set at 7.5 wins, per FanDuel.
Iowa Hawkeyes (7.5 wins)
Key factor: For the first time in more than a decade, Iowa's offense finishing in the top half of Big Ten.
The Hawkeyes haven't had a quarterback throw 20 or more touchdown passes since the 2018 season with Nate Stanley, but that chould change this fall after adding Mark Gronowski from South Dakota State via the transfer portal. Second-year offensive coordinator Tim Lester helped Iowa climb out of the Big Ten's offensive cellar last fall with enhanced productivity on third down, and now he gets one of the most experienced passers at the college level to orchestrate his scheme.
One of the most under-the-radar hires this offseason was former Wake Forest play caller Warren Ruggiero landing with the Hawkeyes as a senior offensive analyst. His slow mesh concepts over the last decade with the Demon Deacons produced sizable numbers with quarterbacks Jamie Newman, Sam Hartman and others. Perhaps he can unlock a few new wrinkles in Iowa's rushing attack, which must replace 1,500-yard back Kaleb Johnson. - Brad Crawford, CBS Sports
Iowa has quietly, but very productively, built up its offensive staff with experienced, veteran coaches who have been around the game for years with multiple quarterbacks, schemes, and game plans, which can all morph into one in Iowa City.
If the Hawkeyes can find success on the ground, which should be their path to success behind an experienced offensive line, life could get easier for Gronowski in the passing game and breathe life into an area of offense that Iowa has been desperately yearning for.
Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes and opinions. Follow Riley on X: @rileydonald7
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