Iowa

Where Iowa’s quarterback situation stands ahead of fall camp

Published

1 year ago

July 25, 2024

Press Room

Where Iowa’s quarterback situation stands ahead of fall camp

Cade McNamara remains clear QB1 at this point in summer

John Steppe

Jul. 25, 2024 12:10 pm, Updated: Jul. 25, 2024 1:31 pm

Iowa quarterback Cade McNamara runs through a drill with the other quarterbacks during open practice at the Iowa football practice field in Iowa City, Iowa on Thursday, April 11, 2024. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)

INDIANAPOLIS — Kirk Ferentz left little ambiguity about who Iowa’s starting quarterback is when fall camp begins next week.

Asked if he considers McNamara to be the definitive starter, Ferentz said, “I do.”

That being said, nothing seems to be written in permanent marker with six weeks to go until the Hawkeyes’ season opener against Illinois State on Aug. 31.

“I would say everything is fluid right now,” Ferentz said on Wednesday as part of the Big Ten’s football media days. “Hopefully it won’t be in the fall, but right now everything is fluid.”

The preseason depth chart released on Wednesday had McNamara as the first-team quarterback, Marco Lainez as the second-teamer and Northwestern transfer Brendan Sullivan as the third-teamer.

Sullivan’s third-team spot, for now, is despite him starting four games in the Big Ten last season with Northwestern. (He completed 63.6 percent of passes while throwing six touchdowns and two interceptions.)

“We could have listed Brendan, too,” Ferentz said, answering a question about the depth chart. “He hasn’t put a helmet on yet for us. When we see him on the field, maybe he’ll be in competition with the other three guys. I expect it to be three guys competing.”

McNamara’s “demonstrated success” gives the former third-team all-Big Ten quarterback a “huge advantage” in that competition, Ferentz said.

In McNamara’s last fully healthy season, he completed 64.2 percent of his passes while throwing 15 touchdowns versus six interceptions on a Michigan team that advanced to the College Football Playoff.

“Cade’s got an impressive resume,” Ferentz said. “He’s done it, done it successfully and directed his team to wins, which is what the quarterback is supposed to do. At least that’s his No. 1 challenge.”

Ferentz said he “didn’t even have a conversation with Cade” about adding Sullivan via the portal.

“I don’t think he’s looking in the rearview mirror,” Ferentz said.

To Ferentz’s point, when McNamara was asked earlier this month about adding another quarterback with Big Ten starting experience, he pointed out that Iowa had to “add someone eventually.” (At one point, he and Lainez were the only quarterbacks on the roster.)

“Even the NFL has more than two guys,” McNamara said.

As confident as McNamara seems, Ferentz still preaches there are “no incumbents.”

“It’s a good room,” Ferentz said of his quarterbacks. “All three of these guys are great guys, and they’re competitive guys. And they’re all going to compete, and that’s good for our football team.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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Iowa

Iowa voters shifted left in 2025. Is a blue wave coming in 2026?

Published

4 hours ago

January 12, 2026

Press Room

Iowa voters shifted left in 2025. Is a blue wave coming in 2026?

In five of six legislative special elections last year, Democrats overperformed by more than 20 percentage points compared with the 2024 presidential election.

Democrats won four of six special elections in Iowa in 2025, and improved their performance over the 2024 presidential race in all six.
Turnout in the special elections was lower than in typical general elections.
Iowa Republicans, meanwhile, continued to expand their lead in active voter registration totals in 2025.

Iowa Democrats ended 2025 on a high note, winning a Dec. 30 special election in Des Moines’ western suburbs by a wider margin than during the presidential election.

That capped off a year in which Democrats won four of the six legislative special elections and ended Republicans’ supermajority in the Iowa Senate.

In five of those six special elections, Democrats overperformed by more than 20 percentage points compared with 2024.

They’ll look to build off the momentum going into the pivotal 2026 midterms that will include open races for governor and U.S. senator as well as regular Iowa congressional and Legislature elections.

Whether 2025’s Democratic Party victories are bellwethers or blips will play out this year.

Democrats saw Iowa special elections consistently tilt left

Though Republicans won in two special elections in 2025s, their margins of victory were significantly smaller than 2024.

Republican Wendy Larson won December’s special election for the vacant seat in House District 7 by 40 points. That’s a wide margin, but wide margins are expected for Republicans in that part of the state: The party holds strong advantages in voter registration totals in Calhoun, Pocahontas, Sac and Webster counties, where the district is located.

And even that 40-point margin represented a shift toward the Democrats.

In the 2024 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris by 50 points in House District 7. Democrats didn’t even field a candidate for the district’s legislative seat that year.

The 10-point shift toward Democrats from the 2024 presidential election to the 2025 special election in House District 7 was the smallest of any legislative district that held a special election last year.

Each of the five other districts shifted toward Democrats by more than twice as much.

Moreover, those special elections were spread across the state.

Democrats consistently gathered a greater share of votes from Senate District 1 in the northwest part of the state to House District 100 in the state’s southeast corner, ranging from 10 to 26 percentage points.

The two seats Democrats flipped in special elections — Senate Districts 1 and 35 — each shifted to the left by more than 20 points compared with the 2024 presidential election.

In Senate District 1, Trump outpaced Harris by 11 percentage points in 2024, while Democrat Caitlin Drey won the seat there by more than 10 points in August.

In Senate District 35, Trump’s victory margin in Senate District 35 was more than 21 points. In January 2025, Democrat Mike Zimmer won the district’s Senate seat by 3½ points.

In 2022, Republicans won both those seats by even wider margins than Trump in 2024.

Should Democrats expect momentum to carry over to 2026?

Pushing voters to the left in six isolated special elections is one thing. Parlaying those successes into November’s midterm elections is quite another.

Turnout was key in 2025’s special elections, and it will be again in 2026.

The numbers of votes cast in 2025’s special elections equaled roughly one-quarter to one-third the votes cast in the 2024 presidential election in those districts.

Turnout should be higher in November’s midterms.

Since 2000, the percentage of Iowa’s registered voters who have participated in the midterm elections typically has hovered around 55%. (About 75% of registered Iowans usually vote in presidential elections.)

But what determines an election is less about the number of people who show up and more about who those people are.

An increased share of those who went to the polls in the special elections were Democratic voters — or, perhaps more accurately, a greater number of Republican voters stayed home.

Republicans will be working to get those voters back to the polls this November.

Republicans maintain advantage in Iowa voter registration data

The leftward shift in last year’s special elections has yet to materialize in Iowa’s voter registration numbers.

Over roughly the past 15 years, voter registrations in Iowa have swung heavily toward Republicans.

Democrats, conversely, have lost 200,000 voters in that time, and Republicans have opened up an overall advantage of more than 10 percentage points.

Despite their victories at the ballot box in 2025, Democrats have not chipped into Republicans’ significant lead in voter registrations.

Last year was the first since at least 2000 when the share of active voters who were Republicans was at least 10 percentage points higher than the share who were Democrats throughout the entire year.

Republicans began 2026 with nearly 200,000 more active registered voters than Democrats, among their largest leads this century.

Those two parties do not comprise the entirety of Iowa’s electorate — a large share of Iowa’s active voters are not registered to a party, and a smaller amount are registered to other parties, including Libertarians.

And just because a voter is registered as a Democrat or Republican doesn’t mean they’ll vote for their party’s candidates.

But the large voter deficit indicates Democrats are starting from a less favorable position.

Their special election victories in 2025 proved they can win elections, but they’ll need to make up some ground to replicate that success in 2026.

Tim Webber is a data visualization specialist for the Register. Reach him at twebber@registermedia.com and on Twitter at @HelloTimWebber.

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Iowa

Iowa football lands commitment from FCS Freshman All-American receiver

Published

16 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Iowa football lands commitment from FCS Freshman All-American receiver

IOWA CITY — Furman transfer receiver Evan James has committed to Iowa football, he announced Jan. 11.

James, who is listed at 6-feet and 175 pounds, will come to the Hawkeyes with three seasons of eligibility remaining.

James, a 3-star prospect in the 2025 high school recruiting class, had a standout true freshman season at Furman. In nine appearances, James accumulated 65 receptions for 796 yards and seven touchdowns. He also rushed seven times for 72 yards and one touchdown.

James was named an FCS 1st team Freshman All-American by Phil Steele.

James hauled in at least five catches in each of his nine appearances last season and went over 100 yards three times. James had a career-high 10 receptions against Campbell. He had a career-high 146 yards receiving against Chattanooga, which included a 61-yard catch.

James is the second FCS first-team Freshman All-American receiver that Iowa football has landed this transfer portal cycle.

The Hawkeyes also got a commitment from UT Rio Grande Valley receiver Tony Diaz. The addition of Diaz, who held offers from Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas, Virginia Tech and others, was a major recruiting win for the Hawkeyes. Diaz hauled in 68 receptions for 875 yards and 11 touchdowns as a redshirt freshman last season.

The Hawkeyes are seeing the departure of some serious contributions from their 2025 receiver room. Three of the team’s top five leaders in receiving yards during the 2025 season are moving on: Jacob Gill, Sam Phillips and Kaden Wetjen. Not to mention Seth Anderson, who was tied for second on the team lead in receiving touchdowns last season with two.

On top of that, there’s a level of uncertainty regarding what Iowa’s quarterback play is going to look like in the post-Mark Gronowski era.

But there are some pieces to inspire some hope.

The Hawkeyes have done commendable work in the transfer portal to bolster the receiver room, getting a pair of productive players at a position of need. What makes it even sweeter is that they each have three seasons of eligibility remaining, giving them time to grow and develop in the program.

Reece Vander Zee is the most prominent name that can return to the wide receiver room in 2026. Dayton Howard and KJ Parker were rotational guys in 2025 and could take a step forward next season.

The tight end room appears loaded — with the return of Addison Ostrenga, Iowa’s 2025 leading receiver DJ Vonnahme and Thomas Meyer — but the Hawkeyes still need reinforcements on the outside to get the passing game where it needs to be.

The Hawkeyes will look to sustain momentum on the offensive side of the ball in coordinator Tim Lester’s third season with the program.

Follow Tyler Tachman on X @Tyler_T15, contact via email at ttachman@gannett.com

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Iowa

Where to watch Iowa women’s basketball vs. Indiana today, TV, time

Published

1 day ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Where to watch Iowa women’s basketball vs. Indiana today, TV, time

Looking for a second road win this week, No. 14 Iowa women’s basketball heads to Indiana for today’s 4 p.m. contest inside Assembly Hall. BTN will televise the game.

The Hawkeyes (13-2, 4-0 Big Ten Conference) remained perfect in league play with a 67-58 win at Northwestern on Jan. 5, a game in which Iowa survived despite enduring heavy foul trouble.

Meanwhile, Indiana (11-6, 0-5) has reached desperation territory. The Hoosiers have dropped four straight, including two at home, during this extended skid.

Here’s how to watch today’s game.

Watch Iowa vs. Indiana on Fubo (free trial)

What channel is Iowa women’s basketball vs. Indiana on today?

Iowa vs. Indiana time today

Date: Sunday, Jan. 11
Start time: 4 p.m. CT
Location: Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana

Dargan Southard is a sports trending reporter and covers Iowa athletics for the Des Moines Register and HawkCentral.com. Email him at msouthard@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.

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