By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – For more than two decades, I’ve written an annual season preview on the Iowa football team for Athlon Sports.

It’s always due this time of year, and the due date this year is April 14.

The assignment consists of writing a 450-word preview and posting a depth chart.

The problem with this spring, however, is that Iowa hasn’t released a 2026 depth chart.

Iowa added a program-record 27 players in January; 14 from the transfer portal and 13 early entrees from high school.

Iowa will add 16 players overall from the portal before the start of next season.

And with so many new faces, the Iowa Sports Information Department understandably decided that it didn’t make sense to release a spring depth chart.

Imagine trying to list the starters and backups on the defensive line where all four starters have to be replaced, or in the secondary where three starters have to be replaced.

In the old days, which means before NIL and the transfer portal changed how rosters are built and sustained, it would have been easier to fill out a spring depth chart, even with a lot of changes, because there weren’t nearly as many players coming and going.

You knew the players on the roster a little bit, and who was climbing up the ranks.

Of course, there was some roster attrition, but not like now where every student-athlete is a free agent, where agents have a tremendous amount of power and influence, and were student-athletes are entering the portal at an alarming rate.

There reportedly are about 2,000 men’s basketball players currently in the transfer portal, and that number is expected keep rising until the portal closes again on April 21, while the women reportedly have about 1,400 in the portal.

The numbers in football are even more staggering as over 10,500 college football players across all divisions entered the transfer portal for the 2026 cycle, including more than 6,700 players at the Division I level.

It has reached the point where not entering the portal is also considered news.

You would be hard-pressed to find a college coach that is more old-fashioned and set in his ways than Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, and yet, even he is turning to the portal for help because there really isn’t another option.

It is interesting, though, that Iowa didn’t add a quarterback from the portal during this cycle with Mark Gronowski having used up his eligibility.

That would seem to suggest that Kirk Ferentz and offensive coordinator Tim Lester believe that there is a capable replacement, or replacements, on the current roster.

Sophomore Jeremy Hecklinski and junior Hank Brown, both of whom came to Iowa via, you guessed it, the transfer portal, are competing for the No. 1 spot this spring.

The 5-foot-11, 188-pound Hecklinski moved ahead of Brown on the depth about midway through last season, so it’s reasonable to believe, with or without a spring depth chart, that Hecklinski still might have a slight edge.

No matter how the competition unfolds, Iowa’s next starting quarterback will have very little game experience.

Hecklinski appeared in just two games last season, completing 2-of-2 passes for eight yards. The Wake Forest transfer also had  6-yard touchdown run in mop-up duty against Nebraska.

Brown played in three games last season, completing 11-of-21 passes for 107 yards and one touchdown. The Auburn transfer also threw one interception, which came in the fourth quarter against eventual-national champion Indiana.

Brown was inserted in the Indiana game after Gronowski suffered a knee injury early in the fourth quarter. Brown would go on to complete 5-of-13 passes for 48 yards as Indiana escaped from Kinnick Stadium with a 20-15 victory.

In addition to throwing an interception, Brown also missed a wide open receiver on a screen pass against the Hoosiers.

In fairness, Brown was thrown into a tough situation, and it just didn’t go very well for him. He also wasn’t the only quarterback to struggle against the Hoosiers.