By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – What if there is no separation?

What if Iowa quarterbacks Hank Brown and Jeremy Hecklinski stay too close to call from a competition standpoint to make either one the full-time starter?

“We’ll play them both, I guess,” said Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz. “And we’ll play somebody else. We’ll see how it goes.”

One of the quarterbacks will obviously get the starting nod for the Sept. 5 season opener against Northern Illinois at Kinnick Stadium.

But that reward could also come without true separation on the field since somebody has to start.

It seems at this point, unless someone makes a late push, that the competition between Hecklinski and Brown will ultimately be decided on the field against real opponents, though there still is more than a week left for one of them to create some separation.

Kirk Ferentz is known for sticking with his starting quarterback through thick and thin, but he also has a breaking point as shown when he benched the two Jakes – Jake Christensen and Jake Rudock; four games into the 2008 season in Christensen’s case and shortly after the 2014 season in Rudock’s case.

If Ferentz is trying to keep us guessing as to who will start the season opener for Iowa at quarterback, he’s meeting that objective.

There was a growing belief that Hecklinski might have the upper hand based on how much more effective he was in the Kids Day practice on Aug. 15 compared to Brown, who mostly struggled.

But then Ferentz squashed that narrative this past Wednesday by hinting that Brown actually had a slight edge in the practices leading up to the Kids Day practice, and that the competition was pretty much even since then.

How you view the quarterback competition might depend on your glass being half full or half empty.

The half-full crowd would believe that both quarterbacks are performing so well in practice that neither can create any separation, while the half-empty crowd would believe that neither quarterback has played well enough to create any separation.

You know the old saying that if you have two quarterbacks, you have none.

No disrespect to Northern Illinois, which finished 3-9 last season, but it appears to be no match for Iowa on paper, which is all we have to judge right now.

Kirk Ferentz usually would prefer to stick with one quarterback, but he might make an exception in this case.

Because if neither quarterback can win the job in practice, all that’s left are the games.

Jake Christensen and Ricky Stanzi were locked in a battle for the starting job in 2008 until Ferentz finally made Stanzi the full-time starter after four games, and after each quarterback had started two games.

Brown has an edge over Hecklinski in experience after appearing in three games for Iowa last season, and after starting two games for Auburn in 2024.

The results with Brown behind center have been mixed; he played well in one of his starts at Auburn, but struggled in the other.

He also struggled in his only extensive action for Iowa, which came in the fourth quarter against eventual national champion in Indiana.

Brown was inserted for the injured Mark Gronowski early in the fourth quarter, but would go on to struggle, completing just 5-of-13 passes for 48 yards and one interception in a 20-15 loss at Kinnick Stadium.

Hecklinski then moved ahead of Brown on the depth chart about midway through last season.

But Hecklinski still only played briefly in two games last season, completing both of his pass attempts for eight yards. He also had a 6-yard touchdown run in mop-up duty against Minnesota.

By the time spring practice came around, Hecklinski and Brown were even again, and they have stayed that way ever since, according to Ferentz.

This decision will ultimately come down to consistency and who moves the offense most effectively.

Sometimes, it takes playing in real games for a starter to emerge.

Chuck Hartlieb was third on Iowa’s depth chart heading into the 1987 season, but he would go on to win the job early in the season because he played better in games than in practice. It just took playing in a few games for the coaches to realize that.

So maybe that will happen in this case.

Maybe it’ll take playing in a few games for either Brown or Hecklinski to create some separation.

Because it doesn’t seem to be happening in practice.