By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Since spring practice, preseason practice and the season opener weren’t enough to settle the Iowa quarterback competition, the uncertainty behind center lives on for at least another week.

Hank Brown and Jeremy Hecklinski both are expected to play in Saturday’s game against Iowa State at Kinnick Stadium.

Iowa’s top two quarterbacks rotated throughout the first half of the season opener against Northern Illinois last Saturday, but neither played well enough or poorly enough in the 40-0 victory to create any separation.

Brown started the Northern Illinois game, and maybe had a slight edge over Hecklinski from a performance standpoint, completing 12-of-20 passes for 129 yards and one touchdown, while Hecklinski completed 7-of-16 passes for 76 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

But it wasn’t enough to remove the or that separates Brown’s name from Hecklinski’s name on the depth chart.

The or signifies that both quarterbacks are equal right now, but that could start to change in Saturday’s game against the Cyclones.

In fact, I’ll make that prediction, along with picking Iowa to prevail, 31-14.

I predict that the situation at quarterback will start to gain some clarity based on what happens in Saturday’s game, which will be the 73rd meeting between the two instate rivals.

Sooner rather than later, the competition at quarterback will work itself out on the field.

Brown will likely start again on Saturday, and if he plays well from the beginning, it’ll be interesting to see if Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz sticks to his plan to rotate Brown and Hecklinski.

It would also be interesting to see how Ferentz handles the quarterback rotation if Hecklinski were to play better than Brown in the first half.

All that’s left with this competition is for either Brown or Hecklinski to finally create some separation.

And since neither one has been able do it in practice, it now comes down to who plays better in games.

There just haven’t been enough games yet to build sufficient evidence.

While Brown arguably had a slight advantage over Hecklinski in the season opener, Hecklinski had a huge advantage over Brown from a performance standpoint in the Kids Day practice on Aug. 15 at Kinnick Stadium.

If one were to clearly outperform the other against Iowa State, that might be enough for Kirk Ferentz to declare a starter for the next game against Northern Iowa.

Or maybe the plan is to let Brown and Hecklinski have an equal shot throughout the nonconference schedule, though plans can easily change, especially if one of the quarterbacks forces the plan to change with his play on the field.

Iowa opens Big Ten play at Michigan on Sept. 26, and it might work to Iowa’s advantage if the quarterback competition still is ongoing; make Michigan prepare for two quarterbacks instead of just one.

What Ferentz wants to avoid is naming a starter and then having to switch back and forth at quarterback because that would seem to indicate that neither quarterback has performed well.

The starting job is there for the taking, dangling in front of both quarterbacks. It’s just up to Brown or Hecklinski to take it.

Iowa will obviously try to establish the run right away, but offensive coordinator Tim Lester might also try to challenge his two quarterbacks right away by taking some chances downfield.

Both quarterbacks are fully capable of handing the ball to running back Kamari Moulton. But what we still don’t know is who is more effective at running a balanced offense.

Ferentz waited until the fifth game of the 2008 season to finally name Ricky Stanzi the full-time starter at quarterback over Jake Christensen after each had started two games.

By then, it seemed apparent that Stanzi as a sophomore was the better option.

Stanzi would go on to start for the rest of his career when healthy, compiling a 26-9 record in games that he started.

Kirk Ferentz ultimately got it right that time. It just took a while.

The same thing could happen with Brown and Hecklinski in that it might take more than two, or even three or four games to pick a starter.

If they both play well on Saturday and Iowa wins, then why fix what isn’t broken?

Iowa offensive coordinator Tim Lester will have plenty to say about who starts at quarterback, but the decision ultimately will come down to Kirk Ferentz, who recently acknowledged that it could be a gut feeling that he finally uses to pick a starter.

No disrespect to Northern Iowa, but Iowa would beat the Panthers with third-team quarterback Jimmy Sullivan playing for the Hawkeyes.

The Iowa State game, on the other, should at least be competitive, though it’s hard to know what to expect with a new head coach for Iowa State (Jimmy Rogers) and with 81 new players on the Iowa State roster.

It just seems hard to believe that Brown and Hecklinski will play another game in which neither creates any separation.

One of them also could ultimately lose the position more than the other wins it.

Whatever the case, I’m predicting some quarterback separation for Iowa on Saturday.

But who it’ll be, and whether it’ll be permanent, or from good play or from bad play; sorry, that I can’t tell you.

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Iowa State (1-0) vs. Iowa (1-0)

When: Saturday, 6:36 p.m.

Where: Kinnick Stadium, (69,250)

TV: NBC

Radio: Hawkeye Radio Network

Series history: Saturday’s game will mark the 73rd meeting in the series where Iowa holds a 46-25 advantage (Iowa’s win over the Cyclones in 2023 was vacated). The series began in 1894 — a 16-8 Cyclone victory.

Iowa is 25-15 all-time against Iowa State inside Kinnick Stadium. The Cyclones have won the last two meetings in Iowa City, winning 10-7 in 2022 and 20-19 in 2024.