Zach Ortwerth is quick learner, possibly next star in Iowa’s tight end room

IOWA CITY — Zach Ortwerth was not one to make a big deal out of his big 52-yard reception against Wisconsin.

The Iowa tight end made a slight jump to haul in Brendan Sullivan’s pass, broke a tackle and continued running another 20 yards for Iowa’s longest passing play of the year. But in his eyes, it was simply a case of “good play, right play, right time.”

As much as he tries to downplay it, Ortwerth has increasingly been making the right play at the right time while filling a key need for the Hawkeyes in his second season of college football.

“Ort’s going to be where you need him to be, and he was,” Sullivan said, looking back at the big receptions against Wisconsin. “So I just put it where he needed to be, and he caught it and then made a play afterwards.”

Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz “can’t say enough about him.”

“He's not a 4.4 guy or a 270-pound guy, but he's a good football player, and he's mentally tough,” Ferentz said. “He has to be because he played last year as a freshman.”

Ortwerth has nine receptions for 125 yards in his second season. Specifically in the last two games, his six receptions for 80 yards are better than anyone else on the team during that span.

“He’s a really good receiving threat at tight end, which is fun for a quarterback,” said Sullivan, who has been the quarterback responsible for five of those six receptions. “So I can trust him to be where he needs to be on all of his routes.”

Ortwerth’s contributions have been vital at a tight end position hit hard with injuries. Luke Lachey exited the Northwestern game with an injury and did not play against Wisconsin. Addison Ostrenga, meanwhile, has missed Iowa’s last four games.

That leaves Ortwerth, despite only being in his second season, as Iowa’s top option at a key position.

“This year he's all of a sudden now carrying a heavy load, and it doesn't seem to faze him at all,” Ferentz said. “He's been the same guy since he's been here, which I think is impressive.”

Even before the injuries to Lachey and Ostrenga, tight ends coach Abdul Hodge said he saw Ortwerth “as a one” on the depth chart along with the aforementioned duo.

“I think we got three, four guys that can be in there anytime,” Hodge said on Sept. 4.

He appeared in eight games last year, too, as a true freshman — one of two Iowa freshmen to not preserve their redshirt year alongside defensive back John Nestor.

Perhaps, even more important than those eight games, however, were his second-team practice reps and “watching that film and comparing it to what older guys were doing.”

“Those practice reps were critical to development,” Ortwerth said. “They still are for me because I still got a long way to go in certain aspects of the game.”

He also attributed his quick development to “talking with the older guys” in the tight end room.

“All those guys provided the perspective and the coaching and the eyes needed,” Ortwerth said. “You see what Eric (All)’s doing in the NFL right now. … And then Luke, when he was down, he was at every practice, every road game. He was providing the eyes as well.”

It might not hurt either that Ortwerth comes from an athletic family. His father played at Drake, and his grandfather played at Missouri. His brother was a teammate at St. Louis University High School and his sister is a “hooper.” That’s not to mention his mother, who played volleyball at Northern Illinois.

“He’s not the best athlete in the family, and I’ll stand by that,” said Adam Cruz, Ortwerth’s high school coach.

He also has been very coachable.

“Me and the varsity basketball coach at SLUH are pretty different guys,” Cruz said. “He could play for both of us. … He can take both kinds of coaching and thrive.”

The St. Louis native’s quick trajectory is especially impressive considering he did not start playing competitive football until he was a freshman in high school.

“That was my dad’s rule,” Ortwerth said. “His dad didn’t let him play and he ended up playing at Drake, so it worked out for him.”

Cruz said Ortwerth was “dominant on the freshman team, but he was still kind of learning the game.”

Then his sophomore season was disrupted initially due to COVID-19 public health precautions and then an injury.

“You’d hear from kids like, ‘Oh, he’s going to be really good, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” Cruz said. “But then maybe a week before the restriction was lifted and we could practice, he broke his collarbone at one of those player-led workouts.”

Ortwerth had an impressive junior season at SLUH, but he was “pretty banged up” in his senior season, as well. That left the 6-foot-3 tight end with plenty of “untapped potential.”

“When college coaches started coming in, I would a lot of the time show them Zach’s basketball highlights alongside of his football highlights because he was a really good basketball player,” Cruz said.

Ferentz received a call from retired coach Gary Kornfeld, who “was an assistant when I used to recruit down there in the ’80s, so I’ve known him a long time.”

“He called — I don't know what year it would have been, maybe 10th grade, 11th grade — for Zach and just said here's a guy you ought to keep an eye on, and he doesn't call very often, so we appreciated that,” Ferentz said. “We were able to get in early with Zach and our message resonated with he and his family.”

Iowa was Ortwerth’s third scholarship offer. Nebraska and Indiana were the only schools to offer Ortwerth before Iowa, and even then, they were only days ahead of the Hawkeyes.

“It was a culture that I knew was going to help me be a better person, a better player and help me develop,” Ortwerth said. “In the end, that’s what my family and I thought was best. Because if you don’t enjoy the culture, you’re not going to enjoy your time here.”

Ortwerth, a three-star recruit, committed to the Hawkeyes in July 2022 — a couple months before another tight end from the St. Louis area, Sam LaPorta, wrapped up his Hawkeye career.

“When he chose Iowa, we were thrilled because of what they do with tight ends,” said Cruz, who obviously is well aware of LaPorta’s success.

The parallels between LaPorta and Ortwerth are uncanny. Aside from both being from the same region — Ortwerth went to school in St. Louis itself while LaPorta is from the other side of the river in Highland, Ill. — both played right away as true freshmen rather than redshirting.

LaPorta, not entirely unlike Ortwerth, stepped into a larger role as a sophomore. LaPorta’s NFL stock continued to rise in the following two seasons as he was a third-team all-Big Ten honoree in 2021 and one of three finalists for the John Mackey Award in 2022.

Continuing on that same path is certainly no small feat, but especially given how relatively new he is to football, those who have coached him in the past have high hopes for him.

“Given an opportunity, he’s just going to get better and better,” Cruz said.

As Ortwerth continues to take on a larger role while Lachey and Ostrenga recover from their injuries, the veterans have been helpful teachers from the sideline in addition to Hodge.

Lachey and Ostrenga will “see some stuff maybe on the back end,” Ortwerth said.

“Or a certain front necessarily that I didn’t notice on the field,” Ortwerth said. “And they’ll mention it, especially when we’ve got the iPads now. Those two and then Coach Hodge — they’ve seen a lot more football than I have.”

They also have been Ortwerth’s biggest cheerleaders in the early stages of his Hawkeye career.

“They were the ones that were saying like, ‘You got this, we’ve seen you do it, just go out there and play,’” Ortwerth said.

As for Ortwerth’s 52-yard play against Wisconsin, his high school coach has one critique.

“I wish he would have scored!” Cruz said. “I wish he had put the rocket in his ass and gotten in there.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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