Upcoming 105-player roster cap leads to ‘hard conversations’ with many of Iowa football’s walk-ons

IOWA CITY — Each social media post has been a little different.

Defensive lineman Ethan Aghakhan included two minutes of film with his tweet. Tight end Jalyn Thompson screenshotted his official notification from the NCAA. Wide receiver Graham Friedrichsen posted a photo of him in uniform at Kinnick Stadium.

The common thread? They all are Iowa football walk-ons who have announced plans on social media to transfer this month. Other walk-ons to make the same decision to enter the portal include defensive lineman Ryan Kuennen, offensive lineman Kyson Van Vugt and tight ends Johnny Pascuzzi and Cole Marsh.

The flurry of walk-on departures are not necessarily a sign of anything Iowa is doing wrong, but rather a byproduct of the current wave of changes in college athletics.

Roster caps of 105 players per FBS team will take effect in 2025 following the massive House vs. NCAA settlement. This will replace the current 85-player scholarship limit.

Schools could theoretically put all 105 players on scholarship although that seems an unlikely scenario as athletics departments figure out how to rearrange their budgets. Iowa athletics director Beth Goetz told The Gazette last week “our intention is to stay at 85, but we’ll continue to evaluate as things move.”

That means the Hawkeyes will have 20 walk-on spots available in 2025 — a precipitous drop from the 46 walk-ons on Iowa’s roster to start the 2024 season.

“When I initially sat down and looked at what our roster was and budget was for each position on each side of the ball and you condense it down, you realize that 105 is still a lot of players,” said Tyler Barnes, Iowa football’s chief of staff/general manager. “But going from 130 to 105, you are really cutting a lot of meat off the bone.”

Two of those 20 walk-on opportunities are committed to incoming freshmen Ryan Fitzgerald and Williamsburg’s Rayce Heitman. Another four walk-on spots will presumably be tied up with specialists — backup kicker, backup punter and starting and backup longsnappers.

That theoretically leaves Iowa with 14 walk-on spots remaining for its existing walk-ons across 22 positions on offense and defense.

“There's certainly some changes that I'm not sure if the NCAA really saw coming with this drastic cut,” Barnes said last week. “But again, everybody has to do it, and everybody around the country is probably having conversations similar to what our staff is doing right now. It's unfortunate, but it's where we are.”

The roster cuts do not officially take effect until next season, so there is nothing stopping Iowa from continuing to carry 110-plus or even 120-plus players in the spring. But if a soon-to-be-cut player wants other football opportunities, the December portal window is the prime opportunity to pursue that.

“We've left the door open for everybody to come back in the spring,” Barnes said. “You certainly have to have those conversations to give these kids a heads-up because if they want to hit the portal now, you want to do it. … If guys aren't going to go transfer somewhere else and play, then we would happily keep them through the summer too up until the fall camp date.”

Barnes said there are “a few different populations on our team.”

“There are guys 100 percent that want to go transfer and play somewhere else,” Barnes said. “There are guys that will want to stay and fight like hell to make the 105 and stay in the spring and go through that. And then there are some guys that may say, ‘Hey, I'll go through the spring, but I'm going to call it and just finish my undergraduate degree and graduate from Iowa and not play somewhere else.’”

The loss of so many walk-ons comes at a cost for Iowa in a couple different ways. Practicing with only 105 available players likely will look different from what it was like practicing with 131 players.

“We haven't dove into that yet, but we may have to restructure how we practice because you're losing 25 to 28 bodies that you are counting on for scout team,” Barnes said.

Iowa has a rich tradition of finding walk-ons who can eventually be key contributors in games. Quinn Schulte and Kaden Wetjen are examples on this year’s team, and one does not need to look far back to see other success stories like Joe Evans or Jack Koerner.

The departing walk-ons are hardly pushovers. Pascuzzi saw game action in the last two seasons, appearing in 11 games in 2023 and 10 games in 2024. Marsh, a standout at Waverly-Shell Rock, passed on a scholarship offer from Northern Iowa. Thompson, from West Des Moines Dowling, passed on offers from Northern Illinois, St. Thomas and UNI.

Now, an offer from UNI or Northern Illinois would likely be welcomed news for many of Iowa’s soon-to-be-former walk-ons.

“There's been a lot of conversations had, and hard conversations,” Barnes said. “We told all these kids, ‘We want you to be on the team.’ And we told their families, ‘We're going to take care of you.’ And because of a rule change that we didn't foresee coming, we have to make some cuts.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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