Where Iowa football stands in spring amid upcoming roster cutdown to 105

IOWA CITY — Kirk Ferentz offered some advice to his son Steve, who is the outside linebackers coach at FCS-level South Dakota.

“I told him, ‘You have to wait until the end of April and get your net out and catch whoever falls through,’” Ferentz said. “Because apparently that’s what’s going to go on.”

Ferentz is referring to the players who will be inevitably leaving FBS rosters when teams cut their rosters down to 105 as part of the House vs. NCAA settlement. But relatively speaking, the Hawkeyes might not be doing as much roster-shedding as some of their counterparts.

“I think our roster is pretty much where we need it to be right now,” Ferentz said. “It’s pretty much under control.”

The Hawkeyes appear to currently have 96 players on their spring roster, along with another 12 freshmen who chose not to early enroll. With 108 total players, they are three over the 105-player cap for the fall.

That 108 number carries a few asterisks, though.

It does not count Ben Kueter, as the two-sport athlete is not on Iowa’s official spring roster — hardly a surprise considering how recently Kueter finished his 2024-25 wrestling season. Ferentz suggested last week at his news conference that Kueter should “take time to think this whole thing out.”

It does include James Resar. The quarterback-turned-wide receiver entered the transfer portal in December, yet he remains uncommitted and on Iowa’s roster in the spring. If he indeed takes his talents elsewhere, Iowa’s roster would theoretically be down to 107 players.

Iowa’s roster math changed shortly before spring practices with walk-on running back (and former Cedar Rapids Kennedy standout) Max White and scholarship cornerback John Nestor’s decisions to enter the transfer portal. (The departures freed up two roster spots while coming at inconvenient times for the athletes themselves — too early to gain spring practice film and too late to arrive anywhere else in time for spring practices.)

The math could change again in a few weeks when the spring transfer portal opens. On one hand, any portal attrition would theoretically mean fewer players to cut. But if the Hawkeyes want to add in the spring portal window — something they did last year with Brendan Sullivan and Jacob Gill and the year before with Kaleb Brown — that obviously leaves fewer open spots.

Ferentz, despite technically being over the cap at the moment, said there are “not a lot” of conversations at this point surrounding the roster cutdown to 105. That’s in large part because of the conversations Iowa’s staff conducted after the regular season.

“We just let our guys know in December if we couldn’t guarantee a 105 spot, we told our players that and allowed them to go on visits and still be part of the team and still go to the bowl and all that,” Ferentz said. “But I just think we were all in agreement staff-wise that the right thing to do was let guys know and be transparent with them.”

Many players who may have been on the chopping block transferred during the winter portal cycle. Walk-on tight end Johnny Pascuzzi had an especially favorable landing spot, receivinh a scholarship at West Virginia. Others found homes in smaller FBS conferences or at the FCS level. But not all of them left before the spring semester.

“We’ve had a handful of guys that know right now they don’t have a guarantee that chose to stay here this spring instead of go out and find places,” Ferentz said.

Ferentz believes Iowa is “in the minority” with its approach to the roster cutdown. Nebraska, for example, had roughly 135 players on its football roster ahead of the start of the spring semester, according to the Lincoln Journal-Star.

“From a competitive standpoint, that would have been smart,” Ferentz said (while not specifically naming any schools). “I just didn’t think it was the right thing to do.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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