Welcome to Hawkeye Football Mt. Rushmore, our summer series chipping out the four faces that belong on each position group’s all-time monument. We start where every football conversation starts (and where our position previews began) – at quarterback. Iowa is a school known for its defense, its offensive lines, its tight ends, and its commitment to the punt as part of the gameplan. But the program has also produced some elite quarterbacks.
Before we dive into the faces, a quick caveat. This is titled
Hawkeye Football Mt. Rushmore, but only because Google search wouldn’t do us any favors if it was titled JPinIC’s Hawkeye Football Mt. Rushmore. That’s what it is. And JPinIC is an old, but not an OLD old, if you know what I mean. I was a product of the 80s, but I didn’t watch the guys from the 80s live. I really came into my Hawkeye fandom essentially alongside the Ferentz era and that’s going to shape my views on a few of these guys (and probably moreso some of the other position groups).
With that, let’s dive in!
Face #1: Chuck Long (1981-1985)
This one wasn’t a debate, regardless of my age. Chuck Long is the gold standard for Iowa quarterbacks in my view. The Wheaton, Illinois product was a four-year letterwinner who really is the face of the Hayden Fry era, and in turn, Iowa’s transformation from doormat to Big Ten power in the 80s. His career numbers are pretty absurd and he stands atop the program’s all-time list for career passing yards and TDs.
Over four years, he finished with 10,461 passing yards and 74 passing TDs. That’s good for an average of 2,615 yards and call it 19 TDs per season – both would have been just outside the top-10 in program history for a single season.
Speaking of single seasons, Long’s 1985 year may be the best one we’ve ever seen. His 3,297 yards are second all-time at Iowa while his 27 TDs that were are a program record. He threw for 4 TDs against Illinois and Michigan State that season, with 5 more against NIU. His 6 TD passes against Northwestern are second all-time for a single game at Iowa.
The Hawkeyes went 10-2 that year, winning the Big Ten Conference and making the Rose Bowl. Long was the Heisman Trophy runner-up (losing to Bo Jackson by 45 points), Maxwell Award winner, Davey O’Brien Award winner, Big Ten Player of the Year and a consensus All-American.
Drafted 12th overall by the Detroit Lions in the 1986 NFL Draft and eventually inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, Long is the standard for Hawkeye quarterbacks.
Face #2: Brad Banks (2001-2002)
If Long is the standard for sustained excellence, Brad Banks is the standard for peak excellence. Or at least he is in these eyes. After the end of the Fry era, Kirk Ferentz was working on a rebuild 2002 when the JUCO transfer took the helm and while he didn’t have the biggest statistical year (and given he only played the one season, certainly not the biggest statistical career), he had a massive impact on the program.
Most of the numbers individually don’t jump off the page. The 2,573 passing yards weren’t top-40 in the country. The 26 passing TDs, while second all-time at Iowa, weren’t top-10 nationally. But the way Banks controlled the offense and just did it all puts him solidly here in my view. He added 423 rushing yards and 5 rushing TDs to his work through the air while completing 58% of his passes and only throwing 5 INTs for the year.
He won the Davey O’Brien Award as the nation’s top quarterback, was named AP Player of the Year, and was the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year while finishing 2nd in the Heisman voting to Carson Palmer, who would ultimately take Iowa down in the Orange Bowl.
Beyond the individual accolades, Banks led Iowa to an 11-2 season and its first share of the Big Ten Championship in more than a decade. The Hawkeyes, and Kirk Ferentz, were officially on the national radar and the groundwork was laid for everything we’ve seen the last 20+ years.
Face #3: Chuck Hartlieb (1985-1988)
OK, I’m not going to lie, this one was a really tough call for me. As mentioned, I’m an 80s kid but not an early 80s kid so I didn’t really start watching Iowa football religiously until the very late 90s/early 2000s. It’s pretty tough for me to not load up on the string of QBs we got in the post-Banks era under KF. There were some really good ones and as much as we have bagged on the offense in recent years, the record books are littered with performances from the guys that came between Banks and Mark Gronowski.
But atop a lot of those record books is the name Chuck Hartlieb and that’s impossible to ignore. His 6,934 career passing yards put him 5th all-time at Iowa. Had he simply played more seasons, he would have been much higher. He holds the top and third spot for single-season passing yards with 3,738 his senior season in 1988 and 3,092 as a junior in 1987. Three of the top four single game performances belong to Hartlieb with 558 (!!!) yards at against IU in 1988, 471 against Northwestern in 1987 and 428 against NC State in 1988.
The one knock, statistically, is on the TD front. Hartlieb is 8th all-time in passing TDs with 37 and his 19 in 1987 are 10th best for a Hawkeye. Maybe the most wild stat is 7 of those 19 TD passes in 1987 came in that Northwestern game where he threw for 471 yards.
But the Hartlieb section couldn’t possibly be written without one specific game and one specific play.
November 14, 1987. Ohio Stadium. Iowa is trailing Ohio State 27-22 with sixteen seconds left in the game. The Hawkeyes have the ball at the Ohio State 29-yard line. It’s fourth and 23. Iowa had not won at Ohio Stadium since 1959. Hayden Fry stands on the sideline. Hartlieb takes the snap, drops back and fires to Marv Cook.
Touchdown Iowa. Game over, 29-27.
Face #4: Nile Kinnick (1936-1939)
OK, let’s start with the obvious parts. Yes, I’m including Kinnick as a QB despite him being remembered in large part as a halfback. It was a different time and essentially a different sport 90 years ago. But Kinnick was the best in that sport, our program’s only Heisman winner and one of the best human beings this state has ever produced. So yeah, he’s going to not just be on the monument, he’s going to be in the anchor spot.
And if you want to make the argument he is a running back because he led the team in rushing yards, fine. I’ll make the argument he was a QB because he also led them in passing yards. And maybe he’ll end up on the defensive backs Mt. Rushmore too since he set the school record for interceptions his senior year. Or perhaps he’ll be on the punting Mt. Rushmore for setting the single-game punting record against Notre Dame that year.
The man did it all and perhaps we should just concede now that he belongs on basically every position group list we’re ever going to put out.
The numbers are incredible by today’s standards with 638 passing yards and 374 rushing yards, but his 1,012 total yards were 57% of Iowa’s total offense during the Ironmen season of 1939. While he scored 41 points, he was involved in 107 of Iowa’s 130 total points that season. He played 402 of 420 total minutes during the year.
The team went 6-1-1, finishing second in the Big Ten and ranked 9th in the nation. Kinnick, as we all know, won virtually every award known to the sport. Consensus 1st Team All-America, Big Ten MVP, Walter Camp Award, Maxwell Award, and most notably, Iowa’s only Heisman Trophy. It was an unforgettable season in an unforgettable career for an unforgettable person whose life was cut too short just a few years later.
Honorable Mentions
Look, there are only four spots on this monument. Despite the rumors, there are more than four great Iowa QBs. Let’s take a moment to honor some other candidates.
Drew Tate (2003-2006) starts our representation of the modern era. Tate went 27-13 record as a starter and was named the 2004 Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year. He ranks third all-time in passing yards (8,292) and TDs (61) and gave us one of the most incredible moments of the KF era.
Ricky Stanzi (2007-2010) deserves more conversation than a single paragraph, and we won’t pretend leaving him off the monument was easy. Stanzi finished his Iowa career with a 24-12 record and led the 2009 Hawkeyes to an 11-2 final mark, an Orange Bowl win over Georgia Tech (24-14), and a #7 final AP ranking. He’s 4th all-time in both passing yards (7,377) and TDs (56). Maybe if not for the Rick-6s I would have bumped him up.
Nate Stanley (2016-2019) is the modern stats nominee. The human QB sneak finished 26-13 as a starter and is 2nd all-time in both yards (8,302) and TDs (68). I don’t think he gets appreciated enough and yet, here I am also not appreciating him enough.
Quick mention for the historians: Randy Duncan is a name I’m too young to have really heard much about and he really doesn’t get the publicity of a Kinnick or Long, but the man was the 1958 Heisman runner-up, a 1st Team All-American and is in the College Football Hall of Fame. He led Iowa to a Big Ten title, a Rose Bowl win and a claimed national title (FWAA). The stats aren’t at all eye-popping, but he did break Kinnick’s record for TD passes in a season (11).
The Final Picture
So, despite the honorable mentions, the monument stands at:
- Chuck Long — the standard
- Brad Banks — the peak
- Chuck Hartlieb — the record breaker
- Nile Kinnick — the icon
Reasonable Iowa fans will argue about these. Tell us in the comments who you’d swap in below.
