How Iowa football’s quarterback is ready to improve from Week 1 showing

IOWA CITY — Breathe in, breathe out. Let the lights come on. Block out the crowd noise, and just focus on deep breaths.

Iowa quarterback Mark Gronowski’s pregame routine is the same every week. Keep his energy and adrenaline low, go through the motions of the day, listen to his classical music playlist during warmups and clear his mind.

Expect that didn’t happen against Albany last week.

Gronowski was too tensed up throughout the day, waiting for a 5 p.m. kickoff and knowing the weight of expectations mounting.

“I think it's also just the feeling of how much I want to succeed for everyone,” Gronowski said Tuesday. “How much passion I have for the game, and I want to be successful for the guys around me and for the fans as well.”

It takes one game for things to click. Playing against Albany wasn’t that game for Gronowski, for multiple factors. Yet, no one in the Hawkeye locker room lost faith in their quarterback.

That includes head coach Kirk Ferentz.

“To me what we saw Saturday was a guy who wants to really do well,” Ferentz said. “And it was not his first game in college football, but his first game at Iowa. And that means something to him. I think that's what we all saw.”

There’s a mental switch Gronowski found by the end of the game. Though his debut was cut short, the pace slowed down, he got through progressions faster. Even if he was carrying the ball himself, Gronowski could feel the difference.

Heading into Cy-Hawk week, Gronowski will play in Jack Trice Stadium for the first time. His father, Ray, played against the Cyclones while he was at Drake. There’s a bit of that full-circle feeling Gronowski has, but he’s more focused on adjusting his mentality and making sure that mental switch is flipped long before getting his hands on the football for the first time.

“Just really got to have that mindset going into this week and the rest of the season, just kind of have that screw it mentality,” Gronowski said. “We’ve got to just go out there, play ball, have fun. Just play free, and you'll end up playing more fast by doing that.”

One of Gronowski’s biggest critiques of himself was how tense he felt in the pocket. Ferentz pointed it out as well. They noticed the South Dakota State transfer was almost overdoing everything — overthinking sometimes and it led to a handful of uncommon mistakes from a graduate quarterback.

Sometimes it was an under- or overthrown pass. Other times is was messy footwork. Then of course, he had the leg cramps he dealt with in the second half.

There’s one thing Gronowski has prided himself on, however. He knows how to bounce back after a less-than-stellar game.

Ferentz said he’s seen the biggest changes in his teams going from Week 1 to Week 2. It’s usually because a lot of time is spent correcting game errors, rather than mistakes made in practice. The players can see how they handled themselves in a true game, and make those adjustments faster than if it were just practice.

“Getting on the field, having that first game experience is really critical, and then if you take something out of that and learn from it,” Ferentz said. “Just how to prepare better, and then certainly compete better on Saturday, hopefully you're taking a step forward, and that's really the biggest goal, I think, for all of us right now.”

Having the first game in the past certainly is helpful, Gronowski said, and it allows him to readjust his mindset. He knows he found his groove in the second half, he knows the incompletions are throws he nails every time. It just wasn’t his day.

Sometimes night games mess with the mental side of pregame. Sometimes it’s the overwhelming desire to play well, or even just the sheer wow factor of that first Big Ten experience.

Gronowski’s certain the jitters are gone. Everything that went wrong was fixable, and when it’s time to play inside Jack Trice Stadium, he’ll be ready to go.

“What's nice this week is an early game, 11 o'clock game,” he said. “So we kind of just get up, eat a donut, play football-type thing just like when you're a kid. So just going out there and playing loose.”

Go through the pregame routine again. Only this time, when he steps out on the field, Gronowski has his sights set on his true debut as Iowa’s quarterback.

Comments: madison.hricik@thegazette.com, sign up for my weekly newsletter, Hawk Off the Press here.