Georgia returns with a new look this season. Before 2024, if there was any team apart from Alabama guaranteed for a shot at the National Championship, it was Georgia. That’s a squad that almost exhaustively featured in the playoffs recently. However, 2024 was not quite the standard of Georgia football. Carson Beck went through that nightmare, and the rest of the Bulldogs sputtered through somehow to win the SEC Championship. This time, Kirby Smart returns with a mission to ditch that bad rap. Unfortunately, he’s being sidelined for a surprise Big 10 program.

Georgia finished 2 in the AP poll last year. This season, they’ve fallen to 6 place. That’s because there are some notable question marks in that squad. More specifically, in the offense. Gunnar Stockton cannot be a 2024 Carson Beck, and the offense ended up leading the nation in drops. The QB faltered because his supporting cast also messed up. Ahead of this season, Georgia isn’t getting the kind of surefire expectations from experts. Athlon Sports, for example, ranked the Bulldogs’ offense as No. 14–an honorary mention, since the ranking was for the Top 10.

Josh Pate, too, is rubbing some more salt in those wounds. The analyst raved about a sleeper team from the Big 10, which was relatively quiet for the time Kirby Smart ruled college football. He said in an August 20 episode of his show, “Iowa always known for offensive line play, and again they got three of them with 84 combined starts this year coming back. […] Like those three have way more experience than George’s entire starting five.” Smart lost 4 of his top OLs after the 2024 season, so the trenches are going to debut new faces. And, he also named Iowa’s biggest weapon this season, because of whom the program isn’t so quiet anymore.

Mike Gronowski, Iowa football’s trump card, is going to be an absolute weapon. “I keep hearing people whisper about him. They don’t want to just outright yell about him, but they whisper about him because they think that’s the best quarterback they’ve had through there in like a decade,” Pate added. Gunnar Stockton, at the moment, is nowhere near the ranks of Mike Gronowski. The former FCS QB will see big-game action for the first time in his career, and he already has an FCS Natty in the bag. He’s done this before. Add him to the significantly developed offense under Tim Lester, and Iowa looks like it can pull off some upsets.

Josh Pate continued his praise of the Hawkeyes. “Just a concept I want to toss out there, just bite the pin in the grenade and toss the grenade. And that grenade is ticking. And it’s ticking in Morse code, and the Morse code is saying Iowa, with a little bit of offensive juice,” he said. Iowa’s offense should be the X factor for their season this year. With Gronowski in the picture, this is a potentially lethal department that others aren’t taking note of.

Iowa’s O-line and Mike Gronowski are going to create some noise

Here are three starters Pate talked about: Logan Jones, Beau Stephens, and Gennings Dunker. There’s a lot of chatter about this year’s Iowa O-line being the program’s best. And it might turn out to be true. This trio is as seasoned as a college football unit can be. Logan Jones has 38 starts. Dunker has 24, and Stephens has 21. Jones made it to ESPN’s Top 100, allowing only 1 sack from last year. No wonder he begins this season as a first-team All-Big Ten player, according to Phil Steele. This is a unit that was in contention to win the Joe Moore Award last year.

This trio will line up ahead of the phenom that is Mike Gronowski. 10,330 yards, 93 TDs, and a pass completion percentage of 63.5 make him an absolute weapon in that Hawkeye offense. Kirk Ferentz should be able to produce a top-ranking offense with these elements alone. In CBS Sports’ ranking of Big 10 QBs, Gronwoski is ranked at No.12. That’s a huge upgrade for Iowa football, which had little good coming from the position in the past. 2025 will be the year Iowa fans will be seeing some good football being played by the Hawkeyes.

Ferentz has the potential to take his teams to the top. It’s only been 2 years since he made the trip to the Big 10 championship. With an offense as good as this year’s, we won’t be surprised if the Hawkeyes make an appearance once again. When a sleeper team is favored over an SEC giant like Georgia, Kirby Smart should be on the lookout to ensure the success of his squad.