Mark Gronowski Eyes NFL Future by Channeling Josh Allen’s Blueprint

When Mark Gronowski takes the field as the Iowa Hawkeyes starting quarterback in 2025, there’s going to be high expectations. Fans have endured brutal offensive showings for years and are ready to see a change thanks to the two-time FCS champion.

With the steep jump in competition from the FCS to the Big Ten, Gronowski is looking to replicate the path and performance of one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks, Josh Allen.

While talking with former Iowa defensive lineman Louie Stec on his podcast, Gronowski revealed which quarterbacks he compares himself to, and Iowa’s new quarterback set a high bar for himself.

“Yeah, I mean, just right off the bat is Josh Allen like I was mentioning earlier, and him coming from, I'll call it a smaller school, Group of Five, Wyoming,” Gronowski said. “Him having zero stars, zero offers coming out of high school, having seen him have that chip on his shoulder his entire career and and now he's one of the highest paid quarterbacks in the NFL. I love his play style and I love his story throughout, and I love just following him, watching his play style.”

Gronowski is a bit smaller than Allen, standing 6-foot-3 and 230 lbs compared to Allen’s 6-foot-5, 237 lbs, but many of the other comparisons are there. He rushed for over 2,000 yards and 37 touchdowns at South Dakota State while throwing for 10,308 yards and 93 touchdowns. 

Allen is a rare breed, though. Few quarterbacks make the leaps he has in their development from a small school to the biggest stages of the NFL. Even as a relatively young player in the league, he’s trailblazed a path that quarterbacks like Gronowski are eager to follow.

“To be able be able to come to a school like Iowa in a Big 10 program and now going to be able to kind of show off to teams in in the NFL what I got at a higher stage, at a higher level, I think it's going to be a great opportunity,” Gronowski said.

Even with just Allen, Wyoming has produced a higher quality of NFL talent at the quarterback position than Iowa, which hasn’t had a first-round pick at QB since 1986. So if Gronowski can fulfill his NFL dreams following a similar path to Allen, he’d be a trailblazer in his own right.