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CHICAGO – Outside of the highly-anticipated quarterback battle between Jeremy Hecklinski and Hank Brown, any success Iowa football hopes to have in 2026 could fall on the shoulders of the special teams unit. 

Special teams aren't taken very lightly in some parts of the country, but in Iowa City, they might as well be just as valuable as a fifth down. 

Kirk Ferentz's Hawkeye teams have earned a reputation for producing outstanding special teams play over the course of his 27 years in charge, but there's likely few offseasons that have brought as many question marks for this unit as there have been in the weeks leading up to the 2026 season. 

Two-time Jet Award-winning return man Kaden Wetjen and four-year starting kicker Drew Stevens graduated, and if that wasn't enough, longtime coordinator LeVar Woods departed to become the assistant head coach and special teams coordinator at Michigan State. Sophomore punter Rhys Dakin then followed Woods to East Lansing, too. 

Offensive analyst Chris Polizzi was swiftly promoted to the position, and he's got his hands full to figure out who will be topping his Week 1 depth chart. 

While some Hawkeye fans may be voicing concerns about the drastic changes this unit has undergone this offseason, Ferentz voiced his full confidence in Polizzi, who returned to Iowa City last year after spending three years as a graduate assistant in the mid-2010s. 

"I'm very confident Chris Polizzi has a similar background [than Woods]," Ferentz said at Big Ten Media Days on July 28. "He's been a coordinator, defensive coordinator for many years. Been in front of room, knows how to organize things." 

That statement expressing confidence towards your assistant coach isn't a surprise, but it's what Ferentz said next (and throughout the rest of the day) that sparked attention. 

"It's more about the players. It always has been, in my mind," Ferentz said. "I think what we've done has been solid in all three phases over the years. It's about the players and their stories, how they develop." 

Great coaching is still important for Ferentz, who admitted he didn't know much about special teams until his  but he's simply stating the obvious – coaching only gets you so far. At some point, the players have to perform well to win football games. 

When Ferentz was hired as Iowa's head coach in 1999, there were two "building blocks" that he set out to use when rebuilding the Hawkeye program – strength and conditioning and special teams. 

The experiment resulted in a dismal 1-10 campaign in Ferentz's first season, but Iowa has been a formidable special teams program since, ranking in the top 10 of FEI's Special Teams Ratings in four of the last five seasons. 

If the past is any indication of future success, Iowa may not have to worry about finding players to step up on special teams in 2026. Every great Hawkeye player under Ferentz has began their careers on special teams, and if they work hard to prove themselves there, they will go on to earn snaps at their desired positions. 

Ferentz referenced four names at Big Ten Media Days that fit this exact mold – Stevens, Bob Sanders, Dallas Clark, and Jason Baker. Everyone knows Stevens as a four-year starter, but he struggled so much during his first spring that Ferentz joked that he was "intentionally trying to be bad." 

Sanders and Clark were both lightly recruited out of high school (Clark was a walk-on) before becoming superstars at Iowa and in the NFL, while Baker bounced back the tough 1999 campaign to finish with an Hawkeye-best 11,304 punting yards during his career. 

"I think we just have to be patient, Ferentz said. "[It's] no different than the quarterback competition and let guys compete. Put them in situations during camp and try to evaluate." 

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HawkeyeRoundtable publisher Brad Schultz has covered the Iowa Hawkeyes since 2023. To send him story ideas, scoops, or criticize his writing, reach him at bradschultz@roundtable.io

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