Iowa Football, Kirk Ferentz, Hit with Laughable Sanctions by NCAA

The NCAA continues to pick and choose its punishments in a laughable matter

Oct 11, 2025; Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Iowa Hawkeyes head coach Kirk Ferentz eyes the field before a game against the Wisconsin Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium. | Ross Harried-Imagn Images

Tampering in the transfer portal.

It's the thing everybody has done for years, yet gets discussed like it's the worst possible offense.

Now the NCAA has released its list of punishments for Iowa football stemming back to Cade McNamara getting in contact with the Hawkeyes in 2022, and four wins are being taken away.

NCAA Releases Punishments for Iowa Football

Per the NCAA release, Iowa was in heavy contact with a student-athlete who was enrolled at another school during the 2022 season. That player is of course McNamara, who wound up entering the portal shortly after the conversations and committing to Iowa not long after.

As a result, Iowa has the four wins from the 2023 season that McNamara played in vacated.

In the grand scheme of things it's just four games that were played and an outcome on the field was determined, so it's not a huge deal, but it's another example of the NCAA picking and choosing its punishments.

Tampering violations occurred in Iowa football program; Football head coach and assistant coach previously resolved their respective violations.https://t.co/O7ETKPVWTY

— NCAA News (@NCAA_PR) April 14, 2026

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Takeaway

Like it or not, a major part of the transfer portal is tampering. It's just a question of how well you can hide it.

Seemingly every team does it, that's why each year when it opens you see a significant number of players enter it with a "do not contact" tag, as they've already figured out where they're going next.

How does the NCAA think that happened? Does it think Riley Leonard threw a dart a couple of years ago and simply picked to play at Notre Dame that way? He led Notre Dame to an appearance in the national championship game, and didn't seem to have a second thought about where he was ending up long before he actually enrolled in South Bend.

The penalty brings Kirk Ferentz's Big Ten win total from a record 213 all-time to 209. In the grand scheme of things it's not much, but it's still a stronger punishment than was handed out for a couple other noteworthy infractions in recent years.

Remember the whole fake class for athletes saga that went on at North Carolina? These penalties seem like the death penalty compared to what North Carolina ever faced.

And remember the whole Michigan sign-stealing saga that wound up with essentially nothing more than a hefty fine? This is significantly stronger than anything the Wolverines were handed.

Like I said above, ultimately it doesn't matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but what the NCAA decides to actually stick its neck out to punish these days only continues to get more confusing.