The NCAA on Tuesday found violations in the Iowa football program and ordered the school to vacate four wins from 2023, a penalty that comes after the governing body said the case grew out of communications in November 2022 between staff members and a student-athlete who later transferred to Iowa.
Jon Budmayr took part in 13 phone calls with the student-athlete and or his father and sent two text messages before arranging for Kirk Ferentz to speak with him by phone. Ferentz told the player that he would have a home at Iowa, and a few days later the athlete entered the Transfer Portal and moved to Iowa. The NCAA report did not name the player directly, but previous reporting identified him as Cade McNamara.
That detail matters because McNamara transferred from Michigan ahead of the 2023 season and then played in five games that year as an ineligible player. Iowa went 4-1 in those games, beating Utah State, Iowa State, Western Michigan and Michigan State before McNamara was sidelined by an injury in late September. The school also drew one year of probation, with the penalties set to run through Sept. 5, 2026.
The report stemmed from allegations of tampering by the Iowa football coaching staff, and the NCAA’s findings leave the program with a clean result on paper but a diminished record in practice. McNamara appeared in eight more games in 2024 and was considered eligible then, but the four wins from 2023 are gone now, and those losses will sit beside the season long after the paperwork is filed.
