Iowa to vacate four wins from 2023 in McNamara tampering case

• Jake TrotterApr 14, 2026, 12:51 PM ET

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  Jake Trotter is a senior writer at ESPN. Trotter covers college football. He also writes about other college sports, including men’s and women’s basketball. Trotter resides in the Cleveland area with his wife and three kids and is a fan of his hometown Oklahoma City Thunder. He covered the Cleveland Browns and NFL for ESPN for five years, moving back to college football in 2024. Previously, Trotter worked for the Middletown (Ohio) Journal, Austin American-Statesman and Oklahoman newspapers before joining ESPN in 2011. He’s a 2004 graduate of Washington and Lee University. You can reach out to Trotter at [email protected] and follow him on X at @Jake_Trotter.

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Iowa will have to vacate four victories from the 2023 season for tampering with quarterback Cade McNamara before he entered the transfer portal, the NCAA announced Tuesday.

The NCAA said that Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz and assistant Jon Budmayr participated in 13 phone calls with McNamara and sent two text messages prior to him entering the portal in November 2022. McNamara left Michigan a few days later and transferred to Iowa.

Both Ferentz and Budmayr were suspended for the 2024 season opener in a school-imposed penalty for the violations.

McNamara went 4-1 with the Hawkeyes in 2023 before suffering a knee injury. The NCAA ruled that McNamara was ineligible for those wins over Utah State, Iowa State, Western Michigan and Michigan State, which will now be vacated.

McNamara played for the Hawkeyes for one more year before transferring again to East Tennessee State for the 2025 season.